The Cry of Vertières: Liberation Memory and the Beginning of Haiti 9780228002789

Table of contents :
Cover
THE CRY OF VERTIÈRES
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Figures
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: To Arms, Citizens!
1 The Battle of Vertières or “The Destiny of a Memory”
2 The Final Act of an Atlantic Revolution
3 Attempt at Reconstruction
4 The History of a Word That Doesn’t Really Exist
5 “The Last of the Whites”
6 “As Long as There’s One Negro Left”
7 The Symbol of Haiti’s Strength and Survival
8 A Recent Place of Memory
9 Picolet, Fossé Capois, Vertières: In the Footsteps of Ancestors
Conclusion: The Cry of Capois-la-Mort
Notes
Index

Citation preview

THE CRY OF VERTIÈRES

McGill-Queen’s French AtlAntic Worlds series

series editors: nicholAs deW And JeAn-Pierre le GlAunec The French Atlantic world has emerged as a rich and dynamic field of historical research. This series will showcase a new generation of scholarship exploring the worlds of the French Atlantic – including West Africa, the greater Caribbean region, and the continental Americas – from the sixteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century. Books in the series will explore how the societies of the French Atlantic were shaped and connected by trans-oceanic networks of colonialism, how local and indigenous cultures and environments shaped colonial projects, and how the diverse peoples of the French Atlantic understood and experienced their worlds. Especially welcome are histories from the perspectives of the enslaved and dispossessed. Comparative studies are encouraged and the series will accept manuscript submissions in English and in French. Original works of scholarship are preferred, though translations of landmark books in the field will be considered. Le monde atlantique français est devenu un domaine de recherche riche et dynamique au sein de la discipline historique. La présente collection a pour vocation d’accueillir une nouvelle génération d’ouvrages explorant les espaces de l’Atlantique français – y compris l’Afrique de l’Ouest, la grande région des Caraïbes et les Amériques continentales – du début du XVIe siècle jusqu’au milieu du XIXe siècle. Les œuvres qui y sont publiées explorent de quelles manières les sociétés de l’Atlantique français sont façonnées et reliées par les réseaux transocéaniques issus du colonialisme, de quelle manière les cultures locales et leurs environnements influencent les projets coloniaux, et comment les divers peuples de l’Atlantique français comprennent et expérimentent leurs mondes. Les ouvrages donnant la parole aux esclaves ou aux acteurs traditionnellement dominés sont particulièrement bienvenus, tout comme les recherches comparées. La collection est ouverte aux manuscrits rédigés en anglais ou en français, de préférence des monographies originales, ainsi qu’aux traductions de livres ayant marqué le domaine. 1 Architecture and Urbanism in the French Atlantic Empire State, Church, and Society, 1604–1830 Gauvin Alexander Bailey 2 Flesh Reborn The Saint Lawrence Valley Mission Settlements through the Seventeenth Century Jean-Franzçois Lozier 3 Power and Subsistence The Political Economy of Grain in New France Louise Dechêne 4 Fruits of Perseverance The French Presence in the Detroit River Region, 1701–1815 Guillaume Teasdale 5 The Cry of Vertières Liberation, Memory, and the Beginning of Haiti Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec

TH E C RY O F VER T I ÈR ES Liberation, Memor y, and the Beginning of Haiti

Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec Foreword by Lyonel Trouillot Translated by Jonathan Kaplansky

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2020 Originally published in French by Lux Éditeur as L’armée indigene. La défaite de Napoléon en Haïti, by Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec. © Lux Éditeur, Montréal, 2014. www.luxediteur.com isBn 978-0-2280-0140-9 (cloth) isBn 978-0-2280-0278-9 (ePdF) isBn 978-0-2280-0279-6 (ePuB) Legal deposit second quarter 2020 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% postconsumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: The cry of Vertières : liberation, memory, and the beginning of Haiti / Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec ; foreword by Lyonel Trouillot ; translated by Jonathan Kaplansky. Other titles: Armée indigène. English Names: Le Glaunec, Jean-Pierre, author. | Trouillot, Lyonel, writer of foreword. | Kaplansky, Jonathan, 1960- translator. Series: McGill-Queen’s French Atlantic worlds series ; 5. Description: Series statement: McGill-Queen’s French Atlantic worlds series ; 5 | Translation of: L’armée indigène: la défaite de Napoléon en Haïti. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200169408 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200169440 | isBn 9780228001409 (hardcover) | isBn 9780228002789 (PdF) | isBn 9780228002796 (ePuB) Subjects: lcsh: Vertières, Battle of, Haiti, 1803. | lcsh: Haiti–History–Revolution, 1791-1804. Classification: lcc F1923 .l4413 2020 | ddc 972.94/03–dc23

This book was designed and typeset by Peggy & Co. Design in 11/14 Sabon.

To Fred and Stella and To my grenadiers, Hannah and Augustin … As I wait to introduce them to Haiti, I entrust them with the words of Capois, the hero of this book: “En avant! En avant!”

Contents

Figures

ix

Foreword by Lyonel Trouillot Preface

xiii

xv

Acknowledgments

xvii

Introduction: To Arms, Citizens!

3

1

The Battle of Vertières or “The Destiny of a Memory”

2

The Final Act of an Atlantic Revolution

3

Attempt at Reconstruction

4

The History of a Word That Doesn’t Really Exist

5

“The Last of the Whites”

6

“As Long as There’s One Negro Left”

7

The Symbol of Haiti’s Strength and Survival

8

A Recent Place of Memory

9

Picolet, Fossé Capois, Vertières: In the Footsteps of Ancestors 136 151

Index

211

19

34 52

65 76

111

Conclusion: The Cry of Capois-la-Mort Notes

13

148

98

Figures

2.1 “Portrait” of Toussaint Louverture (1805). Source/credit: Marcus Rainsford, An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti: Comprehending a View of the Principal Transactions in the Revolution of Saint Domingo; with its Ancient and Modern State (London: James Cundee, 1805). Reproduced with permission from the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. 24 2.2 View of Cap-Français, its bay, and its hills. Source/credit: Fernand de la Brunière, “View of Cap François, Isle of St Domingue, taken from Chemin de l’embarcadère de la petite Anse,” in Paris, at M. Moreau de St Méry, rue Plâtrière no. 12, and at M. Ponce, rue Ste Hyacinthe, no. 19. Reproduced with permission from the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. 31 3.1 Map of the French positions (including Vertières) on 18 November 1803. Source/credit: Adapted from the Académie militaire d’Haïti, La bataille de Vertières (Port-au-Prince: H. Deschamps, coll. “Tricinquentenaire de l’indépendance d’Haïti,” 1954). Reproduction by David Widgington. 41 4.1 “Portrait” of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, version by Jean-Louis Dubroca, 1806. Source/credit: “Desalines Primer Emperador de Hayti en dia de Gala,” Jean-Louis Dubroca, Vida de J.J. Dessalines, gefe de los Negros de Santo Domingo (Mexico: En la Oficina de D. Mariano de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1806). Reproduced with permission from the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. 53

x

Figures

5.1 Dessalines is frequently depicted as a cruel man, thirsting for the blood of Whites, 1806. Source/credit: Manuel Lopez, “Desalines,” Jean-Louis Dubroca, Vida de J.J. Dessalines, gefe de los Negros de Santo Domingo (Mexico: En la Oficina de D. Mariano de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1806). Reproduced with permission from the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. 71 6.1 Depiction of the violence perpetrated by the black army against the soldiers of the Leclerc-Rochambeau expedition, according to J. Barlow and Marcus Rainsford. Source/credit: J. Barlow and Marcus Rainsford, “Revenge taken by the Black Army for the Cruelties practised on them by the French,” in Marcus Rainsford, An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti: Comprehending a View of the Principal Transactions in the Revolution of Saint Domingo; with its Ancient and Modern State (London: James Cundee, 1805). Reproduced with permission from the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. 81 6.2 Depiction of the violence perpetrated against the soldiers of the black army by the Leclerc-Rochambeau army. Source/ credit: J. Barlow and Marcus Rainsford, “The Mode of exterminating the Black Army, as practised by the French,” in Marcus Rainsford, An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti: Comprehending a View of the Principal Transactions in the Revolution of Saint Domingo; with its Ancient and Modern State (London: James Cundee, 1805). Reproduced with permission from the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. 87 7.1 Ulrick Jean-Pierre, “The Battle of Vertières, 1 (18 November 1803),” oil on canvas. Source/credit: © Ulrick Jean-Pierre. Reproduced with permission from the artist. 102 7.2 Ulrick Jean-Pierre, “The Battle of Vertières, 2 (18 November 1803),” oil on canvas. Source/credit: © Ulrick Jean-Pierre. Reproduced with permission from the artist. 102 7.3 Élodie Barthélémy, The Battle of Vertières, 2004. Source/credit: Photo by Véronique Dupard-Mandel, © Élodie Barthélémy. Reproduced with permission from Élodie Barthélémy. 103

Figures

xi

8.1 Monument in memory of the Battle of Vertières. Source/credit: Photo by the author. 121 8.2 Scene of the re-enactment of the Battle of Vertières, 2 January 1954, Cap-Haïtien. Source/credit: Édouard Peloux, Il était une fois Haïti … 50 ans de photographie. 129 8.3 At Fort Picolet, close to the entrance, November 2010. Source/credit: Photo by the author. 134 8.4 At Fort Picolet, place of worship, November 2010. Source/credit: Photo by the author. 134 9.1 Monument erected under the presidency of Paul Magloire in memory of Capois-la-Mort, Fossé Capois, November 2010. Source/credit: Photo by the author. 139 9.2 Paul Prompt, one of the fallen heroes of the Battle of Vertières (monument to the heroes, Vertières neighbourhood, Cap-Haïtien). Source/credit: Photo by the author. 142 9.3 Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Capois-la-Mort, and Two Anonymous Women (monument to the heroes, Vertières neighbourhood, Cap-Haïtien). Source/credit: Photo by the author. 143 10.1 Head of Capois-la-Mort, Musée du Panthéon national haïtien, photo and reproduction with permission from Madame Frisch, museum director. Source/credit: Photo by the author. 149

Foreword

The absence of the word “Vertières” from dictionaries of proper names acknowledged as prestigious and authoritative in the West, even in the world, is not insignificant. Vertières embodies so much – heroism and symbolism, an end and a beginning – so that the place and the battle lend themselves as potential reference points for historical re-enactments and reconstruction. Yet never before has a historical event been so carefully hidden by its protagonists and later by historians, who took it upon themselves to envision and relate the past from the point of view of those who, when faced with the power of these events, chose only to silence them. Michel-Rolph Trouillot (how not to think of him as I read this book and write this preface?) reminds us in his Silencing the Past that it is not enough for the event to have taken place for it to be remembered: people in power must also recognize and support it. Powers accept what can be recovered. Vertières, the final battle that sanctioned the outcome of an anti-colonial, anti-slavery, anti-racist revolution, led by two of the most radical revolutionaries of the “indigenous army,” Jean-Jacques Dessalines and François Capois, known as Capois-la-Mort, is the military grave of an inhuman regime with racist intent. That is also why for history written from a place of colonial arrogance, Vertières does not exist. The silence surrounding Vertières attempts to do away with not only this actual achievement of freedom and human dignity by forces deemed improbable but also, and primarily, the violence and inhumanity of the colonial system and the society that envisioned and produced this system: forgetting it is an attempt to deny it. For to speak of Vertières is to speak of revolutionary violence as an answer

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Foreword

to colonial violence. To quote Capois saying “we are men” is also to quote those who proposed killing all black males of the colony except for young children. Vertières is the end of a tunnel of horror, the final confrontation between colonial racism and the actual realization of the principle of race equality and universal freedom. A mirror of defeat and of ugliness for some. A historic landmark for others, one that will take a long time to build. The honesty of this book, its audacity, lies in exploring not only the silence of French historiography and society on Vertières but also the problems of the Haitian dominant classes with a symbolic landmark they long hesitated to make sacred. For the Haitian elite, remembering Vertières was not always a certainty either, just as invoking its name has not always meant, on the part of Haitian leaders, serving the nation and not their own interests or dictatorial leanings. Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec’s book is an assault upon the silence and the first attempt to give a stolen victory the place it deserves. Lyonel Trouillot

Preface

The reader is probably familiar with – even vaguely or only by name – the battles of Valmy (1792) and the Plains of Abraham (1759), and those of Austerlitz (1805), Ulm (1805) and Waterloo (1815). Perhaps he or she has heard of the great battles of the American War of Independence such as Bunker Hill (1775), Concord (1775), or Yorktown (1781). The Era of Revolutions, as it is called, is an ideal field of study for lovers of history and military culture, not only due to the multitude of battles but also because of the transformation of the means of warfare.1 Battles on sea or on land – in Europe, on the Atlantic, on the Caribbean, and in the Americas – fill dictionaries and encyclopedias. They fascinate historians and the general public alike. Commemorative plaques here and there, not to mention historical recreations in period costume, remind us of the sequence of events and mark the rhythm of our memory-obsessed societies. These battles are associated with supposedly illustrious figures – George Washington, Comte de Rochambeau, and Napoleon – and with rituals recalled in film culture. Lines of men, weapon in hand, musketry fire, cannon shots, and a haze of gunpowder. Bodies falling. And finally, victory or defeat. All of this appears to be well known, but who, outside Haiti, the Haitian diaspora, and a few non-Haitian historians, has heard of the Battle of Vertières, the spectacular and bloody outcome of the Haitian War of Independence that witnessed the establishment of what is known as the “indigenous” army led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines? Who knows that this confrontation marked one of the worst Napoleonic defeats and, for the first time, cracked the foundation of a world of terror where the black body was seen as a mere commodity?

Acknowledgments

This book was meant to be a short one, released quickly. It was urgent to respond to the trauma caused by the terrible earthquake that hit Port-au-Prince and its vicinity on 12 January 2010 at 4:53 p.m. Urgent to reconnect with history to counterbalance those few dozen seconds of utter destruction. Urgent to remind people of Haiti’s incredible journey and the unique nature of the struggle that led to its independence. The feeling of urgency soon vanished due to the constraints of research. In the end, it took four years to gather the sources needed to write this book. However, my research, conducted from 2010 to 2014, would never have come to fruition without the invaluable contribution of the staff in charge of the following archives and collections: the Centre d’accueil et de recherche des Archives nationales de France (Paris, henceforth Pierrefitte-sur-Seine), the Archives nationales d’outre-mer (Aix-en-Provence), the Service historique de la Défense (Vincennes), the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Paris), the sound archives of the Institut national de l’audiovisuel (Paris), the Archives diplomatiques du ministère des Affaires étrangères (La Courneuve), the British Library and the archives of the National Army Museum (London), the National Archives (Kew), the Latin American and Caribbean Collection of the University of Florida (Gainesville), the manuscript collections of the Library of Congress (Washington), the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library, the microfilm collections of Harvard University, the special collections of the Boston Public Library and the Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston), the special collections of Tulane University and

xviii

Acknowledgments

the University of New Orleans (New Orleans), the uclA Film and Television Archive, the collections of the Centre international de documentation et d’information haïtienne, caribéenne et afrocanadienne (Montreal), the Archives nationales d’Haïti, the archives of Télévision nationale d’Haïti and the Bibliothèque nationale d’Haïti (Port-au-Prince), not to mention the libraries of collège Régina and collège Notre-Dame (Cap-Haïtien). My sincere thanks to all the staff who assisted me in these libraries and archive centres. Two research trips to Haiti enabled me to consult unpublished archival material, meet specialists, have access to difficult-to-access iconographic resources, and visit the places where the battle described in this book occurred. In Port-au-Prince, my research could not have succeeded without the help of Bruno Asseray (French Embassy in Haiti); Jean Fritzner Étienne (École normale supérieure); Jhon Picard Byron, Jean Casimir, and Pierre Buteau (Université d’État d’Haïti); Mireille Pérodin (Les Ateliers Jérôme); Michel Philippe Lerebours (Musée d’art Haïtien du collège Saint-Pierre); Lyonel Trouillot; Érol Josué (Bureau national d’ethnologie); Patrick Tardieu; Michèle Frisch (Musée du Panthéon national haïtien); and Remy Jean Renald (Family Senci), not to mention the students in my United States history seminar at the École normale supérieure and Jerry and Molière at the Plaza Hotel. Special thanks to the dedicated staff at the Bibliothèque nationale d’Haïti, the Archives nationales d’Haïti, and the Musée du Panthéon national haïtien, without whom I would not have been able to find the sculpted head of Capois-laMort (see the conclusion of this book) or glance through the very rare Cap-Haïtien newspaper of the 1930s, Les Annales capoises. The newspaper is kept in large, heavy boxes piled between two sets of shelves at the Bibliothèque nationale d’Haïti. I cannot thank enough the staff who, on the day I visited, in the suffocating heat of an un-air-conditioned room, moved about thirty boxes to give me access to sources I needed. Thanks also to Dimitri Béchacq of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, who, at our two meetings in Port-au-Prince, greatly helped guide my research. In Cap-Haïtien, my research was greatly facilitated by Eddy Lubin (ministère du Tourisme), Mario Brunache (Institut de sauvegarde du patrimoine national), Pascale Bussénius (Honorary Consul

Acknowledgments

xix

of France), Cary Hector and Charles Manigat (Société capoise d’histoire), Louis Noisin (Université Roi Henri Christophe), and Father Bernard Antoine (Les religieux de Sainte-Croix). I must also thank Jhon, who acted as my guide during my first trip, and the chauffeurs who went with me as I researched the traces of the Battle of Vertières, not to mention the Telfort family. In Montreal, several members of the Haitian community greatly helped me, in particular Maguy Métellus (cPAM), Rodney Saint-Éloi (Mémoire d’encrier), Dany Laferrière, and Jan J. Dominique. A big thank you to Frantz Voltaire (cidihcA) who advised me, loaned me microfilms, and allowed me to unearth an excerpt of the re-enactment of the Battle of Vertières staged in early January 1954. Several excerpts from this book have been presented at seminars or symposiums. Very special thanks to Mourad Ali-Khodja (Université de Moncton), Paul Cohen (University of Toronto), Allan Greer and Catherine Desbarats (McGill University), Laurent Dubois and Deborah Jenson (Duke University), Pierre Serna (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), Marie-Jeanne Rossignol (Université Paris 7), and Marcel Dorigny (Association pour l’étude de la colonisation européenne). Several colleagues took the time to illuminate my research by answering my questions. My immense thanks to Jacques de Cauna, Laurent Dubois, Deborah Jenson, Julia Gaffield, Jeremy Popkin, Éva Guillorel, Kate Hodgson, Rachel Douglas, Bernard Gainot, and Marcel Dorigny. Thanks also to my colleagues who read and commented upon excerpts (in particular Sylvia Frey) or the entire manuscript (Deborah Jenson, Marcel Dorigny, and Sean Mills). My colleagues in the history department at the Université de Sherbrooke provided support throughout the long process of researching and writing this book. Special thanks go to Louise Bienvenue, Harold Bérubé, Léon Robichaud, and Patrick Dramé who backed me up and supported me in my research and who invited me to present my preliminary results as part of their seminars. The vice-dean of research of the Faculty of Arts and Social Studies, Thérèse Audet, had faith in me throughout the four years needed to write this book. I cannot thank her enough.

xx

Acknowledgments

The Université de Sherbrooke, the Groupe d’histoire de l’Atlantique français, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada provided financial support needed to bring this book to fruition. Finally, thank you to my publisher Mark Fortier for his unwavering support from the time the project began. I had promised that the book would be brief and written in record time. In the end, four years (and numerous requests for extensions) were needed to put in place the framework to tell the fullest story possible about an exceptional day in history, that of 18 November 1803, which continues to resonate, in various manifestations, in French and Haitian memories. The translation of this book was made possible through a grant from the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, along with the help of the Appui aux activités de création et d’édition savants program at the Université de Sherbrooke. Thanks to the anonymous readers who recommended the translation project, and to Kyla Madden and the editorial team at McGill-Queen’s University Press. Huge thanks, finally, to Jonathan Kaplansky, for his amazing translation work.

For weeks, it had been raining in the North. And yet, on a simple signal from Dessalines, we saw the men in their straw hats, with goatskin haversacks, dressed in shapeless rags soiled with mud, gaily take to the roads full of potholes of Cap-Français, pulling along numerous artillery pieces as they sang. What were they singing …? Their disregard for death, for they demanded but one thing: the right to live free or die. Justin Chrysostome Dorsainvil, Manuel d’histoire d’Haïti

The Battle of Vertières, which could more judiciously be called the general attack of the lines of Cap-Français, was one of the most violent waged in the War of Independence. With a final burst of energy, our Negro titans, unleashed on the city, brought down – forever – the final representatives of three centuries of tyranny … Thus, in a blaze of glory, ended 18 November 1803, the War of Independence that became a dazzling part of the great feats of humanity. Académie militaire d’Haïti, La bataille de Vertières

I would not say that the facts are of no importance. Without them there would be no history. But what is most important in history is not facts, but rather the connections between them, the legislation governing them, and the dialectic that gives rise to them.

Aimé Césaire, Toussaint Louverture. La Révolution française et le problème colonial

Introduction

To Arms, Citizens!

Allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé Contre nous de la tyrannie, l’étendard sanglant est levé Aux armes et caetera, aux armes et caetera Aux armes et caetera, aux armes et caetera (Arise children of the fatherland, the day of glory has arrived Against us tyranny’s bloody standard is raised To arms, etcetera, to arms, etcetera To arms, etcetera, to arms, etcetera) Serge Gainsbourg, Aux armes et caetera

This book arose from my learning about a date: Friday, 18 November 1803, referred to in a work written by Marcel Dorigny, one of the French historians who in recent years has contributed the most to integrating the history of Haiti and colonial history into the history of France. The book, entitled Révoltes et révolutions en Europe et aux Amériques (1773–1802), was published in 2004 to prepare French students for the teacher recruitment competition.1 That year, Haiti dominated international news.2 During the celebrations for the bicentenary of independence, demonstrations took place that were violently suppressed by the forces of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the president contested by a large segment of civil society since his re-election in 2000, in a process said to be marred by fraud.3 His departure from Haiti under international pressure was not long in coming. This was followed by the landing of foreign troops, soon replaced by the forces of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MinustAh). Marcel Dorigny insists on the importance of the Haitian Revolution that, with the French and American revolutions, forms the foundation of a turbulent period extending from the mid-1760s to the fall of the Spanish Empire in South America in the two first

4

The Cry of Vertières

decades of the nineteenth century. He concludes by pointing out: “The year 1804 saw the birth of the second independent republic of the New World, in the wake of the American (1773–1783) and French (1789–1799) Revolutions, but on a radically different basis, as it was the servile masses who defeated Rochambeau’s army in Vertières on 18 November 1803 (while singing La Marseillaise to the stunned French troops).”4 Would I have remembered the name Vertières and the date of the battle that bears its name without that musical detail provided between parentheses, at the very end of the sentence? According to Dorigny, the rebelling Blacks sang La Marseillaise, the French revolutionary anthem, on the Cap-Français road leading to the former habitation (plantation) of Vertières, in the final moments of an extraordinary war of independence. That same detail appears one year later on the site of a Toulon satirical newspaper (in which the historian’s words are cited without quotation marks or a reference), then on the site of the Toulon section of the Human Rights League in an article entitled “La bataille de Vertières” (18 novembre 1803), vous connaissez ?”5 (The Battle of Vertières (18 November 1803), do you know it?). It was then recirculated on various websites (some of which, today, have disappeared)6 and mentioned in a doctoral dissertation defended in 2007.7 It would have been interesting, between 2004 and 2007, a period during which the issue of revolts and revolutions was featured in France’s teacher recruitment competition in history, to survey the students who used the book by Marcel Dorigny, the only person to mention that battle of 18 November 1803.8 Who, after finishing the book, remembered that date and the song the black soldiers sang that day? Who even took the time to read the text through to the end of the parentheses? To imagine its symbolic significance? Was it worth memorizing the event, since it fell outside the period of study specified in the official curriculum (1773–1802)? Should it be perceived as a simple epilogue? Former slaves of diverse cultural heritage – most were African, others were born in Saint-Domingue and elsewhere in the Caribbean world – appropriated the national republican anthem at the time when Napoleon placed it under close watch due to its subversive

To Arms, Citizens!

5

symbolism. The irony is great. “Allons enfants de la patrie … Aux armes, citoyens … qu’un sang impur abreuve nos sillons” (Arise, children of the fatherland … To arms, citizens … Let an impure blood water our furrows): indeed, we can imagine the stupor of Napoleon’s soldiers as they suddenly realized that the “impure blood” of the revolutionary song was their own and that their battle was anything but legitimate. Isn’t that essentially what a witness of the War of Independence, soldier Philippe Beaudoin, expresses in his memoirs? “They [the Blacks] are fighting for a cause more legitimate than ours. At the beginning of the Revolution, we gave them freedom, and now, we will take it away from them,”9 he declares. Aside from the fact that the slaves of Saint-Domingue did not wait to be granted their freedom, Beaudoin is correct. Slavery was abolished in the French colonies in 1794, and slaves were then recognized as full French citizens. Napoleon and his advisers hoped to re-establish slavery in Saint-Domingue in 1802, as was done in Guadeloupe. Therefore, we can easily understand the French soldiers questioning events and being “stunned” on 18 November 1803. Wasn’t the black rebels’ appropriation of La Marseillaise on that day the tangible sign of the moral superiority of their struggle? In the end, who were the heirs of Voltaire, Condorcet, and Montesquieu? Were they French or Haitian? Who were the true citizens, free and having equal rights? Who were the slaves? Was this rendering of La Marseillaise on the hills of Cap-Français faithful to the original lyrics? Was it sung in Creole or in French? Did all the soldiers sing it or did some prefer to sing traditional African or “Haitian” songs? Voodoo songs perhaps? Which verses did they sing? Did the French fall silent or did they launch into a song praising Napoleon? uRrU My immediate fascination with the date of the Battle of Vertières and La Marseillaise heard on that day in the former “Pearl of the Antilles” is grounded in the prevailing socio-political context at the time I read Marcel Dorigny’s work. President Sarkozy and the Conservatives were then in power. Beginning in October 2009, the conservative French government held a “debate on national identity”10 orchestrated by

6

The Cry of Vertières

Éric Besson, a man serving the presidential cause most zealously; he was a former member of the Parti Socialiste until moving over to the right in the spring of 2007 and, at that time, was the minister of immigration, integration, national identity and co-development.11 High-ranking officials organized the by-invitation debate, which was anything but an isolated political act. It was part of a long list of actions undertaken for far-right voters, who have occupied a key place on the French political stage, at least since the early 2000s. Anxious to win over these voters, the new French right henceforth openly accepted the “benefits” of the colonial heritage while pursuing a policy of “ethnicization of social relationships.”12 From this perspective, it exploited and distorted the notion of national identity, which it reified and made sacred, to the detriment of all those who did not fit the expected mould. Not surprisingly, the debate did not lead to a clash of ideas, but to the proclamation of an easily recognizable ancestral identity. In many respects, this “debate” only restated and reinforced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s open refusal to yield to what many in the conservative ranks called a fashion for “repentance.”13 For example, on 9 May 2006, Nicolas Sarkozy, then minister of the interior and leader of the Union pour un movement Populaire (uMP), the main right-wing French party, in a speech delivered in Nîmes, condemned an “irrepressible tendency for systematic repentance” and “a colonial repentance that goes on and on and divides instead of healing.” In a speech on 14 January 2007, Sarkozy, then a candidate in the presidential election, again declared that “at the end of the path of repentance and self-hatred … lies communitarianism and tribal law.”14 This obsession with “repentance” – the recirculating of the word with its Christian connotation reveals the candidate’s ignorance or his advisers’ disregard of the socio-cultural, political, and epistemological issues of the new colonial history and of the “memory” claims of some associations – emerged a few months later, this time during his victory speech in May 2007. “I am going to bring an end to repentance, which is a form of self-hatred,”15 he hammered home to his audience. At the same time, the term “repentance” was used by conservative French newspapers such as Le Figaro and Les Échos, and exploited by some revisionist historians, who fought against the so-called anachronism and “political correctness” of their colleagues, while advocating a

To Arms, Citizens!

7

return to nationalist, triumphalist historiography.16 It was no longer a time for introspection or calling into question, but rather a time for asserting French identity and returning to a national story characterized by glory, regardless of the nation’s wounds, in particular those carried from the history of slavery and colonialism. As opposed to a historiography stressing the malleability of identities and the need to construct a decentralized national narrative, a strong resurgence of a highly conventional historiographical tradition was evident. This refusal of repentance goes hand in hand with a calling into question, upheld by some of the most established historians, of the “memory laws,” in particular the Gayssot Act of 1990 and what is known as the Taubira law of 2001. Enacted in a context of commemorative fever not limited to France,17 these laws aimed, respectively, to penalize the negation of the Holocaust and to recognize slavery and the slave trade as a crime against humanity, as well as to encourage teaching of this history. Following the recommendations of a committee for remembering slavery established in January 2004, an annual day of national commemoration on 10 May was established as of 2006. As soon as they were enacted, these laws provoked an angry response from some historians, who saw them as obstructing freedom of expression and condemned the state’s intervention in the work of researchers.18 The questioning of these laws increased thanks to the election of President Sarkozy, an advocate of non-repentance and national identity. A “commission to reflect on the modernization [the double-talk makes one want to smile] of public commemorations,” presided over by André Kaspi, a historian specializing in the United States, was created in late 2007. Predictably, the commission condemned the many commemorative days in France, especially that of 10 May: Slavery Remembrance Day.19 That day, while filled with civic activities throughout the country, was seen only from the point of view of communitarianism and political correctness, basically denying the struggles and wounds of thousands of French people, on the mainland and overseas. The Assemblée nationale’s fact-finding mission on questions of remembrance, implemented at the same time as the Kaspi Commission, came to identical conclusions.20 While the political power in place – supported by some historians – clearly called for a refocusing of the national discourse and an end to repentance, my discovery of the Battle of Vertières appears,

8

The Cry of Vertières

on the contrary, to justify opening a new debate. The history of Friday, 18 November 1803 and La Marseillaise sung on that day by the soldiers of the black army hold an appeal for me all the more irresistible given that, since 2002, the conservative leaders in place have expressed growing tension regarding the supposed lack of respect for the historic symbols of France, such as the tricolour flag or La Marseillaise, to which national identity seems to have been reduced. Wasn’t the French national anthem booed during soccer games at the Stade de France against Algeria (6 October 2001), Morocco (16 November 2007), and Tunisia (14 October 2008), three nations formerly under the French colonial yoke?21 This tension was quite obvious in 2003, when the French Penal Code inserted article 433-5-1, intended to punish the insulting of the flag or the national anthem with a €7,500 fine, and even six months in prison for an offence committed at a public gathering, as was the case at the France-Algeria game.22 Booing La Marseillaise at a sporting event was now seen as an intolerable “insult” to national unity. The paranoia did not stop there. In June 2006, an amendment to an immigration law provided for withdrawal of residence permits (valid for ten years) of foreigners found guilty of publicly insulting the national anthem or the flag. These people were then granted a simple temporary residence permit (for one year), subjecting them regularly to a demeaning process for renewal. Booing La Marseillaise became not only an insult but also an intolerable act if the person booing was not of French descent, and particularly if he was from North Africa or black Africa, regions of origin implicitly targeted by the law. He was no longer worthy to remain in France permanently. He was marginalized and became deportable at any time. This amendment became law in July 2006 and was integrated into the Code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile (Immigration Asylum Code) by a decree dated 21 March 2007.23 This tightening of power is reminiscent of 1979 and 1980, when part of French society railed against the reggae version of La Marseillaise sung by Serge Gainsbourg, the refrain of which is quoted in the epigraph at the beginning of this chapter.24 Michel Droit, a journalist at Figaro Magazine, went so far as to condemn the “despicable insult to the song of our homeland”25 in an article with undertones of anti-Semitism. Under pressure from a band of

To Arms, Citizens!

9

paratroopers, the performance of the song “Aux armes, etc.,” recorded in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1979, was even cancelled at a concert in Strasbourg. There, the singer declared on stage, “I am a rebel who gave La Marseillaise back its initial meaning.”26 This reggae interpretation of the French anthem came naturally to mind when, thanks to Marcel Dorigny, I discovered the existence of the Battle of Vertières and, as an indirect consequence, the silence of French historians regarding an episode central to France’s history. By analogy, how can we not think that the citizens comprising the “indigenous” Haitian army in some way gave back to La Marseillaise “its initial meaning” on 18 November 1803? Can we not go so far as to say that in their way and without even knowing it, they were participating in a “re-sanctification of the French anthem,”27 an expression used by historian Didier Francfort to analyze Serge Gainsbourg’s reggae interpretation? There was no reggae interpretation on 18 November 1803, but was not the appearance of La Marseillaise on that day a sign that the French Republic had finally been realized outside mainland France, which at the time was under the iron rule of Napoleon, a man not much in favour of individual freedom? Was it not a sign that Haiti’s mission was to complete what the French had not been able to fully achieve? What happened in Cap-Français on Friday, 18 November 1803, and prior to that date, to make former slaves reappropriate the language of their former masters? The question appears to be simple. Answering it justified a long investigation of archives in France, Great Britain, the United States, Canada, and, of course, Haiti. uRrU To reassure the reader immediately, the objective of this book is not to keep turning over the past, or to make an act of repentance. It is not politically correct and will not encourage “tribal law.” In its conception and development, this book intends to respond, simply and for the first time, to a series of questions that are intertwined and mutually enlightening in this Marseillaise apparently sung in Cap-Français on 18 November 1803. What really happened that day? Why are that date and the battle that played out there so important in the course of the revolutionary period that extended from the 1760s to the 1820s? Why

10

The Cry of Vertières

is Marcel Dorigny the only author to refer to them at the time of the French teacher recruitment competition? Why, as the same author mentions in another text, doesn’t the Battle of Vertières appear in history textbooks?28 Is it because it symbolizes one of the greatest defeats of the Napoleonic era? Or because it conceals a deeper trauma connected to the loss of the most beautiful colony in the New World? Conversely, what place does November 1803 occupy in the history and memory of Haiti? uRrU We cannot begin to answer these questions without sharing a “detail” with the reader. The soldiers of the Haitian army probably did not sing La Marseillaise on 18 November 1803, even if the tune must have been familiar to them thanks to their immersion in the musical culture of the French Revolution. This “error” stems in part from confusion between two events of the War of Independence and the interpretation given to them. Two sources, the account of Lieutenant-General Pamphile de Lacroix published in 1819 and that of naturalist Michel Étienne Descourtilz, mention that French revolutionary tunes were played or sung from the “Haitian” lines, but during another battle, just as mythical, at Crête-à-Pierrot in the spring of 1802. While many authors have concluded that La Marseillaise was one of these revolutionary tunes, the two witnesses of the events are clearly less positive. Pamphile de Lacroix merely mentions that “from the music of the enemy patriotic tunes could be heard, adapted to the glory of France.” As for Descourtilz, he explains to the reader that Toussaint’s white musicians “had played ‘Ça ira,’ during the retreat of the French.” 29 No source mentions La Marseillaise being sung during the Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot, much less at Vertières. Recalling La Marseillaise on 18 November 1803 or during earlier battles of the War of Independence has a very long history that goes back at least to the end of the nineteenth century. It resonated significantly in Haiti, thanks to the development of a patriotic literature very much inspired by French Romanticism. In the poem entitled “Dix-huit-cent-quatre” (1804), published in 1881, the Port-de-Paix poet Tertullien Guilbaud wrote:

To Arms, Citizens!

11

If the Haitian army never retreated In the face of any assault; if our warriors, Confronting the horror of murderous cannons Displayed contempt for death and noble courage, It’s because they knew to sing La Marseillaise nobly! The Battle of Vertières, while not identified as such in the poem, is hinted at by the “horror of murderous cannons” and the “contempt for death” demonstrated by the combatants. As worthy sons of the French Revolution, the soldiers of the black army, according to Guilbaud, necessarily broke into La Marseillaise. The poet Massillon Coicou conveys this interpretation in a work entitled Le génie français et l’âme haïtienne, published in 1904, the centenary of independence. “Our fathers’ song of battle was none other than the hymn of Rouget de l’Isle,”30 we read in this essay inspired by Guilbaud. La Marseillaise was also presented as a cultural object shared between France and Haiti, and between the sister revolutions of those two countries, well after 1904. In 1954, for example, the year of the 150th anniversary of independence, Haiti’s ambassador to the Dominican Republic was pleased to remind the French ambassador posted in the neighbouring Republic of Haiti that the French national anthem was also the song of Haitian patriots fighting for their freedom: “Nothing can gladden a Haitian heart more than this evocation beyond the bloody struggles that led to 1804 from the common ideal that sustained our two peoples and that they drew from the same source: 1789. We should not forget that during the struggles of this period, opponents on either side confronted each other to the strains of La Marseillaise.”31 Some years later, during the creation of the International Association of French-Speaking Parliamentarians in 1967, the delegate from Haiti again took up the trope of the Franco-Haitian Marseillaise, probably also drawing inspiration from Tertullien Guilbaud: “While in a dazzling epic [Haiti] defeated the previously undefeated soldiers of the Napoleonic Army … it could never stop itself from singing the noble La Marseillaise.32 While there is quite evidently a tradition claiming that the black soldiers sung the French revolutionary anthem during the War of Independence, nothing indicates that was in fact the case in Vertières

12

The Cry of Vertières

on 18 November 1803. Does this “detail” invalidate the approach presented in this introduction? Not in the least, I suggest. The message that was thought, whispered, or shouted and, in any case, conveyed on the hills of Cap-Français during the final battle of the War of Independence against France was indeed that of La Marseillaise, the lyrics of which were taught to the former slaves who agreed to fight for France in the 1790s. At the dawn of the birth of Haiti, the soldiers of the indigenous army had no other choice but to “train [their] battalions” and “march” as the French revolutionary song demands. The issue, from their point of view, is summed up simply: they could not retreat. Their mission was to avenge three centuries of colonization and slavery in the Americas and to assert the right of tens of thousands of men and women to citizenship, liberty, and life. This right was acquired following a Homeric struggle against France, its military authorities, and its white inhabitants (see chapters 1 to 3). But in the eyes of France, Saint-Domingue had to either become a slave colony again or be fully cleansed of its black rebels. These rebels could not be entitled to live there as full citizens, with freedom over their time, their bodies, and their thoughts. That is how the genocidal fantasies expressed in French correspondence during the war arose. The need to silence these fantasies and to hide their epistolary traces after the Battle of Vertières led to the erasing of all traces of this event in the history and memory of the former colonial power (see chapters 4 to 6). Conversely, in the former Pearl of the Antilles, 18 November 1803 was gradually recognized as the day when Haiti proclaimed to the pro-slavery, capitalist, and racist world, the right of every man to freedom and self-determination. As a result, today Vertières is a place of memory widely honoured in Haiti. Indeed, the battle is both a reminder of the past struggles and victories and a symbol of the present and future struggles of Haitian citizens and black people in general (see chapters 7 to 9). This is the story told in this book, and only enemies of freedom will read it as a call for repentance.

1

The Battle of Vertières or “The Destiny of a Memory”

While this book talks about a battle often overlooked, it does not fall within the realm of military history. The reader should not expect a scholarly description of officers and battalions, plans of attack, and uniforms. Other authors have been and are still fascinated by these types of questions, which, despite their importance, contribute little to the present study. For example, Matthieu Brevet defended a doctoral dissertation describing the composition of the battalions sent to Saint-Domingue and the reasons that led to the appointment of general officers. The expedition was meant to enrich soldiers in peacetime – France and Great Britain had just agreed, in Lunéville, on the conditions of a truce – and to provide them with quick opportunities for advancement.1 In 2002, Frédéric Berjaud published two very informative studies in the “Uniformologie” column of La revue Napoléon on “Les troupes du corps expéditionnaire de Saint-Domingue”2 (The troops of the expeditionary force to SaintDomingue). The Club français de la figurine historique (French club of historic figurines) also contributed to scholarly work in terms of the presence of Napoleonic troops in the former Pearl of the Antilles. Two special issues, appearing in 1991 and 1992, deal with “L’expédition de Saint-Domingue, 1789–1809”3 (The Saint-Domingue expedition, 1789–1809). In 1998, the Le Briquet association of collectors of historic figurines in the Centre-Loire region featured an article on “Nicolas Ourblain, le survivant de Saint-Domingue” (Nicolas Ourblain, the survivor of Saint-Domingue) in one of its newsletters.4 Incidents involving French officers, soldiers, and sailors at SaintDomingue, and the rest of its white inhabitants, have very often monopolized the attention of historians, but to my mind are only

14

The Cry of Vertières

of limited importance.5 Rather, my inspiration here comes from a seminal work of “la nouvelle histoire bataille,” a new way of writing the history of war, entitled Le Dimanche de Bouvines, 27 juillet 1214 (The Sunday of Bouvines, 27 July 1214) published in the 1970s by renowned medievalist Georges Duby. Instead of once again narrating the events of that mythical day in France’s history – which he was requested to do – the author proposes to follow the traces left by the battle to understand how, why, and at what point Bouvines became an important event in French national mythology. The confrontation between the King of France, Philip Augustus, and a coalition of the German Emperor Otto IV, the Count of Flanders, and the Count of Boulogne, backed by the King of England, John Lackland, is of secondary importance in his analysis. First, because we know very little about the event as such, except that the outcome of the battle was long uncertain. Second, because the foreground deals with a sociology of the war and peace that existed shortly after the year 1000, without which, Duby explains, any discussion of the context of the battle has no meaning. Therefore, before trying to understand what actually happened at Bouvines, the author explores the concepts of war, battle, victory, peace, and death, as well as the act of taking life. This sociology, forming the core of the analysis, is shared more or less equally with a literary-type reflection on the first accounts of the battle and their short- and long-term impact on the accumulation of representations. George Duby describes less the battle than “the action that the imagination and forgetfulness have on information, the insidious penetration of the marvellous, the legendary, and throughout a series of commemorations the destiny of a memory within an ever-shifting assortment of mental representations.” Something did indeed occur on 27 July 1214, but it is more the “destiny of memory” of the event that interests the historian.6 Duby’s book is an indispensable reference in recent years for anyone trying to rethink the notion of “battle” outside military history, which has long monopolized it.7 This burgeoning historiography focuses on a cultural history of war that First World War specialist Nicolas Offenstadt very aptly describes as a history of “mémoiresbatailles,” 8 or of how battles are represented in memory. As Hervé Drévillon explains, “from this journey strewn with deaths that is the

The Battle of Vertières or “The Destiny of a Memory”

15

battle, we must grasp the totality: the combats and their narration, victory, and its crystallization in memory, plus defeat and its political appropriations; a body of practices and representations.”9 Which is to say, to use and adapt the words of François Dosse, that “the core of the event [battle] is located … in its traces, in what it becomes non-linearly in the many echoes that follow it.10 We cannot deny that something happened on 18 November 1803 behind Cap-Français, but how to describe it? The words exchanged behind the walls of Vertières are forever lost. The cries of encouragement and fear uttered by the soldiers, black and white, on the road to Haut-du-Cap can no longer be heard anywhere. The Battle of Vertières confronts the historian with its silences, its perplexing complexities, and its problems of methodology. Sources are lacking despite an abundance of correspondence and military reports of all kinds. This abundance gives only the point of view of the elite, basically French, and this elite is very discreet in defeat. How then to emphasize the importance of the battle for the thousands of men – and women also, on the Haitian side – who took part in it? How to describe the tense faces and stifled cries? What really went on “in people’s heads”11 on the morning of 18 November 1803, when France and Haiti were on the brink of an unprecedented rift? A brief battle between two storms; a final confrontation between two shores. A history of the Battle of Vertières also forces us to investigate what is difficult to represent: violence, hatred, vengeance, the will to destroy the Other, the construction and deconstruction of racial differences, and the affirmation and negation of human rights. Vertières leads the historian to the edge of his usual cliff and keeps him there.12 Writing about the battle of 18 November poses a problem. Part of the problem also stems from the fact that, in Haiti, since the middle of the nineteenth century, the Battle of Vertières has undergone a long process of narrative sedimentation and fossilization that has led to a maze of representations from which, today, it is extremely difficult to free ourselves. The cause is simple. The authors who retrace, at most in a few paragraphs, the sequence of events of Friday, 18 November 1803, generally rely on a single source: Histoire d’Haïti by Thomas Madiou, one of the main Haitian historians of the nineteenth century. The reference is indispensable. For example, we find it mentioned in two articles, one by Sabine Manigat, published

16

The Cry of Vertières

in the Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution haïtienne (1789–1804), the other by Jacque de Cauna, published in the thesaurus of the Dictionnaire encyclopédique Désormeaux. In both cases: no Vertières without Madiou. After Histoire d’Haïti was published in the late 1840s, Madiou’s version of the facts were accepted to the extent that the other great Haitian historian of the nineteenth century, Beaubrun Ardouin, whose Études sur l’histoire d’Haïti was published a few years later, declares abandoning efforts at “describing the audacious, unrelenting struggle upheld by the natives” during the battle, and merely refers the reader to the text of his illustrious colleague.13 True, the scene described by Madiou is spectacular and commands admiration. Here is one of the main excerpts that makes the hero, Brigadier General François Capois, a man of Herculean determination whose strength was equalled only by that of the lightning that struck the battlefield. In many respects, Capois’s struggle as related by Madiou reminds us of the accounts of medieval battles so beloved by the Romantic era in which the historian worked. A knight from another era, Capois was not so different from the Philippe Auguste in Le Dimanche de Bouvines. Even the bridge of Vertières calls to mind the one described in that French battle: [Dessalines] immediately sent the order to General Capoix … to change direction, and to take the habitation Charrier [plantation house] that towered above Vertières. In the centre of the plateau was a ravine with a small half broken-down bridge crossing it opposite the fort of Vertières … To reach Charrier, Capoix had to pass alongside [a] ravine while under cannon fire. When he arrived opposite the bridge, he was greeted by such heavy fire that the soldiers … who made up the advanced guard faltered. Capoix, who had never fled before the French … declared in his fearsome voice: “My good men, you must gain control of this hill; the army’s salvation depends on it; forward!” … Mounted on a richly caparisoned horse, he eagerly charged forward again toward the fort. His soldiers followed him; they were driven back; he became angry; he again urged them to follow him; he swore to silence the battery of cannons … A cannonball struck his horse; the intrepid general fell but got up immediately, and continued

The Battle of Vertières or “The Destiny of a Memory”

17

to advance, shouting to his troops: “Forward! Forward!” A bolt of lightning struck; his feathered cap blew away … Great cheers broke out from the habitation Vertières; shouts of “Bravo! Bravo!” sounded from Rochambeau’s guard of honour, watching the combat. The beating of a drum was heard; the French fire ceased, and a cavalry officer later appeared before the bridge, saying to the natives: “General Rochambeau wishes to convey his admiration to the commanding officer who has just covered himself with glory.” The French hussar withdrew and fighting began again, more fiercely than before.14 To the question “What happened on Friday, 18 November 1803?” the answer originates from this account.15 The progression of Madious’s account is remarkable. The setting is evoked by long sentences consisting of several segments, which in French are conjugated in the imperfect. The beginning of Capois’s charge is indicated by going from the imperfect to the simple past, which yields, at the height of the action, to the narrative present. The effect is reinforced by an absence of coordination, by the repetition of the personal pronoun “he,” and by the disjointed semi-colons. The reader is thus thrown into the tumult and noise of the volley of shots until Capois’s voice, “Forward! Forward!” mingles with the roar of thunder: “Lightning struck; his feathered cap blew away.” The authors of general histories or textbooks published in Haiti in the second half of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century systematically adapt Madiou’s text. Several narrative frameworks, all drawing from the same source, are juxtaposed; they saturate the field with images, words, and sounds associated with the battle. Some of the words from Madiou’s account do not change or change very little from one adaptation to the next, such as the words attributed to Capois as he seeks to mobilize his troops or the compliments of the French hussar, which echo the rites of medieval tournaments during which participants were duty bound to recognize the enemy’s bravery. Some adaptations of Madiou’s account have acquired such legitimacy that referring readers back to the original text becomes superfluous. For example, the version popularized by Énélus Robin in a textbook frequently used in Haiti as of the mid-1870s is quoted in

18

The Cry of Vertières

a textbook by Windsor Bellegarde and Justin Lhérisson, Manuel d’histoire d’Haïti, in place of Madiou’s longer original version. The gradual distancing from the original text and the interweaving of various levels of rewriting since the 1840s has the secondary effect in certain cases of making any concept of author disappear, as if the account of the events of the Battle of Vertières existed on its own solely based on its evocative power. For example, in an article entitled “La bataille de Vertières et le Cahier d’un retour au pays natal: deux westerns du Tiers-Monde,”16 Maximilien Laroche quotes extensively from a source he does not bother to identify in the body of the text or in a footnote. The source quoted is neither Madiou’s fundamental account nor Robin’s, but the version many generations of Haitians learned by heart in Justin Chrysostome Dorsainvil’s textbook, used in all schools in Haiti as of the 1930s. uRrU There is nothing straightforward about writing a history of the tumultuous Battle of Vertières, and military history proves to be of limited use in describing the real scope of the conflict that raged near Cap-Français on 18 November 1803. On the other hand, the new way of writing the history of war allows for a broader interpretation, focusing not on the unfolding of events, but on the traces they left behind and their resonance through the centuries. However, this model is not sufficient, unless we also identify the two centuries of sedimented discourse around the Vertières event that tend to reduce its meaning, or at least simplify its scope and complexity. In the face of the challenges that writing about such an event entails, caution is advisable. Before proceeding further, we must present the backdrop against which the fateful day of 18 November 1803 unfolded.

2

The Final Act of an Atlantic Revolution

While called “French,” the revolution of fundamental human rights that emerged from the assembly of the Estates General summoned by Louis XVI in 1788 to resolve the financial crisis in the kingdom was by no means limited to metropolitan France. The colonial and transatlantic aspects were central to it, even if covered up or neglected by historians for a long time, as well demonstrated by Yves Bénot.1 Rumours, songs, revolutionary ideas, printed matter of all sorts, not to mention the men and women themselves, circulated on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.2 In Saint-Domingue, a colony that reached its peak in 1789, the French Revolution left no one indifferent. It occurred while several tens of thousands of African slaves were still landing every year in the various ports of the colony, foremost in Cap-Français.3 Some 700 sugar plantations, consolidated in the main plains in the North, in Artibonite and Cul-de-Sac (in the West) as well as Les Cayes (in the South), achieved unparalleled production levels. The 3,000 coffee plantations, located on a steeper territory in the colony’s interior, were also booming. Nearly 500,000 slaves – men, women, and children – worked these plantations spread out over the colony’s three provinces, the North, the West, and the South. The origins of the Battle of Vertières are found at the heart of this transplanted “French” Revolution, remodelled and bitterly debated in Saint-Domingue.4 The revolution that erupted in Saint-Domingue between 1789 and 1791 involved three large groups with very different objectives: the Whites, the “free people of colour,” and the slaves – categories fragmented by many divisions of class, race, and ethnicity. Those called the “great Whites” – that is, the major slave owners and merchants – took advantage of the Revolution in France to express

20

The Cry of Vertières

their desire, mostly economic, for independence from the homeland. Some asked for the abolition, or at least a relaxing, of what was known as the “Principe de l’Exclusif,” which governed trade relations with the colonies for the benefit of France.5 One of their objectives was to develop trade with the United States and neighbouring foreign colonies without, as was generally the rule, first negotiating with the merchants from France who controlled colonial trade from their bases in Bordeaux or Nantes. The United States had been an important partner since 1783, the year the young nation separated from Great Britain. The major slave owners in Saint-Domingue also wanted to obtain more political independence and freedom in the control of their workforce. They wanted to ensure that the state would not intervene, as it had attempted to do in the early 1780s, to limit the excessive power they had over the body and soul of the enslaved.6 To those like the philosopher Diderot, who predicted that a black Spartacus could rouse the mass of slaves if improvements were not implemented to make the master-slave relationship less brutal, the great Whites replied that, on the contrary, any intervention could destabilize the entire system. Some managed to be represented at the Estates General in Versailles. Others, among the planters residing in France, organized themselves. The Club Massiac, for example, became the main colonial lobby in France.7 The poor whites, pejoratively called by the slaves “petits blancs” (lesser Whites), were not to be outdone by the rhetoric and the stirrings of revolution. After years of frustration and living on the economic and political margins, sailors and other migrants in vulnerable situations as well as junior employees on plantations also took part in the outbreak of the Revolution in Saint-Domingue. When they were not arguing for the island’s autonomy, pure and simple, they demanded a larger role in the organization of the colony. Threatened economically by the free people of colour, the petits blancs were committed to perpetuating the racial dogma that ensured them a degree of superiority despite their marginal status. The free people of colour, who numbered approximately 30,000, about the same number as the Whites, took advantage of the revolutionary context to voice their own demands. Whether small entrepreneurs or slave owners, they wanted to participate fully in the building of a revolutionary society. As such, they demanded equal

The Final Act of an Atlantic Revolution

21

rights and conditions, which were denied them by most Whites, great or lesser, who were anxious to maintain the segregationist order of the Ancien Régime strengthened from the end of the Seven Years’ War, in 1763.8 Like the great Whites, free people of colour formed associations, such as the Société des citoyens de couleur9 (Society of Coloured Citizens). In Saint-Domingue they had real economic power, as well as military power due to their involvement in the colonial militias and the Maréchaussée, the mounted police whose main duty was to capture runaway slaves. Due to this dual power, free people of colour played a central role in the Revolution of Saint-Domingue. They were the first to initiate the process that in stages led, initially, to the Saint-Domingue expedition and then to the independence of Haiti. Their conflicts with the Whites profoundly destabilized the colony and rapidly opened the way to another kind of insurrection, that of the slaves who had been deemed incapable of uprising. The approximately 500,000 slaves – two-thirds of whom were African – fully intended, in one way or another, to take part in the debates. Even if historians do not agree on this point, the revolutionary discourse could not have been foreign to them, although most of them did not know how to read or write. In the 1780s, rumours circulated quickly, as did the contents of printed texts, pamphlets, and declarations asserting, for example, the existence of universal rights. Slaves met one another regularly to exchange news in taverns, around gaming tables, or at the Sunday markets where they dominated trade. They could also draw on old and multi-faceted traditions of resistance. Despite the reign of fear that gave Whites some peace of mind, slaves actually never stopped resisting – for example, through their religious practices or through dance and music. Some poisoned their masters or tried to do so. They would escape for a few days, weeks, or more, and take refuge with friends, in the city or in the mountains.10 In 1789, a significant number of newly arrived African slaves already had formidable military experience.11 Men and women of the Enlightenment, capable of developing political ideas in the same way as other protagonists of the time, whether they be members of the elite or of the people, the slaves of the colony of Saint-Domingue were in no way passive. On the contrary, they played a crucial role in how events transpired.12 Aimé

22

The Cry of Vertières

Césaire even claims that “in colonial society, [slaves] were the only people really ready and the only ones capable of understanding the Revolution in depth.”13 Between 1789 and 1791, groups of slaves were regularly armed and used in the conflicts between Whites and free people of colour – as was notably the case in the West, in the area surrounding Port-auPrince. In August 1791, evidence of the slaves’ political consciousness was brought to light. On the night of 22–23 August, the slaves from the North province rose up, beginning with the parishes of Acul and Limbé. The means of production, mills and refineries that were despised symbols of a deadly agricultural system, were destroyed by fire. The unthinkable had occurred.14 The inhabitants were traumatized by the sudden collapse of a world whose security had been founded on the exercise of violence. The rebel slaves were depicted as bloodthirsty pawns manipulated by foreign or enemy interests. It was not enough for them simply to be brigands or wild animals to be exterminated.15 The white colonists panicked at the idea of unlimited black violence, a reflection of their long-repressed fears.16 uRrU Inside these three groups, demands were divergent, even contradictory.17 The Whites were divided between the revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries; between the separatists, who adopted a constitution in May 1790, and the more conservative supporters who wanted to maintain a centralizing power. They opposed one another in colonial assemblies that came into being in Saint-Domingue. The Whites did not agree about the ways to re-establish peace and coexist with free people of colour. While the latter demanded equal rights, they did not campaign for the abolition of slavery, for they themselves were often plantation owners. Finally, not all slaves were able to free themselves by force, notably in the West and South provinces where agricultural production was maintained in numerous regions. The coexistence of various groups of slaves was problematic – between Creoles and Africans, between French speakers and Creole speakers, between workers connected to sugar or coffee plantations, between skilled and unskilled slaves, and between domestics and fieldworkers. Many tensions divided the rebel camps; often they

The Final Act of an Atlantic Revolution

23

placed former slaves in opposition to free people of colour who joined in the revolt. They also revealed a conflict between the mass of rebels and the leaders who negotiated with colonial authorities. The leaders themselves – Jeannot, Boukman, Jean-François, and Biassou initially – did not agree on how to proceed, on what demands to put forward, or on the degree of violence or compromise called for. Most of the rebels refused to be content with a general amnesty and the liberation of only the leaders. The events that followed the night of 22–23 August 1791 up to the abolition of slavery and granting of citizenship to former slaves by the National Convention on 4 February 1794 are extremely complex and filled with gradualism and pragmatism that is not easy to summarize. Among them, three decisive events are worth singling out. The first concerns the free people of colour who, on 4 April 1792, were granted equal rights by the French Legislative Assembly.18 This measure marked an important victory for this portion of the population of Saint-Domingue that had experienced several political and military defeats and suffered many acts of violence. For example, Vincent Ogé and Jean-Baptiste Chavannes, two leaders of the people of colour community, were executed in Cap-Français in February 1791 after attempting an armed insurrection. It was also a significant victory for the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, an abolitionist society founded in 1788 by Jacques Pierre Brissot, who then fought for the equality of free people of colour. After several years of shilly-shallying, the French authorities placed all their hopes in the loyalty of the free people of colour to restore peace, put an end to the insurrection of slaves, thwart the separatist demands of the petits blancs, and kick-start agricultural production. Time was short: revolutionary France needed raw materials and revenue. The second decisive event took place in August and October 1793. Léger-Félicité Sonthonax and Étienne Polvérel, the two civil commissioners sent to the colony to apply the decree of equality of April 1792 and subdue the rebelling slaves as well as their allies, declared the abolition of slavery. A measure unthinkable when they arrived – at that point Sonthonax and Polvérel claimed they only recognized two classes of men: the free and the slaves – total abolition was immediate and, in the eyes of the two commissioners, a last resort to save

24

The Cry of Vertières

Figure 2.1 “Portrait” of Toussaint Louverture (1805).

the colony, which was threatened by serious internal division and by twofold foreign intervention, British and Spanish, supported by part of the white population. According to Sonthonax and Polvérel, the military support of slaves and their leaders – including Pierrot

The Final Act of an Atlantic Revolution

25

and, during the first stage, Macaya – allowed France to ensure its place on a long-term basis in the Caribbean world and even to conquer neighbouring foreign colonies, such as Jamaica. At the time, neither Sonthonax nor Polvérel planned to revolutionize the system of agricultural production then in place. Under no circumstances was the freedom of the Blacks to lead to idleness or to vagrancy. Therefore, proclamations of abolition were accompanied by strict rules concerning the mobility and work of former slaves, who were forced to remain on their former plantations and find work. The third major event of this period, in May 1794, was the alignment with France of Toussaint Louverture – who then emerged as one of the main black leaders – and his troops, estimated at 4,000 men.19 Toussaint Louverture was a former slave, approximately fifty years old.20 The grandson of an African prince, he had been a free man since the 1770s. In 1789, when the Revolution broke out, he was employed on the Bréda plantation, close to Cap-Français. He knew how to read and write. His role in the preparation and first weeks of the insurrection of August 1791 is unclear. Just as mysterious is the name of Louverture, which some people associate with his military successes and others with a personal willingness to signify the beginning of a new era. One thing is certain: his influence grew continually between late 1791, when he was involved in unsuccessful peace negotiations with the French authorities, and 1793, when he famously announced: “I am Toussaint Louverture … I have undertaken the vengeance of my race. I want freedom and equality to reign in Saint-Domingue.”21 He then fought for the King of Spain alongside the two main leaders of the black rebellion, Biassou and Jean-François. His decision to join the French Republic sealed the victory of the black rebels, now officially citizens, who were free and held equal rights thanks to the decision of the National Convention of 4 February 1794 that made Sonthonax and Polvérel’s decisions official. It brought an end to a long period of uncertainty. Until Toussaint’s alignment with the French, the various measures of abolition – very limited on 20 June 1793, then widespread in August and October of that same year – had not yielded the expected results, as the rebels hesitated to leave the Spanish camp that provided them with uniforms, weapons, and ammunition.22 In the spring of 1794, the French colony of Saint-Domingue appeared to be saved. From then

26

The Cry of Vertières

on, the notion of freedom seemed inextricably tied to siding with France. Aligning with France, Toussaint was promoted to lieutenantgovernor and major general in 1796, and commander-in-chief of the Army of Saint-Domingue in 1797. From April 1792 until the spring of 1794, Whites, free people of colour, and slaves confronted one another, in addition to the internal conflicts tearing apart the three groups. They defined strategies that vacillated according to the evolution of the colonial, Caribbean, and metropolitan political context. The last to rebel, the slaves, at the end of this eventful period, acquired first-rate political and military weight. Their resistance marked a significant break in Western modernity: their involvement in the revolution of Saint-Domingue was decisive from a military point of view, of course, but also from a philosophical one. By their actions, the slaves proclaimed their right to humanity and made the ideological foundations of the French Revolution their own, expressing, beyond race, its universal scope.23 As anthropologist Sidney Mintz explains: “Of the three revolutions, American, French, and Haitian, the Haitian represented the most terrifying reality for its time. To be sure, it was revolutionary in those days to insist on the right to be represented politically if one were taxed; or to deny the absolute rights of monarchy … But that was not the same as arguing that ‘human’ rights apply to everyone – that there was a universal definition of who was human – and meaning it. To take that stand would mean, among other things, that rape, flogging, or sale of someone else’s children was a crime, no matter on whom it was inflicted.”24 Even if some historians do not share this point of view, which they deem anachronistic, it is difficult to doubt the truly revolutionary aspect of the slaves’ struggle in Saint-Domingue, since this struggle allows us to radically rethink the meaning we give to the word “freedom.”25 uRrU In 1795, Spain signed the Peace of Basel with France, ceding to it the eastern part of the island – what is now the Dominican Republic. Great Britain withdrew from Saint-Domingue three years later, not without having sustained heavy losses.26 This was the period during which Toussaint Louverture claimed his authority at the expense

The Final Act of an Atlantic Revolution

27

of representatives sent by France, whom he skilfully managed to drive away – from Laveaux to Sonthonax (in 1797) to Gabriel Marie Théodore Joseph d’Hédouville (in 1798) to Philippe Rose Roume (imprisoned in November 1800). In December 1800, Louverture invaded the eastern part of the island, taking control of it on behalf of France – even though he did not have the mandate. At the same time, a violent civil war was ending, one that since June 1799 had pitted the North and the West of the colony, dominated by Louverture, against the South, under the control of André Rigaud. This war, described as a conflict between the “Blacks” (Louverture and Dessalines) and the “Mulattoes” (led by André Rigaud), was encouraged by France, which looked askance at Louverture’s growing power and wanted to promote the accession to power of those among the Blacks who were free, or were freed, before the Revolution started. However, Louverture’s forces were greater in number and had the support of the United States. In July 1801, Louverture gave Saint-Domingue, which he then dominated, its first constitution.27 As “the institutional outcome … of the revolutionary process in Saint-Domingue,” it made him an all-powerful governor-for-life whose power was based on a large army. While article 3 of the constitution provided that “there cannot exist slaves on this territory” and that “servitude is therein forever abolished,” it did not give the peasant population what it really desired: the right to small holdings, which would have been a source of real independence. Far from opting for a distribution of land and for subsistence farming, Toussaint wanted to re-establish the plantation system, the only way of integrating Haiti into the transatlantic commercial networks.28 Louverture’s government was an authoritarian regime that tolerated no differences of opinion and no “vagrancy” on the part of former slaves. “Any man who wants to live must work … there is no other way to live peacefully and respected than work, hard work,” Louverture explained in a proclamation on 25 November 1801.29 The constitution of 1801 was not an act of independence, but First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte was far from pleased by the decision. As Haitian historian Claude Moïse succinctly explains, the constitution gave shape to an “entity that was no longer exactly a colony and not yet really a sovereign state.”30 The first consul could not tolerate this state of affairs. That was the beginning of his “colonial dementia

28

The Cry of Vertières

[or excess],” as Yves Bénot has astutely explained.31 Accustomed to strong-arm methods, the first consul took advantage of the preliminaries of peace signed with Great Britain in October 1801 to send an expedition of some 20,000 men to Saint-Domingue.32 This expedition, led by Napoleon’s brother-in-law General Leclerc was part of a more far-reaching dream of French colonial resurgence in North America.33 Saint-Domingue and Louisiana were to form the heart of a new empire whose existence would make it possible to erase the memory of the loss of New France in 1763. Officially, the expedition was supposed to make it possible to “pacify” the colony. Pacifying, in military doctrine – today we speak of stabilizing – was actually not much like peacemaking. The war ships leaving the European shores for the North, South, and West of the colony in November and December 1801 were loaded with various pieces of ordnance (cannons, mortar, howitzers), projectiles of all sorts (bombs, shells, grenades), as well as rifles, carbines, sabres, pikes, and spears.34 Napoleon’s secret instructions leave little doubt as to the goal of the manoeuvre, even if Leclerc stated, in a proclamation dated 17 February 1802, that he had come to “bring peace and happiness.”35 Once order was restored, the French generals had instructions to arrest and deport black officers. No Black with a rank superior to that of captain was to remain on the island. Then it would be possible to carry out the complete disarmament of the island. While not re-establishing slavery – at least not right away – the goal was to re-establish, through violence if necessary, the dogma of “race” that structured power relationships in the Ancien Régime.36 The arrival of the “Saint-Domingue expedition” marked the beginning of a terrible colonial and racial war. “A war of colour,”37 French General Kerverseau called it on 4 November 1802. “A struggle to the death between the Black and White,”38 as expressed by Officer Pierre Thouvenot in a letter written 21 March 1803 to the minister of the navy and the colonies. Little time passed before the French military authorities, completely overwhelmed by the events and incapable of applying the first consul’s secret instructions, considered a war of extermination to save face. Since it was impossible to restore order and subdue popular resistance – shown by Macaya, Sans-Souci, and Lamour Dérance, for example39 – could they not just make a clean sweep of the past

The Final Act of an Atlantic Revolution

29

and superimpose another extermination, like the destruction of the island’s first inhabitants perpetrated in the sixteenth century by the Spanish against the Taíno? The first part of the Saint-Domingue expedition extended from the landing of the French troops in February 1802 to the defeat of Toussaint Louverture’s army in May of that year. Louverture’s army was then integrated into General Leclerc’s expeditionary troops while waiting to carry out Napoleon’s secret instructions. This apparent truce was followed shortly afterward by the arrest of Louverture, whose leadership capabilities were increasingly challenged by his base of support,40 and his deportation to a French prison in the Jura. “This man roused the country to fanaticism to such an extent that his presence would still set it on fire,”41 explained Leclerc to the minister of the navy in July 1802. But Leclerc’s hope – that with Louverture’s absence peace would return – was in vain. At the time of his forced departure, Toussaint predicted that “by overthrowing [him], in Saint-Domingue, they have only knocked down the trunk of the tree of freedom of the Blacks.” That tree “would grow from the roots, because they are profound and numerous.”42 The beginning of the second stage of the expedition coincided with the rise of popular resistance in the Haitian countryside in the summer of 1802, at first in the North and the West and later in the South. This resistance was fuelled by news of the reestablishment of slavery in Guadeloupe and by disarmament measures causing countless tensions between French soldiers and the former slaves who had become farmers. This stage ended in the fall of 1802 with the defection of the leading black and mulatto generals, Augustin Clervaux and Alexandre Pétion at first, followed by Henry Christophe and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, as well as the troops under their command. The third and final stage of the war, which began in the fall of 1802, focused on the struggle for independence itself and the alliance between the Blacks and Mulattoes under the command of Dessalines, one of the main figures in the history of Vertières. He became general-in-chief of the “indigenous army,” also known as the “Inca army.” A former slave, Dessalines played an important role, alongside Louverture, in overthrowing the institution of slavery in the early 1790s. Having made common cause with abolitionist France,

30

The Cry of Vertières

he actively participated in defending the colony against England and Spain. Before the arrival of Napoleon’s troops in February 1802, Dessalines was a division general in charge of the southern part of the colony. He combined this function with that of agricultural inspector, supervising former slaves who, since abolition, had been forced to work on their former plantations in exchange for a meagre portion of the harvest.43 After a period of resisting the expeditionary army, Dessalines agreed to align himself with the French troops. However, after a rift occurred with Leclerc’s army, the general, who was also an author, and one in a “longer chain of radical African diasporan thinkers,” as Deborah Jenson demonstrates, established himself as the supreme chief of the struggle for independence.44 Dessalines declared one day, in Creole, that everyone had to “stand together, women and men alike” to counter any attempt by France to re-establish slavery.45 Starting in the fall of 1802, the people of Haiti stood tall, with Dessalines, to face the troops of the French army one last time and avenge the New World for three centuries of colonization and slavery. In late 1802 and early 1803, General Rochambeau (succeeding Leclerc, who died of yellow fever in November 1802) took over the posts of Fort-Liberté and Port-de-Paix in the north of the colony. On many occasions, he urged the powers in France to re-establish slavery. There then followed a period of denial, convincingly reflected in a map of the positions of the Whites and the “brigands” drawn up for Rochambeau’s staff in early March 1803. The places controlled by the French were depicted in red ink that, like a bloodstain, appeared to spread over the map and cover the “unshaded” spaces occupied by the Blacks. The map was distorted by the over-representation of the eastern part of the island, certainly under French control, but where the fighting did not take place. For those who knew the situation well, it was clear that, aside from the southern part of the island and the large ports, the French no longer dominated the territory.46 In the spring of 1803, peace with Great Britain was broken, and as soon as the British troops appeared on the horizon, Rochambeau could only see isolation. The indigenous army grew in strength. It acquired a flag on 18 May 1803 and a significant amount of ammunition. The colony of Saint-Domingue was on the verge of total destruction. On 23 June 1803, Dessalines wrote to the governor of

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31

Figure 2.2 View of Cap-Français, its bay, and its hills.

Jamaica to officially inform him of Saint-Domingue’s separation from France, a separation that was final. “It is on behalf of this people, weary of humiliation, that I have the honour of instructing Your Excellency that all ties connecting Saint-Domingue to France have been broken.”47 The Saint-Domingue expedition, which lasted a little less than two years, resulted in nearly 50,000 deaths on the French side, almost all the troops sent by the first consul. The Napoleonic army fell in the once-fertile sugar cane fields and in countless mountain ambushes. It succumbed to yellow fever in the hospitals. As surrender drew near, the soldiers, half-naked, unshod, feet infested with chiggers, were reduced to eating dogs, rats, mules, and horses. Women and children who had not yet been evacuated ate caper bush leaves.48 Many soldiers deserted, not to mention all those who went mad and chose death, taking their own lives. Death, in fact, was the nickname of the great hero of the Battle of Vertières, François Capois: Capois-la-Mort.49 When did he acquire the nickname? Where did it come from and what did it mean? In a letter dated 4 July 1803,50 Capois signed his name without any other attribute. Three weeks later, a French soldier named him “Capoy ou la mort”51 (Capoy or death). Finally, in a copy of a letter written after 18 November 1803,52 the general seems to have simply signed “La mort” (death). Two interpretations exist to justify the nickname. According to Thomas Madiou, Capois proved himself “so pitiless

32

The Cry of Vertières

to the Europeans who fell into his hands that the French called him Capois la Mort.”53 That was also the point of view of a former proprietor of the colony, who in 1805 wrote a small work on the SaintDomingue expedition and on the means of reconquering the colony, describing “Capoix la mort” as “one of the fiercest men that Africa ever produced.”54 According to other authors, the nickname was given to him because he feared nothing, not even death. He was, according to his biographer François Dalencour, “phenomenally daring … He never retreated in the face of danger.”55 Or perhaps the nickname was meant to echo the motto of the rebels: “Freedom, equality, or death”? Thus he alone, the brigadier general, hero of Vertières, embodied the motto of the nation about to be born. Capois was born a slave in the early 1760s on a plantation near Port-de-Paix, a port located on the northern side of the island, to the west of Cap-Français.56 During the War of Independence, his status as a former slave did not prevent him from recognizing, as did the philosophers of the Enlightenment, that every man is entitled to freedom. That is what he explained, for example, to the captain of an English or American ship in the summer of 1803: “Woe to the Republic that fought day and night against our legitimate right; black as we may be, we are men nonetheless … and human.”57 On the morning of 18 November 1803, Capois-la-Mort was at the head of two battalions of the 9th demi-brigade, famous for its fierce resistance and its raids against French posts during the war, including those on Tortuga Island, very early in 1803. That morning, Capois’s two battalions played a decisive role in ending the third stage of the Saint-Domingue expedition and finally opening the way to independence, proclaimed first on 29 November 1803, and then a second time on 1 January 1804.58 uRrU The Battle of Vertières was the result of a long revolutionary transatlantic experience begun in 1789. It was the embodiment of a fierce struggle, first for freedom and then to obtain the fundamental right to self-determination. From 1789 to 1794, troubles and divisions raged in the most beautiful and richest colony in the Americas. From 1794 to 1802, a progressive return to stability occurred under the command

The Final Act of an Atlantic Revolution

33

of Toussaint Louverture, who tried to impose upon Haitian farmers a return to the well-ordered world of the large plantations. In 1802 and 1803, conditions leading to independence gradually fell into place. The battle of 18 November 1803 was the final chapter of this history, a kind of brief coda that, in a few bars, concluded a long and turbulent symphony. Though the Battle of Vertières is actually a conclusion and the outcome of a long musical composition with alternate high and low passages, begun in 1789, we cannot simply view it as an epilogue, but rather as an event in its own right that needs to be reconstructed in its many dimensions.

3

Attempt at Reconstruction

On 18 November 1803, the sky of Cap-Français was heavy with storms, and the earth flooded by the November rains.1 Stagnant water accumulated in places where mosquitoes carrying tropical diseases would breed, and ravines transported refuse from the city. At the entrance to the city, at La Fossette cemetery, and a little further south, at the cemetery of the Hôpital des Pères, French soldiers were quickly buried. Officers and ordinary soldiers lay beneath a fine layer of earth, their corpses constantly disturbed as new bodies were interred. The odour of death must have been omnipresent in the city. Before the Revolution, an author describing the area surrounding  the Hôpital des Pères, also known as the Hôpital general du Cap or the Hôpital des religieux de la charité, spoke of “a deathly odour … the odour of corruption,” and even “a hepatic odour, nauseating, at times unbearable.”2 No doubt it rendered the inhabitants and soldiers still present on 18 November 1803 nauseous.3 Voices on either side of the front lines probably echoed one another. Perhaps laughter and shouting from some of the women who accompanied the black troops. The French soldiers were frightened by them,4 at least as much as by the “awful howling” emanating from the combatants of the Haitian liberation army when they went on the attack.5 In the confusion of that November day, some Creole and French words could be heard along with African words, probably in Kikongo, the language spoken by most African slaves brought over in the 1780s.6 The French and soon-to-be Haitians prepared to engage in the ultimate battle of an unprecedented War of Independence. “Ayti,” to use the name of the territory before its colonization by Spain, and then France, was on the verge of being

Attempt at Reconstruction

35

created from an upheaval inconceivable in the eyes of the great imperial nations. The North plain, behind Cap-Français and an unrivalled source of wealth until 1789 thanks to its sugar production, did not appear on the face of it to be “threatened by subversion, like that experienced in the West, by the violent agitation when people thought they felt the earth shift on its axis, and when men’s homes suddenly became their graves.”7 The earth was on the verge of shifting, however. Not two tectonic plates meeting up in an underground roar, but two armies, and through them irreconcilable conceptions of freedom, citizenship, “race,” and the fundamental right to life. On the morning of 18 November, Cap-Français was but a shadow of its former self.8 The city, considered the Paris of the Antilles in the eighteenth century with its theatres, literary salons, and esplanades, had nothing “magical” left about it, to use the description of the Chevalier de Fréminville upon arriving in the big city of the North on the schooner Victoire on 12 August 1802.9 The streets were no longer filled with the business activity on which the city had made its name during the Ancien Régime, earning the title, according to historian and politician Moreau de Saint-Méry, of “most beautiful [and] richest city in the French colonies.”10 The cabrouets (hand trucks) – or charettes (carts) – that transported the merchandise from the docks to the stores were in short supply. Inventory no longer sold, or sold at a loss. The trestle tables set up in the streets by the thousands of slaves who came to sell their vegetables and poultry were put away. On Friday, 18 November, no shipment of cypress shingles from Louisiana, used in the eighteenth century to cover houses, was expected. As well, fewer tiles from Normandy or slate from Anjou. The French Atlantic world was cut off from what used to be its most glorious link. As evidence, one only had to look at the harbour that in the city’s heyday had often contained several hundred ocean-going ships.11 The “forests of masts” that once delighted travellers were now tragically sparse.12 The port of Cap-Français had received twenty-one ships filled with supplies and wood in May 1803, twenty-seven in June, and twenty-six in July. Once the English blockade was imposed (in July),13 new arrivals were rare and considerably less cargo was unloaded. Only four boats managed to cross British lines in August 1803, and just one in September.14 Even the coasters, canoes, and dugout canoes used for fishing or to transport passengers deserted the waters.

36

The Cry of Vertières

In November 1803, Cap-Français was a landscape of ruins that every day reminded the inhabitants who had not yet taken refuge in France, New Orleans, Cuba, or even Philadelphia15 of the trauma of a war ongoing since February 1802, when the powerful military expedition launched by First Consul Bonaparte arrived to restore “order” in the colony. This would be far from the case. In the aftermath of the expedition, Saint-Domingue became a “land of desolation, drenched with blood and fertilized with corpses, a horrible theatre of all sorts of crimes and appalling calamities,”16 as described by the Chevalier de Fréminville. That may seem an exaggeration, yet it reflects a reality akin to the Apocalypse. On the morning of 18 November 1803, Napoleon’s expeditionary army was cornered, tired, and on the verge of surrendering. The French general-in-chief, Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Rochambeau, son of the legendary marshal17 and successor of Leclerc, who had died of yellow fever, had long since abandoned the party. Two weeks before the final battle, Rochambeau had written a letter to the minister of the navy and the colonies. There was nothing left to be done, he grumbled: “We are all exhausted, and incapable of serving usefully.”18 One misfortune led to another: Rochambeau declared that he had been suffering from dysentery for more than a year. His stomach was “ruined.” His resentment, combined with a clinical description of his body, was barely concealed. Rochambeau, the “butcher” as Haitians remember him, whom France itself refused to recognize, extricated himself from all responsibility in advance by casting blame on all the “ignorant people” and other “rogues” who to his mind had brought the colony to ruin. Was it not the fault of the minister himself, whom he had blamed since the summer of 1803 for abandoning him and for encouraging civil war by his lack of action?19 On 7 November, he again called for “[his] replacement and [his] return to Europe,” declaring he was “unable to remain here” and “was no longer truly useful in St Domingue.”20 Napoleon and his minister of the navy and the colonies, named Decrès, had indeed already abandoned Rochambeau for some time. The fallen general was the ideal guilty party, responsible for an unparalleled, frantic retreat. To hear his detractors, past and present, Rochambeau was a “ruthless … character,” corrupt monster, sadist,

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37

and depraved pervert accustomed to sensual pleasures who spent his time “drunk in the arms of voluptuous Creoles.”21 He, along with others, was “[bathed] in indigenous blood.”22 Did he not even “surpass in cruelty the worst scoundrels of ancient and modern times?”23 For its part, the Haitian army (which, we have mentioned, proclaimed itself the “indigenous army” or “army of the indigenes,” after calling itself, at least until the summer of 1803, the “Inca army”24) prepared to savour victory and independence. The conclusion was drawing near. It occurred at the post of Vertières, a place also called (and spelled) Verrières or Verdière on French engineering maps; Verdière, Verdierre, Vertière, and Verthiere in military correspondence; and De Vertière or Devertière in the census.25 uRrU Some historians, such as Thomas Madiou in the nineteenth century and, more recently, Philippe Girard, described Vertières as a blockhouse.26 Others, such as Dantès Bellegarde, spoke of a redoubt. Many have spoken of a small fort, following the example of famous French abolitionist Victor Schoelcher or Sténio Vincent, president of Haiti in the 1930s.27 Neither a blockhouse nor a redoubt, nor even a small fort, Vertières, in November 1803, was a fortified plantation house – more specifically, a former outbuilding of the Hôpital des Pères, commandeered during the Revolution and apparently briefly leased out in the 1790s to the son of the former president of the Conseil supérieur du Cap (Council of Cap-Français, one of the two highest administrative and judicial authorities in the colony), Marie-François-Joseph Pourcheresse de Vertières.28 Leased to one Marion Yaric in 1797,29 the plantation, from that point on known as De Vertière and planted as a “fruit garden,” went to the French national domain and was connected, starting approximately in the early 1800s, to the military hospital of Cap-Français (before being sold in 1803 to Henri-ClaudeFrançois Perroud).30 It then comprised “a [main] house consisting of three bedrooms and two offices, plus another building divided into two bedrooms and a few offices.”31 Unfortunately, we do not know any more about it, other than that the residence, at least according

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to Thomas Madiou, was “flanked” by an impenetrable hedge of aloe and other thorny plants intertwined with large hanging vines.”32 In a source strangely neglected by historians, the Journal de la campagne du Nord,33 Jean-Jacques Dessalines establishes a very clear distinction between the blockhouses built by the French to defend the city and the post of Vertières, a residence located on a promontory. “This post,” he tells us, “[is] favourably located on a hillock [that] instead of a blockhouse has only a house pierced with loopholes.”34 This description by one of the main players of 18 November 1803 coincides with those provided by French military correspondence. In the memoirs prepared by the engineering officers, Vertières is described as an elevated post where pieces of artillery were taken, but there is no mention anywhere of a blockhouse, redoubt, or fort. In the three maps available at the Service historique de la défense for year 11 (dated September 1802 to September 1803), the post of Vertières is represented either by a small red quadrilateral surrounded by a circle symbolizing elevated ground, or by a red quadrilateral with a French flag planted on the summit of a hill.35 The legend of the three maps refers to a blockhouse in Bréda or in Pierre-Michel, but not in Vertières. Beaubrun Ardouin, less inclined to heroic descriptions than his colleague Thomas Madiou, echoes Dessalines’s description. According to him, there was a “masonry house featuring loopholes” in Vertières.36 Two French authors took up this description at the end of the nineteenth century: Henry de Poyen-Bellisle, in a military treaty, speaks of a “crenellated house”37 and Castonnet des Fosses of a “masonry house.”38 When the battle of 18 November broke out, Vertières was a strategic post of recent importance in the history of Cap-Français. The fortification work to the south of the city, which began in 1746 and intensified in 1779, generally took place closer to the town or around the village of Haut-du-Cap more toward the south.39 The plan of attack entrusted to General Leclerc on 30 January 1802, a few days before the arrival of the troops at the gates of the city, clearly mentions the existence of earthen fortifications, including trenches in the village of Haut-du-Cap, deemed useless, and the presence of batteries of cannon in Bel-Air and La Fossette, at the entrance to the

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city, but makes no mention of any place between these two points.40 In November 1802, a report on the positions occupied by the French and the “brigands,” a pejorative term then used to describe the black combatants and strip them of any legitimacy, reports on a post at “Verrières,” without specifying its state of fortification or the troops that were posted there.41 In late 1802, the city’s defence system was structured around posts that were deemed more important, called blockhouses.42 General-in-Chief Rochambeau ordered that these fortifications be built all over the island, in particular in Cap-Français, and that they follow the construction model of the blockhouse, inherited from the British occupation of the colony from 1794 to 1798. Rochambeau justified erecting these fortified towers by racial rather than military arguments. A blockhouse was meant to frighten the supposedly cowardly and disorganized Blacks. To counter the popular liberation movement, Rochambeau erected small forts with a stone foundation “from ten to twelve feet high” with the upper part made of hardwood that was “strong enough to resist the cannon fire.”43 Everything at that point appeared so simple. On 14 March 1803, Rochambeau explained to the minister of the navy and the colonies that he planned to build no fewer than a hundred blockhouses over the entire island. Such buildings were then under construction in Cap-Français, Port-auPrince, Fort-Liberté, and Port-de-Paix. His logic was irrefutable. “In doing so I will keep the Brigands at bay from these Places that I will defend with fewer troops. I thus hope to decrease the number of sick people in these garrisons because the soldiers are comfortably housed in these structures, under cover, with few duties, and, always in healthy, temperate places.”44 The plans the engineering service created seemed to go in that direction. There were plans for water supplies, food, and powder on the ground floor. While the black soldiers occupied the mountains where they knew every nook and cranny, the French engineering service imagined itself all-powerful in well-proportioned constructions. It constructed blockhouses the way one assembles prefabricated houses: “I will strike deals to construct these Block-Houses in America; they will arrive ready to be assembled and I will have them installed as I enter the region occupied by the Brigands.”45 Rochambeau’s confidence regarding

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The Cry of Vertières

these buildings seems unshakeable. His chief of staff, Officer Pierre Thouvenot, also assured the minister of the navy and the colonies that these blockhouses were “impregnable by Negroes.”46 The construction of blockhouses in Cap-Français intensified in February and March 1803 following an enemy attack on the Hôpital des Pères, located close to the south entrance of the city. Construction continued into the summer of 1803.47 Far from confirming the superiority of the French engineering service, a report prepared on 23 September by the French army informs us that many of these enclosures were poorly built, fragile, and often poorly positioned, in certain cases even unusable and unable to bear the weight of the cannons they were meant to house.48 This opinion seems to be widely shared, including by French officer Jean-Pierre Béchaud, who described the blockhouses as “fragile little forts.”49 In any case, Dessalines was not in the least worried, according to a French spy who wrote in a report delivered to Rochambeau just seven days before the Battle of Vertières: “In a meeting that took place, regarding the attack on Cap-Français, it was pointed out to him that the upper line of defence of Cap-Français was heavily fortified. He replied … that when the time came, he would make sure it would be impossible for the blockhouses to cause him harm.”50 Aware perhaps of the relative effectiveness of these theoretically impregnable structures, on 1 April 1803 General Clauzel ordered the fortification of the Vertières plantation, headquarters of Officer Michel Marie Claparède, in charge of defence at Haut-du-Cap.51 The plantation had to be not only “crenellated” but also “enclosed.” The decision to  make Vertières the nerve centre of defence for the southern entrance to the city was explained the next day by the chief of staff of the Clauzel division in a letter addressed to engineer commander Bouchard: “this post … links the first line to the second and may be seen as the mainspring of the army defending Cap-Français and its approaches.”52 Whoever took Vertières would most certainly take the city.53 Already, preparations for battle were underway. uRrU On 18 November at Vertières, site of the “house pierced with loopholes,” a brigade of French soldiers suffering from the extreme

Figure 3.1 Map of the French positions (including Vertières) on 18 November 1803.

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The Cry of Vertières

humidity were crouched in readiness.54 These soldiers, rare survivors of an epic that became Napoleon’s worst nightmare, long before the Russian campaign or the defeat at Waterloo, protected the road leading to the entrance of the city, symbolized by Barrière Bouteille, itself protected by a redan (fortification structure) and the Bel-Air blockhouse. Close to Vertières were several hillocks that overlooked it, including the one at Charrier, as well as blockhouses, including the one at Champin, located on the other side of the Haut-du-Cap road close to the river of the same name, whose usefulness was called into question by the French engineer commander.55 To the west, the majestic hillock of Cap-Français, “covered with wood and creeper on five sixths of its surface,”56 overlooked the post of Vertières. Down below stretched the harbour; on that day, some frigates and a dozen merchant ships could be found there.57 In the distance, close to the horizon, the British war fleet blocked the way. It positioned itself there about mid-July 1803, shortly after hostilities resumed between France and Great Britain.58 The city had been in a state of defence since approximately mid-September, “while the movements of the enemy indicated a certain and impending attack”59 and the gunshots at night kept the soldiers and the inhabitants on the alert.60 Should an imminent attack occur, the order was to equip the blockhouses with enough water and food supplies to keep them for at least fifteen days, long enough to obtain further reinforcements. Everything was planned, in theory, although we know that at Vertières, the French held out for less than twenty-four hours. The gunners brigade was placed on alert, but seemed insufficiently manned to meet the demand.61 The enemy’s land manoeuvres isolated the city and complicated efforts to provide fresh supplies. As early as 4 October, a resident named Henry declared in a letter that the inhabitants “were beginning to run short of food,” but that they swore they would eat “horses, cats and dogs before surrendering.”62 This information on the state of supplies in the city was corroborated by an order from General-inChief Rochambeau dated 5 October, aiming to reduce the bread ration from twenty-four to eighteen ounces.63 The situation was all the more tragic for the inhabitants as they were forbidden to leave the harbour – although there were many who tried to escape at night. On 10 October, Rochambeau ordered the commander of Petite-Anse, a village located

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across from Cap-Français, on the other side of the harbour, to plant “peas in all the cleared land … that can be effectively protected by our posts.”64 But it was too little too late. The French now controlled only a very small portion of the territory; the enemy “advanced in large numbers to the North plain” starting 7 October.65 He received the support of many black inhabitants of Cap-Français who fled the city for fear of being exterminated by the French.66 Supplies remained, but they were behind enemy lines, out of reach of the besieged French who, as Haitian author and politician Hérard Dumesle writes, appeared condemned to a new punishment, that of Tantalus.67 The 13 October assessment by the chief of staff was devastating: “Cap-Français is in crisis, no more flour or biscuits remain, for individuals who, unable to obtain supplies, are already experiencing … famine.”68 Trying to find a way out to locate food, for the men or the animals – the army needed to feed its mules that transported guns or structures for fortifications, not to mention the horses of the cavalry corps – was perilous, even suicidal. On 22 November, the most recent news was reported by an evacuee from Cap-Français named Précour, who was staying in the eastern part of the island, in what is now the Dominican Republic. The latest news was not very recent, but nonetheless very disturbing. “We have just had news from Cap-Français,” he said, “the chief now only appears surrounded by a guard, he made a sortie to find fodder, with sixty national guards, only thirteen of whom returned. The others were massacred; one was flayed and his skin was hung a half a league from Cap-Français.”69 Chaos was the rule and bodies served as signs. As if these horrors were not enough, the author of the letter reported on “a lot of people drowned to reduce consumption” and “several whites shot for conspiring with the Negroes.”70 Throughout the island, white soldiers, very aware of the weaknesses of the French, were indeed deserting and joining the “brigands.”71 The colour of the people drowned is not specified, but there is little doubt they were black, as were the thousands of former slaves and free Blacks who had fallen victim to mass drownings since the fall of 1802 and even before. The drowned were probably selected from the enemy prisoners. While these prisoners sometimes proved useful, for instance, when it was necessary to fill crews on vessels72 or build up the city’s defence,73 as time went by, they came to be seen as “useless” mouths to feed.74 So

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The Cry of Vertières

they had to “take them on board,” (les embarquer), a euphemism used by French soldiers indicating execution by drowning (see chapter 7). On 4 September, the commander of Cap-Français announced to General Rochambeau that the day before he had “gotten thirtysix Negroes or mulattoes on board.” On 23 September, during the night, “thirty Negroes” suffered the same fate, and the following night, fifteen others.75 The fear that reigned and the trauma of the loss of Saint-Domingue were seen as justifying the unlimited violence perpetrated not only at night but also out of sight. Several public executions took place in the daytime in the weeks preceding the ultimate battle. There was always a good excuse to hang or shoot the black enemy, whether deemed a “Negro spy”76 or some other form of threat, particularly religious. On 6 September 1803, for example, “Godard Joseph” was hanged. Not only had he wanted to “go over to the brigands” but he was also a “great master of the order of voodoo.”77 Was not voodoo but “an obscene dance to encourage murder?” stated by Pierre Morange, a tradesperson from Cap-Français who was reassured by the execution.78 The Other, the Black, was drowned or hanged to allow the White to survive a little longer, before in turn dying of yellow fever or hunger, or during an ambush. When a White was taken prisoner in such an ambush, the reprisals appalled the French. A man named Kerpoisson, responsible for drownings of Blacks during the siege of the city of Les Cayes in the South, seemed to have paid for this. After crucifying him, the soldiers of the indigenous army hung a sign from his neck on which were written following words, excerpted from Voltaire’s Tragedy of Semiramis: “There are, then, crimes which the angry gods never forgive!”79 This crucifixion, reported after the war by an inhabitant of the South, contains a significant symbolic reversal. The White is no longer a descendent of “Jesus, the Nazarene, King of the Jews,” as indicated by the cross of Christ, but the earthly embodiment of the Devil, the one who will burn in hell for eternity. For most of the soldiers still present in Cap-Français around 18 November, hell was embodied instead by the hospitals, true “caverns of death,” according to Jean-Pierre Béchaud, a French officer whose letters written in Saint-Domingue have recently been acquired and placed online by the John Carter Brown Library.80 The general-in-chief

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proved him right. On 11 November, Rochambeau recorded a monthly loss of 600 men – about 20 a day: 300 dead and the other half in hospital. The sick, dispersed primarily between the two main hospitals of Cap-Français, the Hôpital des Pères and the Hôpital de la Providence, and to a lesser extent the Hôpital Durand, did not survive very long. At the Hôpital de la Providence, a home founded in the 1740s to provide for the needs of the poor, vagrants, and the incurably ill, a third of the wounded or those with fever who died in the month of Brumaire (from 24 October to 22 November) spent fewer than ten days in the hospital, and the remaining two-thirds less than a month.81 The same finding applies for the Hôpital Durand. On 7 October, Captain Silvain Bayorque was admitted to emergency. At eleven in the morning he was declared dead. On 19 October, it was Lieutenant Jean Dumesnil’s turn to be taken to the hospital. Two days later, at nine at night, the officer breathed his last.82 While the reprieve was a little longer at the Hôpital des Pères (one patient out of two who died during the month of Brumaire stayed at the hospital for more than two months), this was unquestionably one of the most dismal places on the island. Between March and November 1803, more than 1,200 soldiers died there.83 In July and August, on average seven deaths were recorded daily in the registers (6.3 at the Hôpital de la Providence). In November, the average was six deaths per day (4.1 at the Hôpital de la Providence). A witness, a pharmacist enlisted in the French army, summed up the sanitary condition at the Hôpital des Pères as follows: “I am breathing only death.”84 The tragic situation of the French hospitals on 18 November 1803 was not new and had been going on since the beginning of the expedition, in Cap-Français and elsewhere in the colony, in Môle-Saint-Nicolas, in Les Cayes, in Port-au-Prince, and on Tortuga Island. Meant to embody the superiority and order of the French colonial power, the hospitals, those “respectable and holy asylums in civilized nations,”85 according to one officer, were centres of infection that killed all those sent there, whether French, Polish, Hungarian, German, or Spanish. Whites, but also Blacks, like the mulatto nurse from Martinique, the Black from Marie-Galante, or a prisoner named Joseph “d’Affrique” (from Africa) were recorded in the death registers of the Hôpital de la Providence.86

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The Cry of Vertières

There were many signs of the disorder that reigned in the hospitals. Sometimes, several of the sick shared the same bed. Medical necessities were in short supply, as was food, which was often spoiled. Nurses were few. At the Hôpital Durand in Cap-Français, “the sick [hospitalized in late April 1803] were forced to leave their beds to escape the rain, which managed to enter through the roof.87 Dampness was not the only problem. The wind also hammered away at the hospitals. For example, on 13 July 1803, “a violent storm … caused the room containing the wounded at the Hôpital general du Cap to collapse entirely.”88 The accident left one person dead and twenty-five others wounded. Whether or not the wind blew, basic hygienic practices were not followed. The Chevalier de Fréminville, for example, provides a particularly devastating description of the living conditions of the wounded. In his room at the Hôpital SaintLouis, Fréminville observed that “processions of lizards and land crabs, in thousands, came out of the woodwork, wandering right over to me,” not to mention the “clouds of mosquitoes” that turned his stay into an ordeal.89 Jean-Pierre Béchaud was no less critical. Among other things, he lamented the impact of the situation on the morale of the troops and described those guilty of such anarchy as “monsters.” No meat, wine, or broth for the ill.90 At best, a few “bamboo pallets” served as mattresses. In Saint-Domingue, “[the soldier] is constantly between life and death and closer to the latter than to the former.”91 The hospital registers preserved at the Archives nationales d’outremer (Overseas national archives in Aix-en-Provence), and the many reports regularly sent to the chief of staff, today preserved at the Service historique de la Défense in Vincennes, provide overwhelming evidence of this situation. During this time, despite all the horrors affecting the bodies and shattering the souls of Napoleon’s soldiers, some tried, in the weeks preceding 18 November 1803, to continue to live a carefree life, giving balls, going to the theatre, selling sections of walls of houses that had been set on fire – as if Saint-Domingue still existed, as if Haiti could never come into being.92 On 29 September 1803, the three-act comedy La belle fermière by playwright Julie Candeille was performed in Cap-Français.93 On 20 October, a Molière comedy, Le dépit amoureux, was performed. Cap-Français was enjoying itself while the post of Vertières and the nearby fortifications prepared for death and those

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with fever drew their last breath in a hospital. On 27 October, less than three weeks before the battle, Les battus paient l’amende (The beaten pay the fine) was staged. A morality play by Louis-François Archambault, also known as Dorvigny, first performed in France in 1779, it features a shop boy by the name of Janot and recounts his misadventures, which illustrate the proverb suggested by the play’s title:94 often it is the weakest and the victims who must pay, when they should be compensated. Difficult, of course, not to see an evocation here of the great battle to come; the future beaten were actually in the theatre on the evening of the performance. Most ironically, it was the victors, the Haitians, who had to pay the real fine, in 1825, in order to be recognized by France. uRrU Less than three weeks before 18 November, when the situation for the French troops was desperate, General Ferrand suggested trying to ally himself with the mulatto general Augustin Clervaux in order to divide the enemy between them.95 After this strategy failed, the French chief, on 10 November, ordered the construction of new fortifications, still attempting to delay the inevitable surrender. Time was short, yet the workers refused to do anything.96 Soldiers were needed at the front and the chief of staff was struggling to meet the demands for reinforcements flooding in from all sides. On 12 November, the head doctor ordered that brandy and tafia be distributed to the troops, officially to “restore the sweat lost, in this season, from the sudden transition from the heat to the damp cold.” Or was it more to raise the spirits of the troops before the final assault and defeat?97 While famine lurked (in a letter dated 12 October, the chief of staff spoke of a “hideous famine,”98) and the end drew near, alcohol may have at least calmed people’s souls, pacified their fears, and perhaps curtailed the enthusiasm of the deserters. In the city, some of the merchants no longer seemed to want the French presence. An informer even heard a notable utter the following: “Well, what do the French matter to us, let them leave!”99 On 14 November, a spy in the pay of Rochambeau reported that “the brigands were busy working the lines of communication near the hillock, where they must transport guns.”100 On 15 November,

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they learned that the indigenous army was taking up their position. The same day, the living conditions in the blockhouses, which were supposed to protect soldiers from the harsh climate and keep them in good health, deteriorated. In Vertières, they asked for about forty more planks, as the soldiers were sleeping directly on the very damp ground.101 The rain had continued to fall since 6 November, when Dessalines arrived at the plain of Cap-Français.102 Some blockhouses urgently requested repairs to their ladders. Disorganization reigned; the soldiers realized, too late, that the loopholes of Fort Picolet were poorly positioned and therefore useless. At Fort Picolet, “munitions were totally lacking,” according to ship’s captain Henri Barrré.103 In any case, an engineering report had deemed the city undefendable unless a “continuous wall” were built to surround it.104 On the night of 17–18 November, the indigenous troops readied themselves. In addition to Dessalines, Capois, and Christophe, the list of important figures included division generals Augustin Clervaux, André Vernet, and Paul Gabart; brigadier generals Pierre Cangé, Jacques Romain, and Jean-Philippe Daut; squadron leader Paul Prompt; and Colonel Philippe Guerrier, from the 7th demi-brigade. The indigenous army was comprised of fifteen demi-brigades and three cavalry squadrons. The French saw in them “hoards of fierce Africans.”105 The soldiers of the indigenous army, however, were only struggling for recognition of their legitimate right to life, liberty, and citizenship. What did the soldiers look like? How were they dressed and armed? While we have a few prints depicting black soldiers when they were still part of the French army, before their desertion, information about the clothes and weapons of those who took part in the Battle of Vertières is scarce.106 Weapons and ammunition came from at least two possible sources: deserted or conquered French depots (such as in Port-de-Paix or Port-Républicain, today Port-au-Prince) or the English, once again at war with France. While the English blocked the island’s ports and prevented the French from replenishing their supplies, they began trading with the black army by supplying it with weapons and perhaps clothing. Tradition has it, according to historian Thomas Madiou, that the soldiers of the indigenous army were “almost naked [and that they had] goat-skin haversacks, military pouches, and straw hats.” As for the non-commissioned officers, they were “without tops or shirts.”107 All of that is undoubtedly true, but

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only partly, for Madiou probably sought to magnify the heroism of these combatants by implying that virtue, courage, and uprightness did not require colourful uniforms or sharpened swords. Many “Haitian” soldiers in fact must have been barefoot, as the shortage of shoes was not a new circumstance.108 However, several sources indicate that the soldiers of the indigenous army were probably not that poorly dressed. In a letter to Cap-Français headquarters, the French chief of staff of the northern division stated that in the fall of 1803, shortly before the Battle of Vertières, the soldiers of Dessalines and Christophe “were perfectly dressed.”109 A report on the evacuation of the city of Jérémie in early August 1803, sent to Cap-Français a few days before 18 November 1803, explains that the soldiers of Dessalines’s army found “in the stores of that Place [the city of Jérémie] weapons and articles of clothing.”110 Well-dressed or not, Dessalines and his army attacked on 18 November 1803 “at daybreak.”111 It was in Vertières, where the reserve of the French army was located, that “the main and bloodiest attack of that day” occurred, led “with furor” according to Rochambeau.112 On the indigenous side, the estimated size of the forces varied widely: from 8,000 to 10,000,113 “at least 15,000,” 114 and alternately 17,000 men.115 Thomas Madiou estimated Dessalines’s forces assembled behind Cap-Français at approximately 27,000 soldiers.116 On the French side, one source mentions approximately 2,400 men; another only 1,500 soldiers capable of “firing guns,” that is, capable of fighting.117 All, whether or not deemed to be in a condition to fight, were described by a French witness as “walking skeletons.” That appears to be the case for some 300 soldiers who made up the garrison posted at Vertières. Even the elite soldiers suffered from exhaustion: “we have seen in this affair,” we learn from a French source, “Guard Grenadiers forced to sit down to load their weapons.” Some, perhaps, “had fever,” such as the two soldiers, Jean Brun and Jean-Baptiste Mathé, admitted to the Hôpital de la Providence on the day of the battle.118 The attack on Vertières was led by Brigadier General François Capois, whose troops were initially defeated several times at the foot of the post. The soldiers fell, hit by French cannons. Capois, apparently unshakeable even when a cannonball killed his horse and another projectile carried away his hat, was supported by the troops of the generals of the Vernet and Clervaux divisions, then by

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the battalions of Brigadier General Jean-Philippe Daut. Dessalines’s objective was twofold: to attack the city on several fronts in order to divide and weaken the French fire, and to occupy the Butte Charrier in order to shell Vertières, located below. The manoeuvre was perilous: many lost their lives there. An inhabitant of Cap-Français spoke of at least 1,000 dead or wounded on the Haitian side in less than two hours, which also corresponded to the figure given by Rochambeau, who estimated the French losses at approximately 150 men.119 While the Haitian generals tried to outdo one another in bravery, historiography mainly crowned the courage of General Capois at the head of his 9th demi-brigade. Thomas Madiou even recounts how his attacks on Vertières were briefly interrupted at the request of the French, so that they could congratulate him for his warlike zeal (see chapter 1). While the episode in question is probably part of Haitian national mythology, the fact remains that Rochambeau offered a horse to Dessalines and another to Capois in recognition of their courage.120 At five o’clock in the afternoon,121 the fighting ceased. Vertières staggered under indigenous fire from Charrier, which was occupied by the black army at the cost of many lives. According to one witness, an explosion inside the plantation put “seventeen men out of fighting, nine of whom were killed, and ended up setting fire to the house.”122 Vertières, according to Rochambeau, was “surrounded on all sides.”123 Saint-Domingue was no more; naval lieutenant Babron could only admit, making himself the spokesman of the defeated French: “This unfortunate day has decided the fate of the colony.”124 The French posts, including Vertières, were evacuated during the night of 18–19 November. The French death throes would last another ten days, time enough to prepare the evacuation, to which Rochambeau and Dessalines agreed on Saturday, 19 November. On the morning of 29 November, a half hour after the embarkation of the last troops assembled in the harbour of Cap-Français, naval lieutenant Babron reported that “the indigenous army made its entrance into the city to the sound of loud music.” The following day, at seven in the morning, the French flotilla was found in front of Fort Picolet, at the entrance to the harbour. Babron again witnessed the scene. “The parapets and bastions of the fort were filled with Negroes,” he tells us. The insults flew, symbolic of the reversal of the racial dynamic. From atop Fort

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Picolet, the indigenous army shouted words to the French down below whose irony could not have gone unnoticed. “Leave, leave, you French brigands … Take to the ocean, may it swallow you up … this evening we will drown your sick and your wounded.”125 The “brigands” become masters threatened in turn to resort to the same procedures.126 By drowning soldiers on a massive scale, the French army had denied the rebel Blacks the fundamental right to life. The indigenous army promised to avenge itself in the same way. uRrU Late November 1803: the roles were reversed. The “brigands” occupied the former bastion of the “masters,” Fort Picolet, while the latter left the colony of Saint-Domingue for good. This role reversal concluded three centuries of slavery and of brutal colonization, putting an end to a fratricidal war. Finally, it sounded the death knell of the French authorities’ stubborn refusal to grant black women and men the enjoyment of the most basic human rights, notably the right to life. The apocalyptic events recounted in this chapter will perhaps give an impression of unreality to the reader as they are not widely known outside of Haiti and, more specifically, in France, even though that country was most affected. How to explain to the reader the existence of such a discrepancy between historical facts and the version that persisted through the centuries? Why have these events remained in the shadows? To attempt to answer these questions, we must temporarily leave the city of Cap-Français, abandon its majestic hills, and cross the Atlantic Ocean to follow those who survived Vertières. We will stop first in Vincennes and in Paris, where the military archives of the Napoleonic period are kept. When the French left the Paris of the Antilles on 29 November 1803, they were careful to take with them their archives, maps, and hospital reports: these documents could prove useful for soldiers seeking to obtain a pension or a reward, for they provided proof of their contribution to the war effort. They could also help officers returning to Paris to explain their retreat. The French also took their correspondence and espionage reports with them, probably because these papers contained disturbing traces of a traumatic war to be consigned into oblivion – particularly its very last hours, at Vertières, the most shameful of all.

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The History of a Word That Doesn’t Really Exist

The Château de Vincennes. Gendarmes pace up and down the courtyard lined with buildings that resemble barracks. It is July, and the light is blinding, as if to impose humility upon the visitor. The cobblestones make walking difficult. The stones are lovely and the layout symmetrical; everything commands respect. I am searching for traces that have been concealed. The object of my quest is called the “Saint-Domingue expedition,” “series B7.” Twenty-seven boxes; military correspondence, general orders, copies of letters, proclamations, decrees, a few copies of newspapers, and military reports. They speak of confusion to sort out, the glory of the French, and of the supposed “brigands” headed by Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the father of the Haitian nation. They speak of a “dictator,” Toussaint Louverture. Colonial racism is implicit in each of the documents made available to me. The further I research, the more I come up against confusion: deaths, cats and dogs fed to starving soldiers, suicides in the streets of Port-au-Prince while the French are besieged, desertions, conflicts between officers, intrigues, and toadying. Among the acts of bravado and the apocalyptic accounts, series B7 tells the story of a slow descent into hell, today covered up in France. So, in the space for “research topic” on the form I have to fill out at the reader registration desk, I write down these words: “SaintDomingue expedition.” This is the accepted wording. It would have been more accurate to write “embarrassing traces” or “Battle of Vertières.” But to what end? Why recall this “battle” that does not exist in French memory?

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Figure 4.1 “Portrait” of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, version by Jean-Louis Dubroca, 1806.

The reading room is located at the back right of the complex beyond the Sainte-Chapelle, on the first floor. It is called the Louis XIV Room: sixty-five seats in neat rows, assigned by a gendarme at the entrance. At the back of the room stands the imposing statue of General Joseph Galliéni, a work by the sculptor and creator of patriotic monuments Auguste Maillard, who died in 1944. On more than one occasion, I mistook the statue for the gendarme on duty that day.

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Galliéni played a central role in shaping the French colonial world in Africa and Indochina. His presence lends a touch of irony to my research. An apologist of colonialism under the Third Republic, a representative of French “civilization,” the general of an expedition that spread republican racism, and the man responsible for the “pacification” of Madagascar in the late nineteenth century, Galliéni appears to survey the small group of researchers of which I am a part. A century earlier, Galliéni could very well have been assigned the duties of Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc or Donatien-MarieJoseph de Rochambeau. The “pacification” of Saint-Domingue is but a short step from that of Madagascar. The two have been kept out of the official French account. Both witnessed the same evil: racism, violence, and the denial of basic human rights. Who today knows of Galliéni in Madagascar at the very end of the nineteenth century and his “work of pacification” (the expression comes from a recent article that appeared in Doctrine tactique, the official journal of the “doctrinal community of the army”)? The colony must not be lost, people said at the time. When Leclerc, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, was sent to Saint-Domingue in 1802, the objective was the same. The Louis XIV Room is located at the top of a large staircase. Ascending it, visitors are reminded of the French army’s moments of glory by two huge frescoes that face each another. To the right, as one ascends, triumphant soldiers march through the streets of Paris, bringing enemy flags captured at Ulm and Austerlitz to the Senate. At the windows, the people of Paris rejoice. The work, entitled Remise au Sénat des trophées d’Ulm et d’Austerlitz le 1er janvier 1806 (Presentation of the trophies at the Senate after the battles of Ulm and Austerlitz on 1 January 1806), is by Édouard Detaille and was installed in 1908: some 6.4 by 4.6 metres of pure military glory, at a time that marked the triumph of France and its new colonial empire. To the left is a second work by the same painter, entitled Obsèques du general Comte de Damrémont devant la brèche de Constantine le 18 octobre 1837 (Funeral of the General Count of Damrémont in front of the breach of Constantine on 18 October 1837). Another symbol of colonial France, the trails of which were also drenched with “impure” blood. The fresco calls to mind the very violent French campaign

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to colonize Algeria. Although they failed in Saint-Domingue, the French had an empire in Africa. Surrounded by soldiers, and beneath the gaze of a general, I search here for the traces of colonial trauma. Morning and evening, I walk past frescoes celebrating glory that was bathed in blood, glory that was built on graves and on murders that were covered up. uRrU Vertières: an innocuous-looking nine-letter word. A heady word due to the alliteration of the [r] sound and the assonance of the [è] sound. Two rather rounded syllables that appear reassuring, like the small French village of the same name in the department of Doubs, in the heart of Franche-Comté.1 Of course we are not dealing here with that village or its sixteenth-century château, but with a reality not really recognized in France. At least not if we rely on dictionaries. The 1993 edition of the renowned Robert des noms propres, with which I grew up and studied, has an entry for Marcel Vertès, “French painter and engraver, of Hungarian origin,” who illustrated La Vagabonde by the novelist Colette, and another for the city of Vertou, “an administrative centre in the Loire-Atlantique department.”2 But nothing for Vertières. Mention is made of an administrative centre of a canton of some 15,000 inhabitants, but nothing is said about an event central to the history of western colonization, the history of Haiti, and the history of France. Unfortunately, the 1993 edition is not an exception to the rule. Vertières has been an unknown word in the Robert des noms propres since the publication’s first appearance in 1974 and up to the most recent one consulted, the 2012 anniversary edition.3 And it’s useless to look under the entry “Haïti, n.m.”4 Prior to 1994, the history of the colonial era and the Revolution is barely mentioned there, as opposed to more contemporary times, especially starting with the accession to power of François Duvalier, the famous Papa Doc.5 We merely learn that “Dessalines drove away the French and proclaimed independence in 1804.” Nothing is said about the context in which this departure occurred and the traces it left, and we will see in chapter 6 that the use of the verb “to drive away” (chasser) is not innocuous:

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it is actually the term French soldiers used in their correspondence regarding the black enemy. Starting with the 1994 edition, the history of Haiti, henceforth to be found in the entry “Haïti, off. république d’Haïti,” now begins only in 1806, with the assassination of Dessalines and the division of the island in two, the kingdom of Christophe in the North and the republic of Pétion in the South. Colonial history, as well as the forced and hasty departure of the French, has been moved to a new article titled “Haïti, de Ayti, ‘montagne dans la mer’ ” (Haiti, from Ayti, “mountain in the sea.”) Not surprisingly, the entry for Saint-Domingue does not provide any more information. This former French colony, the richest of its time, is described here as vaguely as possible: “Former name of the Republic of Haiti, first named Hispaniola”6 (emphasis added). The uninformed reader may reasonably remain unaware of the French colonial past of this part of an island that is known today as one of the poorest countries in the Americas. How could there have been a War of Independence, a “Saint-Domingue expedition” organized by Napoleon, or even a Battle of Vertières on 18 November 1803, as Saint-Domingue is only a name, the former name of Haiti? The word “Vertières” does appear in the Encyclopédie Universalis for the entry “Haïti,” written by Haitian geographer Jean-Marie Théodat: “The [Haitian] War of Independence ended with the Battle of Vertières on 18 November 1803. On 1 January 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed the independence of Haiti at Place d’armes in Gonaïves.”7 However, the reader learns nothing else about the place of the battle, its strategic importance, or what it symbolizes. Vertières is but an outcome and the prelude to a new reality.8 In France, the silence surrounding Vertières is not limited to dictionaries. It is virtually universal. Historian Marcel Dorigny observes as much when he states that the “French colonial problem” probably stems from the trauma of defeat at the hands of the Blacks in November 1803. This silence also impacted textbooks: “Today, what general history textbook on the Napoleonic period recalls the Battle of Vertières (18 November 1803), the first major defeat of Napoleon’s troops?”9 Apparently nothing has changed since 2005, the year Dorigny’s comments were published. The same absence may be observed in electronic support material for research and teaching. A revealing example is the website

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entitled 1789–1939: l’histoire par l’image (history through images), an initiative of the Réunion des musées nationaux in collaboration with the Department of Heritage. The site offers, predictably, an “Hors-série Napoléon Bonaparte” (A Napoleon Bonaparte special edition) consisting of eighty studies, six of which are on the battles of the Empire: Trafalgar, Austerlitz, Iéna, Eylau, Somo-Sierra, and Waterloo.10 Vertières, one of the most significant battles of the period, is not included, nor is the Saint-Domingue expedition – also called, in its first stage, the Leclerc expedition, and later the Rochambeau expedition  – that concluded Vertières. The expedition is only mentioned on this website in a related article about Jean-Baptiste Belley, a former slave and black deputy from Saint-Domingue at the National Convention who took part in the expedition before being arrested and imprisoned at Belle-Île-en-Mer, includes mention of the secret instructions given by Bonaparte to Captain-General Leclerc in October 1801.11 This silence has even managed to find its way into publications by specialists. One example is the cover of a book edited by Gérald Barthélémy and Christian Giraud, La République haïtienne: État des lieux et perspectives, and published in 1993. On it, three young people are seated in front of a mural. Two of them are looking past the image, while the third seems to be staring at the photograph. And what does the caption say? “Cover: youths from the Bel-Air neighbourhood (Port-au-Prince) in front of a mural depicting heroes of Haitian history. Photo: Jean-Claude Pattacini.” All that is true, but extremely vague, as indicated by the lack of definite article before the word “heroes.” It is in fact a reproduction of a monument to the heroes of Vertières, a bronze sculpture installed in Cap-Haïtien in 1954 (which is discussed in chapter 9). Four soldiers stand proudly, scanning the horizon, alongside two other figures seated close to a horse and soldier who have been shot. While seemingly insignificant, the vagueness of the caption continues to preserve the silence surrounding the battle of Friday, 18 November 1803. Its existence is not confirmed in dictionaries, nor in specialized works.12 In terms of the battle and the outcome of the Saint-Domingue expedition, the events at Vertières have been and largely remain excluded from French historical writings. Perhaps for a practical reason: sources are lacking to describe precisely the unfolding of

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events of 18 November as most of the eyewitnesses died or left Cap-Français before the final confrontation. All that remained were a few troops in very poor condition, and a few thousand inhabitants wedged between the mountain range of Haut-du-Cap and the Atlantic Ocean. Sergeant Major Philippe Beaudoin, for example, left Cap-Français for Port-de-Paix and Môle-Saint-Nicolas before the final assault.13 Even in the case of the evacuation of Môle, the last post to be evacuated by the French, Sergeant Beaudoin gives very few details except for a supposed love affair with a mulatto who tended to him when he had yellow fever. Therefore, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction, since for many years after the events, the sergeant probably wanted to distract his readers or listeners by using the sexual cliché of mulatto women to highlight his seductive powers. Captain of the grenadiers Joseph Élisée Peyre-Ferry, whose manuscript account, kept in the city of Toulon’s archives, was recently published under the title Journal des opérations militaires de l’armée française à Saint-Domingue, 1802–1803, managed to sail for France in March 1803, before the situation became absolutely desperate for the French.14 The same applies to Michel Étienne Descourtilz, a botanist with economic interests in Saint-Domingue who arrived on the island in 1798 when Toussaint Louverture was consolidating his power there. He left Saint-Domingue shortly after the famous Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot in April 1802, up until which point he remained a prisoner of Dessalines and, despite himself, worked as a doctor for the black army.15 Mémoires pour servir l’histoire de la révolution de Saint-Domingue, published in 1819 by Lieutenant-General Pamphile de Lacroix, who also took part in the Saint-Domingue expedition, stops short at the descent into hell that resulted in the Battle of Vertières and the evacuation of Cap-Français. After describing the Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot, lamenting the torture perpetrated by the French – torture that, to his mind, fuelled the “war of colour” – and recalling the death of General Leclerc in November 1802, the account stops. A long silence follows that speaks volumes about the events that happened next. Pamphile de Lacroix justifies it: “The dreadful events that followed the death of Captain-General Leclerc are too close to us to be able to be delivered in detail to the field of history; time has not sufficiently

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quieted the tears and healed the wounds; the truth would strike fresh wounds and would revive the pain of two hemispheres. Too great a knowledge of the past, instead of serving the future, would perhaps prevent rapprochement now.”16 He concludes by proposing to “draw a gloomy veil over this most recent period in history,” because it is important to “try to forget the details of these horrible links that shame both humanity and politics.” Thus, we learn nothing of the Battle of Vertières: the author speaks only of the evacuation of Cap-Français. Pamphile de Lacroix’s silence is justified by the need to maintain his integrity, not only physical and psychological but also in the diplomatic context of negotiations between France and its former colony with a view to normalizing relations between the two countries. Nevertheless, he clearly pinpoints the problem: there was indeed “grief” shared by “two hemispheres.” In any case, had Beaudoin, Peyre-Ferry, Descourtilz, and Pamphile de Lacroix been present during the final attack on the post of Vertières, there is a strong chance that their accounts would have been censored or covered up. As soon as the defeat became known in France, discursive strategies were put in place aimed at hiding the extent and the conditions of the retreat.17 “The Blacks of Saint-Domingue,” although victors, experienced “the dreadful ordeal of French power,” reported the Journal des débats published on 23 February 1804. This “power” was even “profoundly etched for several years in their minds.”18 At the same time, Dessalines was demonized and described as a torturer who “delighted” in the unspeakable suffering inflicted upon the Whites who remained in Cap-Français after 18 November 1803.19 Far from being a general worthy of respect, capable of leading his troops to legitimate victory, the leader of the black army is depicted in the press as a pawn of the British who, from the sidelines, called the shots.20 It was the British, in addition to the diseases,21 that were really to blame. In Saint-Domingue, the British enemy sunk so low as to throw fighting dogs at the French army.22 On the contrary, as we will see in chapter 6, it was the army of Leclerc and Rochambeau that considered that option. As for the Blacks uninvolved in the conflict, they only awaited the return of their French guardians.23 When the silence was occasionally broken several years after the battle of 18 November 1803, it was to better downplay the event and deny its symbolic importance. In 1819, for example, Count Mathieu

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Dumas, strongman of the consulate and the Empire, published the eighth volume of his Précis des événements militaires ou essais historiques sur les campagnes de 1799 à 1814. The Battle of Vertières is furtively mentioned at the end of the volume: “[Dessalines] took a month to make his preparations. On 18 November 1803, he appeared before the place [Cap-Français] with 15,000 men: his frequent and rapid attacks were repelled with the greatest vigour; but the French troops were exhausted and supplies had already begun to run low.”24 In the first place, we note that the proper name “Vertières” has disappeared from the account of events. Second, the exact duration of the battle is not stated, nor is the date on which the French troops capitulated. Over what period of time did the “lively and frequent attacks” occur? A day, a week? Finally, no mention is made of the bravery of the Haitian combatants, which General Rochambeau himself acknowledged. The defeat is only attributed to the exhaustion and hunger of the troops. The account of events contained in Victoires, conquêtes, désastres, revers et guerres civiles des Français, de 1792 à 1815, par une Société de militaires et de gens de lettres, also published in 1819, has the same unfortunate tendency to distort the facts. It appears truly inconceivable to acknowledge the superiority of former slaves, and of the Blacks in general: “Dessalines … gathered together all his means to reduce Môle-Saint-Nicolas and the city of Cap-Français … He appeared, with fifteen thousand men, before Cap-Français … General Rochambeau  … vigorously repelled the repeated attacks of the blacks … The French general, leading his staff and a few other brave men, charged the enemy and relieved Generals Lapoype and Pageot, surrounded at the post of Vertières. But famine was beginning to take hold of the city; the troops [were] exhausted.”25 This time, no date is mentioned and the attacks of Brigadier General Capois against the fort of Vertières are skilfully ignored. France could only lose due to illness, exhaustion, and famine. In other words, even 15,000 men in good health, accustomed to the climate, would not, without assistance, have been able to drive away the courageous Frenchmen from their posts. As if historical distortion were not enough, volume 26 of the same Victoires simply reinvents Vertières. In the “Table géographique des batailles, des combats, des villes assiégées, etc.,” the place is described

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as a “post on the island of Saint-Domingue, close to Cap-Français, taken from the Blacks, in 1803.”26 We find it difficult to imagine a greater distortion when we know that French troops were evacuated from Vertières on the evening of 18 November. The damage is done: the traces of the trauma of Saint-Domingue are obliterated, the issue confused. The propaganda and cover-up perhaps peaked with the 1845 publication of the fourth volume of the Histoire du consulat et de l’empire faisant suite à l’histoire de la Révolution française, by historian and politician Adolphe Thiers, the first president of the Third Republic and one of the men responsible for the massacre of the Commune in 1871. He simply omitted to speak of the end of the Saint-Domingue expedition, arguing that in his eyes it was time to “end these gloomy accounts, in which history no longer has anything useful to glean.”27 Yet the archives – from Aix-en-Provence to Vincennes by way of Paris – are filled with documents, not widely read or analyzed. In Thiers’s work, the reader simply learns that the “French, shut up in Cap-Français, Port-au-Prince, and Les Cayes, barely defended themselves against the united blacks and mulattoes.”28 In the same vein, though written a little later, in 1899, is the Histoire militaire de la revolution de Saint-Domingue, by Gironde native Colonel Isidore Henry de Poyen-Bellisle. The “combat de Vertières” (battle of Vertières) or “attaque générale des lignes du Cap” (general attack of the Cap-Français lines) – the expression the author prefers – were “among the liveliest fought in the colony.” Unsurprisingly, de PoyenBellisle provides a more-than-flattering image of French courage and conceals the heroism of the indigenous troops. General Capois, hero par excellence of the battle, at the head of his 9th demi-brigade, is not mentioned; we learn only that “the Negroes, in quick succession, perpetrated four violent attacks and were still repelled.” Not very surprising from the mouth of an author who describes the Haitian army as “fierce and excited Negroes.”29 This work, like those preceding it, reflects a strategy developed in the nineteenth century that aimed to gloss over as much as possible the defeat of Vertières, dated in this case as 16 November by de Poyen-Bellisle.30 The battle conflicts with the history of a France that was then building a new colonial empire in Africa and trying to silence former slaves in its colonies, who were freed in 1848. De Poyen-Bellisle’s version, to quote an excerpt from

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the Historiographie d’Haïti by Catts Pressoir and Ernst and Henock Trouillot, is “the official version of the French Republic; Colonel de Poyen was asked to create a scientific work on the Revolution of SaintDomingue that would be used to teach cadets in military schools.”31 These avoidance strategies made it possible, very early in the nineteenth century, to conceal the severing represented by the Battle of Vertières. These strategies – omission, chronological vagueness, references to causes exogenous to the black army, rewriting of historic facts, and the demonization of the enemy – have also been used, to varying degrees, in the twentieth century. In the 1950s, for example, the French press made practically no mention of the major celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the battle of Haitian independence. Newspaper coverage in the former mother country was limited to two briefs published in Le Monde on 1, 3, and 4 January 1954, at the precise moment when the French colonial empire was beginning to crack, in Diên Biên Phu, but also in North Africa. Would it have been traumatic to also remind people of the great defeat of the Napoleonic empire in Haiti? Whether the result of self-censorship, external censorship, or even “forgetfulness,” the French silence surrounding the celebrations of 1953 and 1954 was not limited to newspapers. It also occurred in a series of eight radio broadcasts titled Visages d’Haïti, broadcast on the Chaîne Parisienne in the summer of 1954. While the second broadcast did feature Mauclair Zéphirin, the Haitian secretary of state for the presidency and for religious affairs, who was also president of the Comité du tricinquantenaire (Committee for the 150th anniversary), listeners heard no details about the scope of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary, and nothing was said about the monument honouring the heroes of Vertières – the aforementioned bronze sculpture – installed in Cap-Haïtien late in 1953.32 On broadcast after broadcast, the Republic of Haiti was presented as a francophone, Catholic country “linked” to France: the people were “hospitable and kind,” lovers of music and entertainment.33 No mention was made of the history of slavery in Haiti or the role of slaves in the Revolution or in the struggle for independence. The concealment of traces remained the rule at the time, regardless of what sources are consulted. The French ambassador in Port-au-Prince in 1953 played a key role in the process. He objected,

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for instance, to screening a film in Port-au-Prince that recounted the revolt of Spartacus (which, to his mind, would recall the slave rebellion in Saint-Domingue) and actively dissuaded a film producer from doing a screen adaptation of Bug-Jargal, a novel by Victor Hugo dealing with the Haitian Revolution.34 In his opinion, “it would be far more interesting to contemplate shooting a film on Haiti’s natural beauty, rather than re-enact on the screen the often gruesome struggles that bathed the former Saint-Domingue in blood.” To hear him, why portray “some excesses of French colonists against their slaves, and the dreadful revenge the slaves then took?”35 The French ambassador did not merely minimize the violence of the French colonists by contrasting their simple “excesses” with the “dreadful vengeance” of the indigenous; he also took on the mission of censoring the major Haitian textbook that committed the “error” of quoting the entire proclamation of independence written by Dessalines’s secretary, Boisrond-Tonnerre, and in which we read that “the French name stills weighs down” the Haitian territory. Boisrond-Tonnerre, according to the ambassador, was but a common “drunkard.”36 Strategies aiming to cover up and erase the traces of the Battle of Vertières, and of the broader period of the War of Independence, have also been used more recently, including by those working tirelessly to enhance the Napoleonic myth. For example, in a long biography titled Le general Leclerc (1772–1802) et l’expédition de Saint-Domingue, Napoleon specialist Henri Mézière informs us that “Rochambeau capitulated on 8 November 1803, one year after Leclerc’s death, before Dessalines, who was financially supported and supplied with weapons and ammunition by the British and the Americans.”37 No Vertières in this account, unsurprisingly, but an insidious remark about the financial and material support received by Dessalines. No bravery or military strategy, but an alliance against Napoleon, without which Dessalines would have been powerless. Note that in addition to concealing the final great battle of the War of Independence, the author dates Vertières back to 8 November, instead of 18. This date-related problem is not exceptional and not solely due to French historians. It is even the norm. Madison Smartt Bell, author of a romance biography of Toussaint Louverture and a trilogy on the Haitian Revolution, dates Rochambeau’s departure from Saint-Domingue as occurring on 10 November, eight days prior to

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Vertières.38 According to the Dictionary of Battles and Sieges, Vertières took place on 17 October 1803.39 François Blancpain, in La colonie française de Saint-Domingue, speaks of 19 November.40 Chronological inaccuracy also characterizes the “Saint-Domingue (campagne navale de), 1802–1803” (Saint-Domingue [naval campaign], 1802–1803) entry of the very official Dictionnaire Napoléon, edited by Jean Tulard. An Admiral Dupont explains to the reader that “in November 1803, the remains of the Saint-Domingue army, defeated by illness, could no longer even hold the city of Cap-Français. Rochambeau concluded an agreement on 20 November with Haitian leader Dessalines.”41 We note once again that the Napoleonic army was defeated by illness, and not by former slaves allied with free people of colour. Rochambeau did not surrender, he “concluded an agreement.” Of course, no mention is made of 18 November. In the same dictionary, on the preceding page, Jean-Marcel Champion, who prefaced Henri Mézière’s biography of Leclerc, was scarcely any more precise than his admiral counterpart in the article “Saint-Domingue:”“Rochambeau practised in vain the blind policy of terror. The severing of the Peace of Amiens (May 1803) sealed the fate of the expeditionary corps: a British squadron blocked the island, while Dessalines forced Rochambeau, on 19 November 1803, to accept the surrender of Cap-Français.42 Once again, an exogenous factor in Saint-Domingue – the severing of the Peace of Amiens – is cited as the main cause of the defeat of the Napoleonic troops; 18 November is not mentioned as a decisive date in the sequence of events.43 But why would it be? The absence of 18 November 1803 in the Dictionnaire Napoléon is not so surprising. Since 18 November 1803, everything has been done to erase the traces of a defeat so shameful that it can only be attributed to illness, famine, or the intervention of the British enemy. This distortion of history is not the result of a succession of coincidences; rather, it is in keeping with a convention applied since early 1804 in newspapers, history books, and dictionaries.

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“The Last of the Whites”

“Haiti is part of our history, but not our memory  … In actual fact, we have all suppressed the actions of the world’s first black Republic … It inflicted its first military defeat upon the early Empire, before Trafalgar … The slave humiliated the master. Every Haitian remembers. The French are completely taken aback: Napoléon, the supporter of slavery, brought down by Negroes. You never hear tell of it.”1 While the word “Vertières” is not mentioned in these few lines excerpted from a report on relations between France and Haiti produced under the supervision of Régis Debray, 18 November 1803 is implicitly referenced. Objecting to or being outraged that one of the worst Napoleonic defeats has been covered up is certainly a first step in the process of recovering historical memory, but anyone satisfied with that is likely to take refuge in simply complaining. Naturally, the defeat of General Rochambeau and his troops on 18 November 1803 was an important factor at the origin of this process of covering up, yet it alone does not justify establishing a rule of forgetfulness, the effects of which still persist today. We must dig deeper. uRrU Two hypotheses are discussed in this chapter. The first: the obliteration of Friday, 18 November 1803, aims to mask or minimize the French genocidal tendencies either expressly stated or insinuated prior to the Battle of Vertières (on this topic, see chapter 6). Military correspondence reveals that this dark temptation existed in the final months of the War of Independence. Better, in other words, to exterminate the black population than acknowledge its right to

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life, liberty, and citizenship. This genocidal fantasy, of which there is very little awareness on the part of historians or the public, is not easy to define. According to the second hypothesis, the cover-up made it possible to avoid a trauma that was downplayed: an unusually brutal conjunction between the French army and death. As noted by historian Jean-Clément Martin, who has examined revolutionary violence in depth, “the confrontation with death is always a scandal and always entails encountering taboos regarding bloodshed and defilement.”2 Death was certainly a part of the soldier’s daily life and familiar to him. In Saint-Domingue, however, it seems even more scandalous than elsewhere. This appalling encounter with death probably determined the definitive overthrow of the seminal relationship that made up the slave society of Saint-Domingue. Nothing less. The Napoleonic expedition revealed that the white masters, whoever they were, had lost all control over the bodies and souls of the Blacks. This reality seemed very clear to an inhabitant of Cap-Français in the fall of 1802. In a letter dated 10 October 1802, he objected to the colonists being victimized by disdain while “Christophe, Dessalines, and Maurepas command, and the black colonels with their epaulettes pave the streets and are preparing for combat, in greater number than us, they are even our masters.”3 The tragedy experienced during the disastrous French expedition was not so much the yellow fever decimating the soldiers as it was a radical, horrifying, and unexpected confrontation with the reverse side of the colonial relationship – a situation that the philosopher Diderot had imagined, in his way, in a passage written for L’histoire des deux Indes announcing the possibility that the Code noir would one day be replaced by the Code blanc.4 This was an absolutely unspeakable position for the representatives and defenders of the French empire. It was total upheaval, unthinkable and thus unthought of.5 This upheaval was expressed, for example, by the fear of black women, whose bodies were suddenly no longer controllable, or even simply attainable. The rebelling women were the cruellest (supposedly). They encouraged men to kill.6 One inhabitant of SaintDomingue expressed it clearly: “If we want to restore St Domingue, we must send 25,000 men here at once, declare the Negroes to be

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slaves, and destroy by all possible means at least 30,000 Negroes or Negresses who are crueller than the men.”7 The upheaval the Napoleonic army faced was also expressed in the ability of the Blacks to subjugate the bodies of the Whites, who during the colonial period had the monopoly on physical coercion (branding, mutilation, cutting, whipping, and torture). What happened to the French soldiers who were captured? An officer declared it straight out: “These bloodthirsty men … deprive us in turn of our members … and leave us to perish, mutilated.”8 Did this description remind former masters of certain reprisals inflicted upon slaves in the eighteenth century? Upheaval. Reversal. Deadly tumult. From November 1802 to November 1803, the roles were thus reversed, at least to some extent. It was now the turn of Napoleon’s army, for example, to have a taste of the physical and psychological suffering endured by the African slaves who arrived by the hundreds of thousands throughout the eighteenth century (about a million in all). The crossing of the Atlantic by soldiers hesitant to go aboard is somewhat reminiscent of another crossing, far more tragic, of the Africans captured and sent by force to the most beautiful colony of the Americas. On 11 July 1803, General Thouvenot wrote to French authorities to object to the fact that “they are sending us foreign troops, shipments made up of bad subjects; they pile them into merchant ships; a third perish during the crossing, one third add to the illnesses in hospitals as they land in the colony, and part of the other third desert to join the brigands.”9 Like the African slaves who ran away shortly after landing, newly arrived soldiers also deserted, discouraged by the long marches in the mountains they were forced to endure, often barefoot, poorly fed, and poorly dressed. Piled into merchant ships for long weeks – General Thouvenot speaks in his correspondence of threemonth crossings – large numbers of soldiers died. One-third of the losses reported was three times greater, on average, than the death rate noted on the transatlantic slave ships. Difficulties in adapting, the lack of immunity to disease, and the high mortality rates of European soldiers sent to Saint-Domingue were among the many similarities to the situation of the new Africans, many of whom died only a few days, a few weeks, or a few months after they arrived. The permanent need for reinforcement – Leclerc, Rochambeau, and their subordinates continued to ask for them – was another ironic echo of

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the constant demand for new Africans by the planters and authorities of the colonial period. From 1802 to 1803, there were never enough soldiers. Twenty years earlier, there had never been enough slaves. The soldiers of the “all-powerful” French army found that, despite themselves, they were at the heart of a post-slavery relationship in which the polarity was dramatically reversed. This trauma prompted by the symbolic reversal of the master-slave relationship makes it possible to explain the genocidal fantasies expressed by the French soldiers and inhabitants of Saint-Domingue, at least among those whose correspondence has been found. It is probably the awareness of their own extermination – a letter written from Cap-Français in the fall of 1802 describes “omens [of] a new St Barthelemy”10 – that gave rise to these fantasies of absolute destruction. In a letter dated 6 October 1802, sent to the minister of the navy and the colonies and passed on to Napoleon, an inhabitant of Port-Républicain noted “that the blacks have never been fiercer or more determined to destroy the last of the whites”11 (emphasis added). The last of the Whites against the last of the Blacks: this is not simply a figure of speech. Survival lies in the destruction of the Other. “Do people want the colony to serve as a grave for the last of the French?”12 wonders a man named Lebreton in a letter to the minister of the navy. To avoid the extinction of the white man, only one solution is obvious in the eyes of the officers, and also certain inhabitants. “As long as there remain in St Domingue any number of Negroes who have been waging war for twelve years, the colony will not recover,”13 explained one colonist to the minister of the navy. “As long there’s one Negro left, in the colony, the whites will not rest easy,”14 Officer Pierre Thouvenot reported. The diagnosis was clear. The solution was bloody, but inevitable. uRrU Reporting on French violence in Saint-Domingue – perpetrated or fantasized – in response to the fear of death poses a problem. We must strike the right balance and not yield to the temptation of oversimplifying and settling scores through intervening memories. This chapter requires that we take a step back and try to get as close as possible to the sources, which contain an implicit notion of

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“genocide,” a complex and controversial term invented in 1943 in a very different context, that of the Shoah.15 Applying this notion may seem anachronistic to some.16 Yet it appears justified, at least to some extent. It is true that emphasizing the genocidal impulse of France’s representatives implies relegating the violence committed by the soldiers of the Haitian liberation army to the background. This approach also tends to minimize the internal divisions within the Haitian army and marginalize the class, race, and ethnically based violence that existed within the black population itself. Moreover, to speak of a genocidal temptation reifies one human group and establishes it as a victim, whereas the reality is, of course, far more complex. The archives clearly bear witness to brutal acts of repression that Dessalines, for example, was guilty of in the summer of 1802, when he rejoined the French army with most of the black generals. General Leclerc entrusted him then with the most thankless of tasks, including wiping out the opposition in the rural, mountainous areas and disarming the rebels in the North province, a key measure in Napoleon’s plan to restore order. Dessalines did not disappoint his superiors, and French authorities spoke of him as a “God” as long as his policy of repression appeared effective.17 While obeying their orders, Dessalines most certainly took advantage to establish his power, probably in anticipation of his future desertion. However, the violence was unquestionably shared, and the quest for power led to atrocities on both sides. One fact remains: the Haitian War of Independence cannot be reduced to a simple civil war characterized by the violence common to this kind of occurrence, contrary to what Christophe Wargny, a former collaborator of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, maintains in his 2004 essay Haiti n’existe pas, 1804–2004: Deux cents ans de solitude: “Civil wars are the most terrible. The war to liberate Saint-Domingue fell within the norm.”18 However, not all civil wars feature an extermination plan. To speak, as Yves Bénot does, of “bloody regression” and “massacres” reflects reality, but as with the above-mentioned descriptions, these terms do not reflect the unique nature of the events that took place in Saint-Domingue between 1802 and 1803.19 The same observation applies to a recent article by historian Bernard Gainot on the racial “massacres” in Saint-Domingue. Gainot, like others, refutes the

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anachronistic notion of genocide, which he considers to be a purely contemporary expression of indignation. Instead, he discusses “a historical cycle of generalized violence,” some “white,” some “black,” and describes the Rochambeau period as having a “policy of organized massacre.”20 He concludes by observing that “cases of extreme violence often occurred during a vacuum in authority.”21 The same historian, in another article that appeared in 2003, co-authored by Mayeul Macé, speaks of “racist terror” and ascribes collective responsibility to the French army.22 In light of the present chapter, it may be reductive to analyze the situation in Saint-Domingue as a simple vacuum in authority. While the violence was indeed extreme, it was in response to a trauma arising from the sense that there was a reversal in the master-slave relationship of the Ancien Régime and the white man’s fear of his extinction. If the Haitian War of Independence reminds some historians of the “extreme” violence of the War in the Vendée,23 reflected, for example, in the mass drownings in Nantes that occurred between November 1793 and January 1794,24 it differs in its radical racial aspect, resulting from the conscious or unconscious memory of the master-slave relationship. In the wars in the Vendée, it was not a matter of exterminating an entire population, but rather of doing away with a group of counter-revolutionaries described as “brigands” in order to better subject them to justice that went beyond usually accepted practices. Power struggles among revolutionaries also in part explained the violence perpetrated during this time. The Haitian War of Independence does not appear to foreshadow the violence that characterized other Napoleonic campaigns in the nineteenth century, such as those in Italy and in Spain. While the existence of genocidal intent on the part of the French in Saint-Domingue is often denied, it is just as often claimed that acts of violence occurred on both sides. Several historians are eager to push this interpretation further, even ascribing the genocidal impulse solely to the Haitian army. According to Napoleonists Thierry Lentz and Pierre Branda, there was only “fiercely led repression by [French] generals who only had “recommendations for harshness”25 (emphasis added), the inference being that Napoleon could not be held responsible for the way in which his orders were applied. We could ramble on at length about the choice of the word “harshness” in light

Figure 5.1 Dessalines is frequently depicted as a cruel man, thirsting for the blood of Whites, 1806.

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of these orders, and wonder, for example, if it accurately describes the deportation of the black generals. Napoleon absolved, all that remains for Lentz and Branda to do is to denounce the “explosion … [or] spiral of violence [that was] shared.”26 The argument is offered several times in other forms, their demonstration amounting to not much more than simple repetition: “No camp was to be outdone in the use of excessive methods … the increase of violence … was … unprecedented.”27 The conclusion is predictable and irrevocable: the term “genocide” is thus “in this instance totally improper and out of place” to describe the French war effort. On the other hand, in the course of one page, we learn that Dessalines’s objective “was to clearly lead the island to independence by driving away, even exterminating all Whites”28 (emphasis added). The lexical field of extermination is thus insidiously reserved for the Haitian army, as it has been for centuries. Indeed, from the first news of the massacres of the Whites in Haiti in the spring of 1804, the Napoleonic press denounced Dessalines’s barbarity and insistently reported the suffering experienced by the Whites who remained on the island, misled by the first pacifist proclamations of the black general.29 Very quickly, the official propaganda tended to deny the possibility of a genocidal-type violence on the part of the French army. All barbaric acts were associated with Dessalines, or failing that, with the English enemy, barbarians among barbarians. As for Philippe Girard, he explains in an article published in 2005 that genocidal intentions were present on both sides of the battlefield. The French never put these genocidal intentions into action, as they lacked the means. Dessalines perpetrated his genocidal intention in the early months of 1804, when most of the Whites remaining in Haiti were indeed victims of massacres. “Leclerc and Rochambeau’s planned genocide never took place: they were defeated before they could implement it. Dessalines … won the war and carried it out.”30 Going by what the author maintains, the Haitian genocide was perpetrated so as to preserve what was gained in the Revolution. These gains were more important than human life, which would establish a connection between Haitian “genocide” and the communist “genocides.”31 The analogy is surprising and obviously distorted given the gap that exists between agricultural collectivization, mentioned by the author as an example, and a war for independence that was racial in nature. In addition to discrediting

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the revolutionary idea by presenting it as merely a source of terror, the author tends to isolate black violence from its context. He considers it explained by the fervour of the Blacks and their thirst to become rich, a theme that recurs in the researcher’s work.32 Probably aware of the controversial aspect of his argument, in the end, Philippe Girard proposes a kind of compromise that involves calling the Haitian genocide a “co-genocide or counter-genocide.” This argument, inequitable particularly in its allocation of responsibility despite this mixed conclusion, is amended, at least in appearance, in a recent article that this time tends to emphasize the acts of violence that the French committed against Haitian soldiers and civilians.33 According to the author, undeniably we can speak of “atrocities,” but not of genocide. The orders aiming to exterminate the local population did not come from the top ranks of the French government, but from the two generals, Leclerc and Rochambeau, who were rather discouraged and overwhelmed by the events. Besides, among the Haitian deaths, it would be difficult to differentiate between the men who actually fell in combat and those who fell victim to annihilating violence. According to Girard, it is not even certain that the French officers and generals really wanted to exterminate the Blacks; their discourse attests more to a rhetoric of hyperbole. The author ends by informing us that, on the French side, war had no racial motivation, aside from perhaps briefly in October 1802, when mass drownings were perpetrated in Cap-Français. These historical actors “usually acted rationally in an attempt to fulfill goals, such as pacifying the colony or making money, that were not always racial in nature. Their actions therefore do not fully justify the comparison with the Holocaust.” The objective was not “the racial purification of the colony.”34 It is as if a century of racial segregation were suddenly wiped out, as if the French officers had listened, like good philosophers of the Enlightenment, to their “reason.” As opposed to Philippe Girard, Claude Ribbe interprets the French war effort as a dress rehearsal or prelude to the extermination of the Jewish people during the Second World War.35 Sources in no way make it possible to claim that Napoleon contemplated a final solution for the Blacks of Saint-Domingue, particularly by the use of gas and the construction of concentration camps.36 Claude Ribbe’s

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repeated recourse to terms usually employed to write the history of the Shoah, such as “rafle” (roundup), is totally unjustified in the context of the Haitian War of Independence, save for the author’s wish to contrast and compare for political purposes two memories: that of the Jews and that of the descendants of slavery. The war of Saint-Domingue was not the site of an early “holocaust” that served as a model for Hitler, as the same author implied two years earlier in a novel entitled L’expédition. The attempt to restore the Napoleonic order was then narrated through the eyes of Pauline Bonaparte, the tone shifting between a barely disguised history textbook and an erotic novel, all set against a backdrop of memories about wars in a France divided between its colonial heritage and its new social integration model. More generally speaking, while some historians such as Marcel and Claude Bonaparte Auguste and David Geggus have spoken of genocide or genocidal plans in Saint-Domingue between 1802 and 1804 (without actually using an ideological shortcut like Claude Ribbe), we are struck by the lack of reflection on the exact development of these French thoughts of annihilation (as if the concept of genocide could be applied as a whole, or could put an end to the debate every time the word is uttered and that it implies a total negation of the right to humanity). When such a development is described, it is almost always part of a dual chronology (with the notable exception of Malick Ghachem’s presentation). There is a “before” and an “after;” the tipping point was the death of General Leclerc, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, in November 1802. Leclerc only thought to exterminate part of the population of Saint-Dominque out of his discouragement, isolation, and exhaustion. In the end, who could really blame him? Did the Blacks not also demonstrate great brutality? General Rochambeau, on the other hand, was the infamous butcher, the person mainly responsible for the descent into French hell from November 1802 to December 1803. In defending the Napoleonic myth, Thierry Lentz and Pierre Branda do not hesitate to fuel and transmit this distorted interpretation: “His hatred of the Blacks led him to conduct military operations with a kind of rage … The new General displayed tremendous cruelty.”37 “Under his command, torture, collective drowning, and summary executions flourished,” state the same authors, always eager to darken

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the past of Rochambeau to better celebrate Leclerc and Napoleon, yet contradicting the content of the archives.38 At fault, therefore, were “Rochambeau’s murderous ravings.”39 Lentz and Branda are only repeating a propagandist myth established under Napoleon’s reign and passed on afterwards. Leclerc’s name is found on the Arc de Triomphe, the iconic Parisian monument whose construction began in 1806 and where Napoleon intended to carve in stone, for eternity, the names of the era’s great military heroes; the name of Rochambeau was cast aside. What can we take away from this historiographical presentation, essential to accurately situate the issues of the arguments? Opinions are divided, of course, and what historians write, regardless of their claims, often contains ideological connotations. There also emerges a degree of confusion regarding what the sources reveal. Is it possible to examine matters more clearly?

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When analyzed in the context of genocidal violence, existing sources indicate continuity between the two stages of the War of Independence as associated with Leclerc and Rochambeau. To better understand this continuity, we will analyze the conflict as a twodimensional war: first, to bring the war on the black body and then, against memory. These two dimensions gave rise to a line of thought that was genocidal in nature that, in the circumstances, could not have been any more coherent. This thinking, which began under General Leclerc and was maintained under General Rochambeau, is reflected in the French vision of restoring order in the colony as expressed before the departure of the Saint-Domingue expedition. Notes on this, carefully worded to avoid making the authors look like barbarians, clearly point to the possibility of applying a policy of absolute terror in the rebel colony. How else, for example, to interpret the declaration of General Sahuguet, who was first considered as a possible leader of the Saint-Domingue expedition? He said he was “ready to carry out the great work … finding and setting the limits of civil liberty for individuals who, raised as slaves, only stopped being so by the disorder of anarchy, and who, having no concept of the common interest that is the basis of an organized society, could only be led by individual fear.”1 For Sahuguet, the situation is clear: the slaves never really were free citizens with equal rights; their right to life is recognized only through the prism of “fear.” This general’s position is far from exceptional. Like all of the genocidal thought conveyed and promoted by Leclerc and Rochambeau in 1802 and 1803, it builds on a colonial discourse of extreme violence that started taking shape at the beginning of the slave revolution in

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Saint-Domingue in August 1791. At that exact time and in the months following, while the authorities attempted to re-establish social and racial peace, French genocidal thought was taking shape; this was sensed at the time by British historian Bryan Edwards.2 The issue at the heart of the battles and the ambushes ultimately came down to the need to control, once again, the bodies of the Blacks. Whipping and mutilating them, desiring and raping them, and making them work. For that to happen, the Blacks had to be frightened, disarmed, humiliated, and made to forget their right to liberty, citizenship, and life. And when it became impossible to control the bodies of the Blacks and erase memories, extermination appeared to be the only solution. uRrU The archives indicate the existence of three stages that could be called the descent into French genocidal hell. These are demarcated by three key moments in the unfolding of the war. The first stage begins with Leclerc’s arrival and ends in early summer 1802, when hopes of appeasement were destroyed thanks to an escalation of black resistance and a serious sanitary crisis. The second stage extends until November 1802, concluding with Leclerc’s death and the desertion of the majority of the black troops who had sided with France the previous spring. The final and longest stage ends with the Battle of Vertières. It consists of a transitional period between Leclerc’s command and Rochambeau’s, during which it still seemed conceivable to reclaim the colony, and a second period during which the genocidal impulse really emerged. The discussion that follows is based on various correspondences kept in the Service historique de la Défense in Vincennes (series B7), the Archives nationales (series AF and private archives), and the Archives nationales d’outre-mer (subseries cc9). Officer Pierre Thouvenot, who was in Saint-Domingue throughout almost the entire war, witnessed this affair first-hand. Initially, he was adjutant commander and chief of staff of the Desfourneaux division, and then of the Salm, Clauzel, and Brunet divisions, before becoming brigadier general and commander of artillery and chief of staff to General Rochambeau.3 Baron of the Empire, he appears on the Arc

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de Triomphe, as do other veterans of the Saint-Domingue expedition. Thouvenot wrote a great deal; his correspondence is detailed and very well preserved, in particular two series of letters that cover the spring, summer, and fall of 1802 (B7, 19 to 21), and the spring and summer of 1803 (B7, 22 and 23; cc9). Thouvenot applied a policy of terror of which he seemed to approve. He wondered about the strategies to follow and described the desolation that surrounded him. While his letters basically deal with the events that occurred in the North province, they allow us to trace the development of a more general discourse on the destruction of the Other, the rebelling Black who, if we believe certain French soldiers, should never have been emancipated. It was mainly the north of Saint-Domingue that was a problem. The main setting for the development of genocidal thought was this region, the cradle of the black revolution. In the first stage of the Saint-Domingue expedition, there was no question of destroying the black population as a whole. The military correspondence of that period reveals an attempt, or at least a desire, to re-establish a paternalistic and racist prerevolutionary relationship, with the underlying objective of denying the existence of the Other – the black, free citizen, fully aware of his freedom. This vision is connected to projecting a presumed French power. We find traces of this, for example, on 8 February 1802, only a few days after the Napoleonic troops arrived, in a letter written by Commander Dampierre to General Desfourneaux informing him of the submission of a man named André, commandant of the Morne-Rouge neighbourhood in the North province. The French, who had very recently landed, were already counting on a rapid victory. Commander Dampierre, in a letter sent to André, sums up the situation as follows: “rest assured, you, the real French, the Republic that gave you freedom will not tolerate it being violated … Gather together promptly all its children led astray so that only the guilty will be cursed … this is basically what I expressed in my letters to André.”4 Far from fighting for freedom and the right to citizenship, the soldiers of Toussaint Louverture’s army were only children and the Republic their protective mother; they could only back down before the greatness of the French. The threat associated with resistance was indeed real, but at this stage of the war it is expressed symbolically, as if the French army possessed a quasi-divine mission.

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There is no question yet of “terror,” but there is the threat of “being cursed.” As in the Gospel, there are the lost souls and the “guilty.” This opinion that reduces the combatants to simple children whose souls are temporarily corrupt is also expressed in the plan to attack Cap-Français given to General Leclerc a few days before his arrival. To believe the authors of this plan, all that was needed to win was an attack on three fronts: the harbour of Cap-Français, the Bay of Acul (to the west of the city), and the sands of Limonade (to the east): “Well thought-out diversions are always deadly, when directed upon an enemy with so little discipline as the one we must fight.”5 Lack of discipline now accompanies the trope of children previously described. The black army cannot be made up of adults accustomed to waging war. But that is not all: the author attributes this lack of discipline to race. Indeed, “the multiple diversions have considerable influence on the moral of undisciplined individuals such as the Negroes.”6 Note that this racial remark is in no way exceptional in the military archives of the Saint-Domingue expedition. When black combatants are not children or “fake” French (denying their identity as citizens) or fearful “Negroes,” they are cowards and traitors. In a letter dated 26 March 1802 from Saint-Marc headquarters in the West province, a soldier named Dalton reported to his general that “the Blacks are spread throughout the forests and mountains on the roads.” He adds that “these Arabs of St Domingue only attack loafers or people who are lost.” Here we note the confusion between Blacks and Arabs, who are stamped with the same contempt, an attitude probably picked up from the French military campaigns in Egypt in the late eighteenth century.7 The black soldiers were not combatants like the others. They were hardly even men. In a letter dated 14 August 1802 addressed to General Pierre Boyer, Chief of Brigade “Grandet informs us that many insurgents are taking up arms, and that he is chasing the others comme des bêtes fauves”8 (like wild animals). The negation of the enemy’s humanity implied by this comparison is unequivocal: in hunting, this is how one speaks of a stag or doe. The term also applies to animals it is legal to exterminate. You don’t capture a bête fauve liable to wreak havoc on the property. You kill it on the spot, with no form of ritual, whether it is facing you or has its back to you. The expression also calls to mind the history of the marrons

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in Saint-Domingue, the slaves who ran away from plantations and took refuge deep in the mountains and forests. It goes back to the Spanish term cimarrón, used in the early times of the colonization of the island of Hispaniola to identify farm animals returned to the wild.9 The comparison between the rebels and the “bêtes fauves” recurs frequently in the military correspondence. It is even one of the preferred ways to depict the recommended combat strategy. For example, Division General Brunet sums up the war to General Leclerc in a letter dated 18 September 1802: “This war comes down to attacking each gathering by pinpointing it from on high and hunting down the brigands within like wild animals.”10 The French army hunted down as much as it waged war. These paternalistic, racist, and dehumanizing portrayals changed dramatically as soon as the semblance of peace obtained in May 1802 with the surrender of Toussaint Louverture and his generals was swept aside a few weeks later. The resistance organized itself in the mountains and remote areas; the inhabitants refused to be disarmed by the French soldiers, whom Toussaint’s soldiers joined temporarily. Early in the summer of 1802, there was a return to a previous situation, involving discipline through example and an arbitrary terror that was somewhat reminiscent of the daily functioning of the slave society before 1791. Some 60,000 Whites or free Blacks supervised a half million slaves through the use, or at least the threat, of untold violence, which was carried out with complete impunity. A case in point is the example of Monsieur Le Jeune, a coffee plantation owner in the Plaisance neighbourhood of the North province, denounced by his slaves in 1788 for acts of torture. This master went unpunished despite proof of sadistic violence inflicted upon his slaves; he was supported by his peers.11 As of the summer of 1802, there was an attempt to return to this reign of terror that had become the norm and that scorned the right to life with impunity. Unable to freely brand shoulders, thighs, buttocks, or chests, and mutilate, slash, and mark bodies – as was common practice in the time of slavery – the French soldiers still engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. Carnage, which the laws of war stipulated should be avoided, became the rule in the conflict.12 In a letter dated 22 September, Pierre Thouvenot called this approach “working à la Dessalines.” The black general’s

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Figure 6.1 Depiction of the violence perpetrated by the black army against the soldiers of the Leclerc-Rochambeau expedition, according to J. Barlow and Marcus Rainsford.

qualities as “peacemaker” were then used as an example by the French officers, who sometimes criticized the white soldiers for showing too much restraint.13 Correspondence from the second stage of the war demonstrates that from that point on French soldiers killed not only at point-blank range but also “so close they could touch,” as Thouvenot explained to General Dugua, chief of the general staff, regarding an attack against the “brigands … at Margot hill.”14 The distance between the

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weapon and the enemy’s body diminished, as if to better ensure immediate annihilation. We can easily imagine the traumatic aspect of such a war, for one camp as well as for the other, when, starting in the summer of 1802, the former Pearl of the Antilles was bathed in blood. “The paths and the forests were covered in blood,”15 Thouvenot explained to Dugua on 2 October 1802. While the French soldiers, who at that point looked “truly like ghosts,”16 were loathe to undertake long marches in the mountains due to fatigue, we can imagine that the constant presence of blood, and of death in general – bodies abandoned, rotting, trees severed and burned, limbs torn to pieces, not to mention the odour – must have also sapped their courage and determination. “The most opulent of colonies” of the New World “was no more than a heap of ash sodden with blood.”17 If a degree of restraint remained, in theory and in practice, at this stage of the war, the boundary between slaughtering the enemy and blindly exterminating all Blacks remained tenuous. The fragility of the boundary is illustrated by an almost pastoral detail in Pierre Thouvenot’s correspondence. In early October 1802, black troops were still fighting alongside the French. How to differentiate them from the “brigands” and other “bêtes fauves” encountered along the paths and in the hills? Thouvenot had a solution. He ordered that the black combatants be given “a bouquet of greenery” to wear on their hats “so they would not be confused with the enemy.” 18 A bouquet of greenery. Some herbs, leaves, and branches no doubt: that was all that differentiated the men to be spared from those to be shot. Weren’t the bouquets likely to fall in the heat of the battle? Could people really make them out among moving bodies on the attack? This detail is a good illustration of the extent to which general destruction was at hand – and within shooting range. Starting in the summer of 1802, a marked change is observable in the punitive practices described in Officer Thouvenot’s correspondence. On 12 August 1802, Thouvenot wrote to the post commander at Escaliers. The order was clear: “all armed Negroes will be shot immediately.”19 While unarmed combatants were not targeted at this stage of the conflict, they needed to be frightened, in the most terrible way possible. Thouvenot explains the method to be used: “hang one of them so that every day he can serve as an example to the scoundrels of his ilk.”20 The same day, but in another letter,

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Thouvenot explains that the hanging must occur in a “conspicuous place.”21 An obvious reminder of the colonial period when slaves were punished in a visible place. Those harbouring or assisting the rebels, like those who assisted runaway slaves in the past, had to be severely punished. They were condemned to hanging: “this is how those who voluntarily harbour and give asylum to brigands must be treated; and these examples must be widely announced,”22 General Dugua explains to Thouvenot. Very quickly, the boundary between those who had to be shot or hanged and those worthy of clemency began to disappear. Thouvenot, then chief of general staff of the Brunet division, wrote to Chief of Brigade Grandet on 13 August 1802. He reported that “General Brunet observes with pleasure  … that the insurrection of your canton is drawing to an end … He is only a little annoyed that you have harboured the leaders of the Brigands … they deserve to be punished and their acquiescence does not constitute public revenge.” What, then, did “public revenge” require? The answer was not long in coming: “The General orders you to arrest the guiltiest … and to hang them, on very high gallows, where they will remain until they have decomposed entirely to serve as an example.”23 This letter reveals a marked shift into horror. It is no longer a question of solely punishing those arrested with weapons in hand, but to attack the “guiltiest,” as if such a distinction were possible in such a troubled context, as if torture could make it possible to differentiate between the guilty and the innocent. In the end, it didn’t matter who was executed. In Thouvenot’s eyes, the most important thing was to erect a “very high” gallows and to leave the bodies there “until they have decomposed entirely.” The end of the sentence makes it possible to foresee the extermination fantasies soon to be voiced. It was no longer enough to arrest, subjugate, and readmit the undisciplined children to the nation. The war was permeated with a desire to annihilate. Even the slightest physical evidence had to disappear; the bodies had to decompose on the gallows. Until not a trace remained. General Thouvenot played an important role in applying this policy of terror. On 30 August, his correspondence reveals a more radicalized stance. The war on bodies ultimately became a war on memory. It had to be traumatic. “Always remember,” he reminded Squadron Leader Jolicoeur “that we need examples and terrible

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examples to make sure the Negroes completely forget about any notion of beginning such brigandry anew.”24 The adverb “completely” embodies, in several respects, the evolution we observe in the second stage of the war. Power, in the eyes of soldiers like Thouvenot, must be experienced as an omnipotent influence, the very idea of which would be enough to prevent any act of resistance. The role of the army is no longer only to pacify or to restore order. Its mission is to dramatize violence, rewrite history, and attack the soul as much as possible, as Thouvenot implies in a letter dated 13 September 1802 to Battalion Commander Navarres, commander in Borgne: “this war [is] as moral as it is physical.”25 Moreover, though the rebels remembered their lives of slavery and preferred being free citizens with rights, they had not forgotten the previous French expeditions. As Thouvenot explains to General Dugua, chief of the general staff, “among the Negroes, both those who are for us and those who are against, ideas are circulating that would be useful to destroy.” What were these ideas? Going by the French officer, the Blacks were expecting that the troops of the Leclerc expedition would suffer the same fate as that experienced by past expeditions, “that is, successes upon arriving, followed by successive losses and finally those who remained would be subject to embarkation or have their throats slit.”26 We understand the usefulness of “destroying” such ideas and creating “an example to contain future generations of Negroes for at least a century.”27 Evidently, this objective proved too ambitious, which prompted a desire for extermination, still partial at this point, expressed at the beginning of the third stage of the war by General Leclerc. In a letter dated 17 September 1802, Leclerc confides to the minister of the navy that “in order to contain the mountains [he] would be forced to destroy all the supplies there and a large part of the farmers who, accustomed to brigandry for the last ten years, would never submit to working. I will have to conduct a war of extermination and it will cost me a great many people.”28 It was no longer a matter, as Thouvenot explained the previous spring, of bringing back men led astray or even seeking to contain the future generations. Starting in the fall of 1802, the failure to re-establish a system of discipline directly or indirectly modelled on the daily functioning of the slave society of the Ancien Régime led to what were actually genocidal fantasies,

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the ultimate stage in absolute denial of the Other. These fantasies were a sign of a very real discouragement as well as an expression of a military reality. Leclerc could not win the war using the usual strategies. He had only one solution left, the scope of which was outlined in a letter dated 7 October 1802 to the first consul: “In terms of this country, my opinion is as follows. We must destroy all the Negroes in the mountains, men and women, keeping only children under the age of twelve, and destroy half those of the plain and not leave in the colony even one man of colour who has worn the uniform.”29 We note a significant development since the letter dated 17 September. No longer is it a question of making do with killing “a large part” of the farmers in the mountains. Both men and women are now targeted.30 Only one exception: children under twelve. Why this burst of humanity? Would these children one day forget their past freedom?31 As a finishing touch, they needed to destroy “half” the inhabitants of the plains, not to mention those commonly referred to in military correspondence as “épaulettiers” (those who’d worn the uniform), the black officers whose existence prevented going back to racial slavery. Even if Leclerc’s plan is more detailed than in September, some aspects were unclear. Where do the lands inhabited by the “Negroes in the mountains” begin? How to destroy precisely “half” the Blacks of the plain? How to differentiate children aged twelve from children aged ten? Where would the destruction stop? How to keep a record of it? What means of destruction were to be used? The vagueness surrounding this first plan to exterminate, too often overlooked or else justified by Leclerc’s discouragement and isolation, is a harbinger of far greater destruction. Why risk stopping once they had begun? Would not the half of inhabitants of the plains who were spared seek revenge? Leclerc’s two letters introduce a new threshold of violence in the War of Independence. The inhabitants also noted, as a Cap-Français resident expressed in October 1802, that “using means of conciliation and gentleness are useless. That isn’t what’s needed for the brigands, who are only familiar with terror.”32 Contemplating the destruction of the Other is a response to the traumatic loss of a supposedly all-powerful influence. General Leclerc holds on to the memory of this power in a proclamation dated 6 October 1802, reacting to an attack by the rebels on the main city in the North province: “The

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fools! … They do not know France’s strength. They have forgotten how the French flooded into Saint-Domingue less than one year ago.”33 Hard not to note the irony of this expression in the middle of the rainy season, when the French crammed into military hospitals and their corpses piled up in cemeteries. We may doubt the effect of this metaphor on the morale of the few Napoleonic troops still in a condition to fight. The image of a flood probably better reflected the black army’s increase in power, for desertions in Leclerc’s army were on the rise. This image re-appeared in Dominique Hyppolite’s 1940 play entitled Le Torrent; its central theme was that the indigenous army was actually an unstoppable wave.34 The French military authorities may not have been able to sweep over the land, but they ordered the “purification” of their troops and made a thinly veiled suggestion to drown all Blacks who had not yet deserted. This new strategy was radical; discretion was needed, as stated prefect Hector Daure, while temporarily replacing General Leclerc following his death. In a letter dated 4 November 1802,35 Duare explains to General Thouvenot: “I will reply more confidentially to the article in your letter concerning disarmament and the embarkation of black troops.” Confidentially? Perhaps by sending a messenger, so as to leave no written trace. “All that is black and armed must above all be arrested, taken on board ship, and sent to Cap-Français,” he declared. Here we note the emphasis placed on “above all,” denoting the urgency and radicalism of the situation. Were the black soldiers who were arrested – reduced solely to the status of colour – supposed to be judged or imprisoned while awaiting deportation to France? The reply is indirect, but leaves little room for doubt. The ship “La Créole is quickly preparing its supplies; I will send it back to you without delay. It will rid you of a dangerous population,” explained the prefect. Daure took the precaution of not mentioning the names of the people concerned and using ambiguous vocabulary: it was La Créole that would take care of the thankless tasks and make it possible to “get rid of” the rebellious Blacks. How not to read this to mean “exterminating?” The ship La Créole actually appears to have regularly served the French army’s extermination policy. General Maurepas, his family, and his troops boarded La Créole, La Guerrière, and other ships in late October 1802, “everything … without a sound, without a murmur,” before they were murdered in Cap-Français.36 Is the

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Figure 6.2 Depiction of the violence perpetrated against the soldiers of the black army by the Leclerc-Rochambeau army. We note here the juxtaposition in the same image of two forms of violence: the drownings, frequent during the war, and the use of dogs, proven in some cases, but above all fantasized about by French officers as being one of the miracle solutions to overcome the rebels.

expression “faire ses vivres” (preparing supplies), specific to the navy, a secret code that signifies the ship was being stocked not with supplies, but with sulphur meant to asphyxiate prisoners or bags of flour to ensure they were successfully drowned? It is not impossible. The stylistic device would then echo another expression, “to soak the cod,” that the Chevalier de Fréminville heard on 5 November 1802 while

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Blacks were being led off to be drowned.37 One thing is certain: the catalogue of stylistic devices or codes used in military correspondence is extensive. “Embarquer” (to take people on board), for example, is a synonym in several documents for “to drown.” An appended commentary to a letter sent to the first consul explains: “this letter’s author is complaining about the tyrannical and vexing behaviour of generals in the St Domingue army who mistreat and strip the inhabitants of their possessions … and threaten to embark them, that is drown them.”38 The rest of Daure’s letter of 4 November 1802 dispels any doubt regarding his instructions. Daure encourages his subordinate to use “dependable means” to “get rid of” [black prisoners] carefully, on the premises; and using any other means.” “Dependable [which is underlined twice] … carefully … using any other means”: the prefect’s objective is unequivocal. While French military authorities were incapable of waging war, organizing themselves, and taking care of their wounded and their dead, they were experts in double-talk and circumlocution. In the spirit of Leclerc’s letters of 17 September and 7 October, the goal was to make a clean sweep of the past, but “carefully,” for the enemy was on the lookout. Becoming aware of the French strategy, the black rebels could band together and become indestructible. The British enemy, which still officially tolerated the presence of the French army near its rich Jamaican colony, could decide to intervene and support the rebels. The new policy concerning the extermination of the Blacks was so well understood by the subordinate officers that it appeared to have bothered some. For example, General François-Marie Périchou de Kerverseau, posted in the eastern part of the island, expressed his reluctance in a letter dated 4 November 1802 addressed to General Pamphile de Lacroix: “It is only too true … that the war of Colour has been declared, and that we find ourselves with the Dreadful alternative of being devoured by Tigers or of becoming Tigers ourselves. But I think that we have not yet reached a point where we can show no restraint in this country.”39 Becoming tigers, not showing any restraint: the variety of metaphors and circumlocution that mask plans to destroy the Other are remarkable, and reveal that some, such as Kerverseau and de Lacroix, were reluctant to take part in this third and final stage of the war. General de Lacroix was deeply concerned

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about the use of excessive force. Others in the colony condemned the mass drownings.40 General Rochambeau, who took command of the colony after Prefect Daure’s interim service, also very quickly adopted a rhetoric based on extermination. Yet he proceeded in stages, which is important to acknowledge so as not to perpetuate the dominant narrative that views Rochambeau as a purely sadistic general, a unique figure compared to other French officers, who merely suggested simple “harsh” measures. During the third stage of the war, Rochambeau was not alone in contemplating the destruction of the Blacks. He was supported and advised by his officers. The plan to exterminate the rebels was the subject of many letters and instructions circulating in the colony. On 21 January, then on 2 March 1803, Rochambeau suggested to the minister of the navy and the colonies to “exterminate the former generals, officers, or soldiers, even the ex-farmers.”41 The solution was admittedly radical, but in the end, it affected fewer people than the plan of destruction Leclerc sent to the first consul in his letter of 7 October 1802. The category of farmers mentioned by Leclerc could now be spared; the ex-farmers had been entrusted with the land seized from French colonists exiled in the 1790s. Context may explain this relative “leniency.” In early 1803, the situation was not yet desperate. Rochambeau had just welcomed troops, and some posts, including Fort-Dauphin and Port-de-Paix, had been taken back from the rebels. He anticipated re-establishing slavery and asked for authorization to do so. It would have been counterproductive to destroy the major part of the black population that they wanted to enslave. However, to re-establish slavery, it was necessary to keep the black population in place, that is, prevent it from taking refuge in the hills. Pierre Thouvenot summed up the problem in early March 1803: “in our chasing the brigands, the majority will escape.” How to immobilize these men, and above all these bodies called upon once again to produce sugar and coffee for France? One solution, as Thouvenot explained, would be to use dogs.42 Indeed, “the general officers asked that each division be provided with dogs, as the only means to achieve complete success. No doubt humanity is loath to propose such a means, let alone put it into practice.”43 Yet using dogs

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seemed legitimate to Thouvenot. Was not the survival of the white man directly at stake? Was it so inhumane to call upon animals to kill men who weren’t really men? Was not the solution to attack the bodies, something that the rebels, according to Thouvenot, did with alacrity? “Reflecting that [the use of dogs] should only be used on men who do not know or observe any human rights, whose only rule is to set the most appalling fires and commit the most terrible murders, who have rebelled against the rights of all nations, whose system alone is the destruction of Whites, the annihilation of the trade of Europeans in the Antilles … What is our fate when we fall into the hands of these bloodthirsty men? They successively deprive us of our members [paper is torn; missing text] for days and thereby let us perish, mutilated.”44 Perhaps aware that this argument might not convince the most reluctant to stoop to using dogs, Thouvenot proposed another justification a few days later in a letter addressed to Senator Lespinasse. Resorting to dogs was no longer justified by the animal nature of the enemy – who, we recall, was called upon to again become enslaved. The objective was no longer to destroy the Other, or avenge the terrible suffering inflicted upon French soldiers. Quite the opposite, the use of dogs would allow the “brigands” to avoid their own loss, would save them from themselves: “This means will save many of the incendiary murderers: they will not be subdued because they are certain they will escape us by fleeing to the woods and to the hills.” Thanks to the dogs, “the brigands … will surrender unconditionally.”45 Thouvenot expected 400 dogs to arrive from Cuba, which he planned to divide into twelve packs, one comprised of 35 animals for the Cap-Français division. These canine brigades would be part of a general offensive planned for the spring of 1803 thanks to the arrival of new reinforcements.46 The expected troops never arrived, fewer dogs boarded ship in Cuba than expected, and certain envoys were intercepted by the British. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that this canine brigade was used on a large scale: it was meant to accompany a general offensive that never took place due to a lack of troops. A few weeks later, when the situation had degenerated and the minister of the navy had not acted on General Rochambeau’s requests, the general’s discourse became more radical. On 14 April 1803, Rochambeau prepared instructions for Brigadier General Pierre

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Boyer, chief of staff, who had to go see Bonaparte. First, he repeated almost word for word the strategy already presented in January: “he [Boyer] will add, that, from now on, they have to exterminate all former generals, or black soldiers, as well as former farmers.”47 This degree of destruction no longer seemed to suffice now that dogs would no longer make it possible to subdue Dessalines’s army. Furthermore, re-establishing slavery seemed out of the question, at least with the local black population. Rochambeau then added to Boyer that “there was even a possibility that they should ‘faire peau neuve’ [adopt a new image; literally: find new skin] in the colony.” The subtle introduction of the expression “faire peau neuve” reveals the French general’s new strategy. By playing with the literal and figurative meanings of words, he proposes, as a last resort, eliminating the black population and replacing it. The war, from that point on, became a war of skin. On 28 April, Rochambeau clarified his thoughts, fearing perhaps that his metaphor would be misunderstood. “Now we must support the War of the Colour White against the Two others, and ‘faire peau neuve’ in this colony; without that we would have to begin anew every two or three years.” Rochambeau made sure to underline the expression; he used it to explain the possibility of a general extermination, already foreseen by Thouvenot in the summer of 1802, but also by Leclerc a few weeks later. It was no longer a question of distinguishing between former farmers and growers, between officers and generals, or even between Negroes of the Mountains and those of the plains. The issue was simply to change skin, make a clean sweep, and introduce new African slaves to save the white skin.48 Should the children be spared? Did “faire peau neuve” include their destruction? Historian Philippe Girard thinks not. In his article, previously cited, on the French “atrocities,” he explains that the expression “faire peau neuve” was clarified by Thouvenot in an 8 May 1803 letter addressed to Pierre-François Page, an important representative of the colonial lobby.49 In it, Thouvenot wondered about the fate of children: “Can we destroy all Negroes, Negresses, and men and women of colour over ten years old? Should we try?”50 Is Thouvenot making an indirect reference here to Rochambeau’s expression, “faire peau neuve”? Sources do not allow us to state this. Is Thouvenot expressing the opinion of his leader? Is he speaking on

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his own behalf or referring to the then-dominant narrative regarding the means by which to destroy the black enemy? The question raised by Thouvenot is important, and we cannot help but note the shift from twelve to ten years as the age of the children to be spared. Age five, six, ten, or twelve: the question of age is crucial for the representatives of the French army. More important still, however, is knowing if it is “possible,” as expressed by Thouvenot, to destroy such a large population. His doubts on this matter are evident in a letter addressed to one Devaivres, head of the Colonial Office, on 18 April 1803. “To tell the truth, when I look more thoroughly into the difficulties of reducing 400,000 rebels, armed, still in good health, supplied with ammunition and provisions; when I think that we have to destroy practically all these scoundrels, and that what would remain could form the elements of a new insurrection a few years from now, I am inclined to believe the French government would benefit by using the means it intends for St Domingue to form a new continental colony in the countries the Portuguese handed over us, one in Madagascar, and then expand Louisiana.”51 The letter was not sent. Could Thouvenot legitimately suggest abandoning the colony at the same time as the general-in-chief sent a delegation to the first consul to inform him of Rochambeau’s new strategy? Would he not risk being accused of cowardice or of overstepping his role? Would the letter not harm his future advancement? We can understand that he ended up sending a sanitized version, in which there is no consideration of leaving the colony. Yet Thouvenot did not really abandon this idea. On 8 May 1803, he wrote his friend Page, informing him of the challenge of exterminating the majority of Saint-Domingue’s black population. While this solution remained impractical, Thouvenot was sure of one thing: “I dare state that without this measure the colony of St Domingue will never enjoy permanent tranquility.”52 The situation appeared insurmountable: it seemed as impossible to kill that many Blacks as to abandon the colony. Three days later, Thouvenot continued to look for an honourable way out for the expeditionary army. He noted some ideas in what was perhaps the draft of a letter: “True, instead of destroying this population, we could hand it over to the Spanish, to populate some deserted parts of their continental colonies and thereby spare ourselves the onerous task of killing,

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with no consideration, both sexes, non-whites, the innocent, and the guilty. This measure could result in one less difficulty, reducing the number of Negroes, who, persuaded that they can escape death, may submit more easily.”53 As much as it seemed inhuman, in theory at least, to use dogs to subdue the Blacks, it would merely be “onerous” to murder the black population of Saint-Domingue without a trial. The solution to the onerous task was simple: according to Thouvenot, they would only have to deport the black population to the Spanish colonies of South America or perhaps, more simply, let the Spanish take charge of them. Why not cede them the colony with its residents? Thouvenot’s justification for resorting to dogs recurs: the rebels must be convinced they will not die, because only the fear of death was preventing them from submitting. The reasoning is simplistic, and it is highly doubtful that the Spanish would have accepted such an offer from the French. If France had not been able to re-establish slavery in Saint-Domingue, could Spain? Thouvenot was apparently well aware of the incongruity of his suggestion. On 16 May, he wrote to General Clauzel and gave him to understand a completely different version, far more realistic: they had to abandon the colony, evacuate to Louisiana, and negotiate with the rebels. Were Rochambeau’s and Thouvenot’s dreams of “peau neuve” presented to Napoleon? Hard to know, for some of the instructions and documents belonging to Pierre Boyer were apparently thrown into the sea when the British Navy captured the ship transporting him to France.54 As opposed to what can be read in an obituary in Boyer’s military file, he was not sent to France to convey General Leclerc’s final wishes to Napoleon. The officer himself explained to General Daoust, who commanded the infantry of the guard of the first consul, that his mission was to “expose [to the government] the state of distress and the critical position of the army and of the colony.”55 Despite the loss of Boyer’s documents, apparently some of Rochambeau’s instructions were received by the minister of the navy and the colonies and passed on to Napoleon. On 6 June 1803, the minister sent the first consul “instructions given to General Boyer who was sent to France by General Rochambeau, because they give an idea (although rather vague) of the administration of St Domingue’s army and of part of the operations.”56 Impossible to

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say if these instructions dealt with the plan to “faire peau neuve” (even if that expression was in fact “rather vague”). Perhaps Boyer was instructed to broach the matter in person rather than in writing. Thouvenot’s letters, sent to senators such as Lespinasse and to employees of the Colonial Office, may very well have circulated and reached the first consul or his minister of the navy and the colonies. In any case, they could not be unaware of Rochambeau’s radical discourse, as evidenced by the transmission on 19 July 1803 of a copy of a letter from the general to the first consul. The commander-inchief of Saint-Domingue explains straight out the process to follow in the rebel colony, although he does not speak of “faire peau neuve”: “we need an … army to disarm the fugitives, to exterminate, crush, and to become masters of the battlefield.”57 While the minister, who transmitted the document, expressed disagreement with several elements in Rochambeau’s letter, he does not seem to have found fault with his radicalism. Napoleon probably got wind of the plan to exterminate the Blacks of Saint-Domingue by other means than the correspondence of Rochambeau, Thouvenot, and Boyer. On 25 September 1803, for example, Lescours de Fontainebleau transmitted to the first consul a report whose proposals were not very different from those of the French authorities in Saint-Domingue: “the only way to take advantage of the most beautiful and fertile of the islands that we possess is to fully or at least in large part destroy the rebel Negroes … gentleness and fear can never bring them back; there is only death.”58 The desire for extermination does not appear to have been kept a secret.59 In fact, it was denounced by some authors following the loss of the colony.60 However, starting in the summer of 1803, in Saint-Domingue it was no longer a question of “faire peau neuve.” Above all, Rochambeau and the soldiers of the expeditionary army were trying to save their own skin. Rochambeau no longer had the means to wage war, and communications between the north, west, and south were cut. The British army blocked access to the colony by sea, and one after another, the ports occupied by the French fell. In these conditions, it was no longer possible to “faire peau neuve” even if the genocidal dream came back to haunt Rochambeau on 12 Brumaire year 12, just fourteen days before the Battle of Vertières. In his correspondence, Rochambeau takes refuge in frenzied visions

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of extermination, as if to better postpone the moment when, quite evidently, they would have to leave the colony and declare defeat. In his opinion, they should now “make vanish from the colony” (éclipser), without restriction, all black individuals or people of colour, starting at age seven.”61 But how to “make vanish” several tens of thousands of people? What does “make vanish” signify for him and to what extent does it differ from the need to “faire peau neuve”? In its description of the metaphorical meaning of the verb “éclipser,” the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française of 1798 presents only phrases dealing with a person’s merits or the talents. In Rochambeau’s mind, it was therefore necessary in a way to rethink the verb, which he uses to describe the will to conceal or make disappear almost instantly – like the moon hiding the sun – a black population that stubbornly refused to die. It should be noted that Rochambeau’s is one in a long series of attempts, by the soldiers as well as by the inhabitants of SaintDomingue, to find the right words to describe how to save the colony. Pacifying Saint-Domingue literally required finding one’s words. For instance, as early as June 1802, a white colonist declared how “everything needed to be swept away (que tout soit balayé) before claiming to do nothing in this country.”62 The discursive logic, from “balayer” (sweeping away) to “éclipser” (making vanish) by way of “faire peau neuve,” remains the same. It responds to a need, clearly identified in the 1820s by Haitian author Juste Chanlatte, former secretary to Dessalines, who believed that in Saint-Domingue “it was necessary to come up with new words.”63 The presence of the Blacks of course posed a twofold problem, one military in nature, certainly, but also linguistic, which Chanlatte summarizes very well in his Histoire de la catastrophe de Saint-Domingue. Indeed, if Rochambeau “were able to, with the help of a pneumatic machine, in one sole instant, prevent all the living from breathing, he would certainly have done so.”64 These words are not merely used for stylistic effect. They describe exactly Rochambeau’s fantasy of “sweeping away.” Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for the history of Haiti and its citizens who were simply demanding the right to live, that machine did not exist. Otherwise, there is a strong likelihood that Rochambeau or others would not have thought twice about using such a machine, had it been able to distinguish the breath of the Blacks from that of the Whites. In

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his letter dated 12 Brumaire year 12, Rochambeau resigned himself to the more realistic idea of selling the rebels.65 He could not admit defeat: at any cost, he had to rid the colony of its inhabitants. To the very end, he had to deny the Blacks the right to be not simply merchandise but free citizens with equal rights. uRrU Based on military testimony and verbal accounts, the Battle of Vertières officially began the morning of 18 November 1803. The real battle, the one that spectacularly and traumatically concluded Vertières for the French, began approximately one year earlier. In the French camp as in the Haitian camp, the issue of the conflict went beyond the simple question of independence or of restoring colonial order. The real issue was the survival of an idea (slavery or universal freedom?) and a colour (white or black?). Each camp, reduced to the colour of its skin, had to face the possibility it would be annihilated. In the correspondence of the senior French officers and of certain inhabitants, this possibility led to genocidal fantasies that still today remain largely unknown. While on the face of things the senior French leaders did not orchestrate genocide, there was definitely a desire for genocide among those mandated to restore order on the ground, far from the hushed offices of Napoleon’s ministers. These extermination fantasies were forever swept aside on the day of the Battle of Vertières, even though the rhetoric of extermination survived the collapse of the French on 18 November 1803, as evidenced in a letter penned by General Ferrand, stationed in the eastern part of the island, still under French control. On 17 July 1804, he wrote about “the need, in St Domingue, to annihilate each and every Black, they who pollute this earth so precious for France.”66 However, this rhetoric no longer had exactly the same meaning. Henceforth, it made it possible, first and foremost, to mask what today is still an open wound – the loss of Saint-Domingue. In the eyes of General Ferrand, the Haitians were but a source of “pollution,” the nightmarish reminder of a vile and unthinkable reversal, that of master-slave relationship of the Ancien Régime. Note that Ferrand does not speak of Haitians or of Haiti. In his eyes, the inhabitants

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of the young nation were only “Blacks,” merely slaves who should never have been given the status of citizens. How could France acknowledge the victory of the soldiers of Dessalines’s army in Vertières if the Blacks of Haiti were still perceived as a “pollution” that had to be exterminated, even long after the battle? Acknowledging the victory of the indigenous army and making room for Vertières in the national French narrative would have implied accepting the unthinkable: conceding to former slaves the right to freedom and independence.

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The Symbol of Haiti’s Strength and Survival

In the end, far more than one single “Negro” remained in Vertières. In France, this simple observation led to a long process of creating forgetfulness, as addressed previously. Conversely, this same observation has been interpreted in Haiti as the symbol of the improbable survival of a people doomed by its colonizers to slavery and annihilation. Far more than one “Negro” – there remain in Haiti thousands of men and women, who declared themselves citizens and together demanded the right to dignity. In Haiti, the Battle of Vertières embodies an act of union achieved during the War of Independence and, by the same token, a model of unification for black people in general struggling for the right to self-determination. Vertières is a place where anything is possible, where boundaries of colour and class disappear, a place that expresses the resilience and pride of a community too often caricatured. It is a symbolic space where everyone can assert their fundamental right to life and to be different. Given the unique place of Vertières in the history and memory of Haiti, we must examine it in greater depth. We now leave the French archives, cross the Atlantic, and return to the Haitian coast. While in France, people sought to erase the traces of the great battle of 18 November 1803, such was not the case in Haiti, although showcasing the country’s cultural heritage is only a recent phenomenon (see chapter 8). What place do these traces hold in the homeland of the descendants of Capois, Dessalines, Daut, Vernet, and Clervaux? What form do they take? uRrU

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In Haiti, Vertières is the symbol of heroism, selflessness, and union. The battle is the reminder of sacrifices endured under French fire and is regularly described as such in literature and in the visual arts. Haitian poets Tertullien Guilbaud (born, like Capois, in Port-de-Paix), Oswald Durand (Cap-Haïtien), and Massillon Coicou (Port-au-Prince) paved the way by making it the subject of their epics at the end of the nineteenth century, characterized in poetry by the peak of Haitian romanticism.1 Authors, respectively, of 1er janvier dix-huit-cent-quatre, of Chant national (considered to be the Haitian anthem until La Dessalinienne was selected in 1904), and of Vertières – three poems connected by numerous instances of intertextuality – Guilbaud, Durand, and Coicou describe in them the final battle of the War of Independence as a pivotal moment in defining the national identity. For each of the poets, Vertières was proof that Haiti had a glorious past, like the former mother country and old Western nations. The battle evokes an unprecedented tremor; it is the creative fire of a people who joined forces to react against slavery. Other examples of the battle appear in later literature, including Black Soul by Jean-Fernand Brierre, who writes about Haitian black culture. In this long poem published in 1947, which echoes the essay by Afro-American intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois titled The Souls of Black Folk, Brierre describes Vertières as an inspiration for any struggle for decolonization. In the eyes of the poet, Vertières and fire are one and the same. The light given off by the “torch of Vertières,” probably a reference to the torch of the Statue of Liberty at the entrance to New York harbour, lends the event a hemispheric dimension: In Saint-Domingue the suicides accumulated and you paved with anonymous stones the tortuous path opening one morning on the triumphant road to independence. And over baptismal fonts, clasping with one hand the torch of Vertières and with the other breaking the chains of slavery the birth of freedom of all Spanish America2

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We may also quote a play written a few years after Brierre’s poem, Le pont rouge by Jean Métellus,3 and more recently the autobiographical novel L’odeur du café by Dany Laferrière, translated into English as An Aroma of Coffee. In the latter, the author recites his history lesson to his grandmother; he plays the role of General Capois on his horse and cries, “Forward! Forward!” – words that the first Haitian historians of the nineteenth century ascribed to the heroes: “My history lesson is on the Battle of Vertières. The final battle the black army fought with the French. General Capoix-la-mort was leading the Twenty-Fourth Half-Brigade when a cannonball knocked off his hat. ‘Advance, advance!’ cried Capoix. A second cannonball blew his horse from underneath him. ‘Advance, advance!’ he cried again … I found an old hat in my grandfather’s room. With a new broom for a horse, I recited my lesson for Da.”4 Capois actually commanded the 9th demi-brigade, but the rest is consistent with the patriotic account that Laferrière perhaps learned in a textbook, probably Justin Chrysostome Dorsainvil’s, the bible of Haitian textbooks in the twentieth century. The battle has also been a significant source of inspiration in historical painting that glorifies Haitian heroism. That is the case, for example, in the work of Ulrick Jean-Pierre, a Haitian painter living in New Orleans5 (see figures 7.1 and 7.2), or before him, Cap-Haïtien artist Sénèque Obin, who has created at least three works on the subject: Capois-la-Mort and La bataille de Vertières housed at Le Musée d’Art Haïtien du Collège Saint-Pierre in Port-au-Prince, and Capoisla-Mort à Vertières.6 Philomé Obin, a leading figure in the l’école du Cap-Haïtien and older brother of Sénèque Obin, took up the theme in an oil painting on masonite titled Dessalines passa ses instructions à Capois 7 (Dessalines gave his instructions to Capois). Jean-Baptiste Jean, a student of Philomé Obin, continued in the same vein and, in the early 1990s, created another painting remembering the bravery of the combatants of 18 November 1803 and the birth of the nation. His Vertières: Le dernier combat (Vertières: the final battle) was recently shown at the École normale supérieure de Lyon as part of the exhibition Haïti: 500 ans d’histoire (Haiti: 500 years of history).8 In addition to these paintings, many others exist, the reproductions of which are found in various catalogues that are often difficult to access. They form a gallery of little-known images that – with perhaps the

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exception of the work of Rose-Marie Desruisseau, more symbolic, and the painting by Jean-Baptiste Jean, more surreal – draw on the same style of heroic painting.9 The bodies of the combatants lean forward, either because they have been hit by a volley of shots and are on the verge of falling, or because unhesitatingly they brave enemy fire. In several paintings, Capois-la-Mort is portrayed as a remarkable being who takes up all the space. The general seems endowed with supernatural powers that protect him on the battlefield, a scene of veritable carnage. We see skulls covered in blood, bodies shot down and disarticulated, and even, in the case of Sénéque Obin’s Capois-la-Mort, a blood-red ravine. From one painting to another, the fight seems cruelly unequal, the imbalance of power making Haitian heroism stand out even more. While the soldiers of the indigenous army agree to brave death by the thousands, the French hid themselves on a difficult-to-reach promontory. Visual artist Élodie Barthélémy, daughter of author Mimi Barthélémy and Gérard Barthélémy, an anthropologist specializing in Haiti, completes the panorama of artistic representations of the Battle of Vertières. Her two works, La bataille de Vertières (see figure 7.3) and Capois la mort, are part of a series of works inaugurated in 2004 titled Racines (Roots). These two installations consist of metallic objects, but also of branches and roots salvaged from the forest of Compiègne, near Paris, following a devastating storm in 1999. La bataille de Vertières resembles a floral arrangement presented to the lady of the house hosting a bourgeois dinner. Taking the place of flowers, however, are a gun, axes, chains, bottles, branches, and beech roots. A fragile flag is fastened to a twig that pokes out on the left side of this original assemblage, which evokes the strength of the final battle as well as the destruction and fragility at the origin of Haiti.10 uRrU Vertières appears not only in literature and the visual arts but also in Haitian music, in particular in a song that, according to popular belief, was sung the day of the battle, then handed down to future generations. Not La Marseillaise, but almost. According to Haitian ethnologist Jean Price- Mars, the indigenous army at Vertières, which

Figure 7.1 Ulrick Jean-Pierre, “The Battle of Vertières, 1 (18 November 1803),” oil on canvas, 34 × 52 in., 1990–94, collection of Dr and Mrs Ludner Confident, St Petersburg, Florida.

Figure 7.2 Ulrick Jean-Pierre, “The Battle of Vertières, 2 (18 November 1803),” oil on canvas, 48 × 60 in., 1995, collection of Dr and Mrs Michel Joseph Lemaire, Plantation, Florida.

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Figure 7.3

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Élodie Barthélémy, The Battle of Vertières, 2004.

he calls the “choeur farouche des meurt-de-faim révoltés” (fierce choir of starving rebels), sang the following words: Grenadiers à l’assaut Ça qui mouri zaffaire à yo! [ceux qui meurent c’est leur affaire] Nan point manman na point papa! [pas de mère, pas de père] Grenadiers à l’assaut! Ça qui mouri zaffaire à yo.11 (To the attack, grenadiers, Those who get killed, that’s their business. Forget your mom, forget your dad, To the attack, grenadiers, Those who get killed, that’s their business.) For Timoléon Brutus, the author of a biography of Dessalines, and Horace Pauléus Sannon, historian and author of a biography of Toussaint Louverture in the 1920s and 1930s, the song may be seen as the combatants’“La Marseillaise indigène” 12 (indigenous Marseillaise) or even “La Marseillaise altière” (proud Marseillaise): “Happy are the

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men for whom destiny reserved these incomparable hours! … It is the moment when, fiery with passion, driven by male courage, and taking the final step, they marched into combat singing their lofty Marseillaise: ‘To the attack, grenadiers, Those who get killed, that’s their business. Forget your mom, Forget your dad. Grenadiers!’ ”13 A “proud” or “indigenous” Marseillaise, the song of the grenadiers is presented by historian Jean Fouchard as the first anthem of the liberated nation. In the early 1970s, he wondered: “One day, will we know the name of the other samba [name given in Haiti to a traditional singer] who during the wars of Independence, composed our first national anthem to prepare our troops for the attack?”14 In his writing, Haitian literature specialist Maximilien Laroche, without calling it the first song of the independent nation, frequently insists on the relevance of the lyrics and the tune of the grenadiers. The song – “we know all the lyrics,”15 he says – functions as a key for interpreting the mystery of the Haitian soul. The author explains that it embodies one of the main paradoxes of his country, that “gentleness” and “pain of living” are indissociable in Haiti: “How can we be surprised at this apparent contradiction when we know that the Haitian people were not able to begin living until, paradoxically, they agreed to die? In 1803, didn’t the Haitian soldiers on the attack against France’s positions sing: [the lyrics of “Grenadié alaso” etc. follow].”16 The song evokes the survival of Haiti and also reminds people of the greatest wound of its history: at the origin of the nation, there were deaths by the thousands. As Laroche explains, however, “death, apparent failure, should not be considered an obstacle in a struggle where one cannot die. To be without father and mother, to be alone in the world, is, actually, to be immortal. The death of the individual may be seen as a negligible thing if, in reality, his true life is collective.”17 Sociologist Jean Casimir also places crucial significance on the “chant des grenadiers,” although his interpretation conflicts somewhat with Laroche’s. “Grenadiers, à l’assaut,” according to Casimir, “one of the loveliest songs of the War of Independence,” symbolizes “the primacy of private life,” which the former African slaves valued, anxious to rebuild an Africa that was lost to them forever: “To not die: to live, means having mother and children, ascendants and descendants.”18

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Because it symbolizes courage and survival, the anthem of Vertières has been cited by a great many Haitian authors, novelists, playwrights, and poets concerned with representing the revolutionary era as a whole, and not only as the very final battle of the war. For example, in Le pont rouge, a play by Jean Métellus, Christophe, who is absent from Vertières, utters the words “À l’assaut grenadiers” and Dessalines ends the song, just before Capois leaves, leading his demi-brigade.19 Jean Price-Mars, in La République d’Haïti et la République dominicaine, published in 1953, does not specifically associate the song with the battle of 18 November. He presents it globally as one of the “sublime refrains” of “the multitude of Blacks” struggling for their rights.20 Stephen Alexis makes it the anthem sung during the night of 18 May 1803, that is during the baptism of the nation’s new flag.21 Finally, American author Hubert Cole places the song outside the revolutionary period. In his biography of King Christophe, published in the 1930s, “Grenadiers à l’assaut” is sung in the early 1820s, shortly after the monarch’s suicide.22 Laden with meaning in the eyes of specialists,23 commonplace and a symbol of Haiti in the national literature, the “chant des grenadiers” (song of the grenadiers) appears to be widely known by Haitians, at least in the cities. Uses are extremely numerous, from the most trivial (less often) to the most serious, as occurred during catastrophes when people confronted death.24 A marching song used by the Scouts, a song of encouragement at night when going home in the dark, “Grenadiers, à l’assaut” is also frequently used in the world of sports, particularly in soccer. Since 2008 – following a contest sponsored by Digicel, a cell phone company – the Haitian national team has been known as the Grenadiers.25 What do the team’s fans shout when its attackers race toward the opponent’s net? Grenadiers, à l’assaut, of course! This shout of encouragement is not new, as explains Jacques Pierre, a translator and professor of Haitian Creole at Duke University: “I remember a soccer club called Vertières in the city of Cap-Haïtien,” he says. “The club was well known for its unsportsmanlike games and when it played, its fans used to chant ‘Genadye alaso.’ ” Pierre concludes that, “despite everything, it was a good soccer club.”26 The slogan was used again in various songs composed in honour of the national team, including one by the rasin music group, Boukman Eksperyans.27 Most recently, “Grenadye ann

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ale!” was used by the Haitian soccer team hoping to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.28 The grenadiers’ refrain does not appear exclusively in songs composed in honour of soccer players of the Haitian Republic. Many groups have taken over the lyrics of their revolutionary ancestors and adapted them to very different styles of music, from Creole rap to compas to rasin. Examples include Michel Martelly and his song “Grenadiers” that appeared on the album Men-Koze-A in 1993, “Alaso” by the rap group King Posse,29 “Grenadye a laso” from another rap group called Family Senci,30 and “Grenadye” by Kiko Tru Rasta, influenced by reggae and written specifically for the 2013 carnival.31 Whether a song of protest or carnival hymn,32 “Gernadiers, à l’assaut” invariably embodies the nation’s impetus for survival, regularly affected by catastrophes but always resilient and ready to fight for its fundamental rights acquired on 18 November 1803, going against the trend of history. While the grenadiers’ song often bears witness to a symbolic battle for survival, it was also – and still is – frequently associated with struggles that are in no way metaphoric. Under the Duvalier dictatorship, for example, the song was both an emblem of power – used among other things as a rallying cry by the National Security Volunteers, the notorious Tonton Macoutes33 – and a sign of recognition among opponents of the regime. Journalist Jean Dominique, murdered in 2000, bore witness to it in the journal Collectif paroles (Collective words), published in Montreal in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Shortly after the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier, Dominique explained in the journal how, “beneath the ropes hampering their limbs, and although beaten by their guards,” the farmers of Artibonite jailed at the Saint-Marc prison for their opposition to the regime “sang old revolutionary songs from the wars of independence: ‘Grénadiè alaso, saki mouri zafè rayo’ [To the attack, grenadiers, Those who get killed, that’s their business].”34 The ancestors’ song is thus invoked by people who have nothing left with which to oppose power except the reminder of a glorious history marked by extraordinary resistance before the most powerful European army. Singing “Grenadiers, à l’assaut” is the ultimate act of resistance of people deprived of a voice and of weapons.35

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Since the fall of the Duvaliers, “Grenadiers, à l’assaut” has continued to be the symbol of many struggles, opposing the people in power or the people themselves. Whether in Cap-Haïtien or Portau-Prince, in reaction to MinustAh in Haiti (accused of occupying the country like France did two centuries previous or of bringing cholera to the country), against street gangs or presidents Aristide and Martelly, the tune of the grenadiers has taken on great symbolic value, as if the actions of the heroes of the independence live on, and any act of resistance in some way calls forth the memory of the revolution. In the eyes of its enthusiasts, “Grenadiers, à l’assaut” proves that the revolutionary past is still alive and that the work of their ancestors must be continued through music.36 uRrU Because it embodies heroism, the Battle of Vertières is also present in the world of sports, and not only through music. For example, the Battle of Vertières is mentioned in post-game accounts, such as the one following a meet on 14 April 2007 in Artibonite between the Racing Club Haïtien based in Port-au-Prince and the Tempête Football Club based in Saint-Marc. That evening, Charles Hérold Jr, a player with the Saint-Marc team and a rising national soccer star, recipient of the Ballon d’Or in 2011 and member of the Haitian team, was looked upon as a hero. He scored the winning goal with only seven minutes remaining in the game. His glorious feat was honoured not only by his teammates but also by his opponents. The sports commentator described the battle of 18 November 1803 during which the French stopped the fighting to congratulate General Capois for his bravery. “With the calmness of a surgeon, he lobbed defender Joseph Carl Henry and with an intelligent glance watched for goalkeeper Pierre Louis Michel Helton, and fired an unstoppable low cross-shot that landed in the net of the Racing Club Haïtien. A magnificent goal that only great players can carry off … This goal was such a great feat that he received compliments both from players and from the technical staff of the Racing Club Haïtien. And as General Rochambeau had done for Capois François [sic] at the Battle of Vertières, the trainer of the Racing Club Haïtien,

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Frantz Monpoint, after the game, went over to Charles Hérold to congratulate him.”37 While Vertières seems indissociable from the world of sports, the battle also holds a prominent place in the political arena, where it serves as an extended metaphor of Haitian resistance and cohesiveness, recalled at each anniversary of the battle. Vertières generally embodies the memory of lost unity and has become a model to follow in the face of national dissension. At least that is the meaning given it by many presidents, candidates for the presidency, and ministers and deputies of all political persuasions in their speeches, in defining their electoral platform, and in promoting their policies. There are numerous instances of this usage in the press over the last forty years. For example, the newspaper Le Nouveau Monde, the organ of the Duvalier press, published a speech by President Jean-Claude Duvalier on 20 May 1977 that focused on the country’s economic policy and ended with these words: “May you be guided by a great ideal that helps you overcome our difficulties so that we can soon build a new Vertières in the battle of Economic Development.”38 From Jean-Claude Duvalier to present day, the expression “a new Vertières” has become commonplace in Haitian politics. The words “Vertières,” “union,” and “victory” are interchangeable in this discourse. A more recent example is the interview given by Haitian Senator Céméphise Gilles, from the North department, on Télévision nationale d’Haïti in November 2008 as part of the commemorations of the 205th anniversary of the battle.39 The interview, viewed in the Télévision nationale d’Haïti archives in the fall of 2010, is not really about the Battle of Vertières itself, or the chronology of the event. In the senator’s eyes, Vertières represents first and foremost an understanding that went beyond differences: she advocates that the lost ideal be updated with a view to resolving the country’s current problems. As illustrated by the interview with Senator Céméphise Gilles, the final battle of the War of Independence highlights the contrast between the victories of the past and a less-than-stellar or even hopeless present. This type of representation is not new, either, as is clear in a November 1980 article that appeared in Le Petit Samedi Soir (an independent newspaper to which Dany Laferrière contributed before his exile in 1976). In an editorial titled “Le Dimanche de la honte” (The Sunday of shame), the author explains that instead of

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celebrating its heroes’ victory, the Haitian nation was facing the humiliation of seeing some of its nationals arrested on an island in the Bahamas and repatriated under military guard after trying to flee the country by boat: “It was on 16 November, at the stroke of noon, two days before the commemoration of the victory at Vertières of the Haitian Liberation Army, that the national community experienced one of the greatest shames of its history … 48 hours before the celebration of the 177th anniversary of the struggle that became our pride, a Bahamian warship appeared in Port-au-Prince harbour accompanying the Lady More, transporting 206 gaunt and dirty Haitian boat people.”40 According to the editorial writer, the situation was all the more intolerable as the Bahamas only obtained their independence in 1973 – 170 years after Vertières. In the space of seven years, the Bahamas had accomplished more than Haiti, a proud and independent “old” nation. Due to the many frustrations that can be highlighted through contrast with the memory of the Battle of Vertières, 18 November is frequently an occasion for demonstrations, often violent, where people give the impression of being able to brave death like their ancestors. In 2002, for example, the civilian population in Haiti banded together to denounce the dictatorial tendencies of the regime of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, re-elected two years earlier under questionable circumstances. On 17 November 2002, a big demonstration known as “Le cri [ou le serment] de Vertières” (The cry [or oath] of Vertières) took place in Cap-Haïtien to demand the president’s departure.41 In 2010, after the earthquake, other lively protests took place on 18 November. Demonstrations once again rocked Cap-Haïtien beginning 15 November 2010 over the spread of cholera, which some people associated with the international forces, present on the island since 2004. The demonstrations culminated three days later, on the day in celebration of the 207th anniversary of the battle. City streets were blocked by citizens and UN forces no longer patrolled it. The people expressed their dissatisfaction with the politicians in power and with Jude Célestin, the candidate supported by the outgoing president, and with MinustAh, the UN stabilization force. On the day of the commemoration, burning barricades were set up on National Highway 1 leading to the monument of Vertières (see chapter 9). To prevent leaders from reaching the site, demonstrators blocked access.

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Journalist Cyrus Sibert confirmed that groups of youths, gathered next to the monument erected in 1953 to honour the heroes of the battle, wanted to make the date the symbol of their movement. What they called the “new battle of Vertières” consisted of driving away the un forces, perceived as an army of occupation like the French colonial troops or the United States army during the occupation of 1915–34. Sibert explained that demonstrators slipped a red scarf around the bronze heroes. He believes that the red scarf, a recurring symbol in voodoo and symbol of Loa warriors, including Ogou Feray, calls to mind an “outside force that will enter a person;” a symbol of commitment. The scarf, a link between the past and the present, resurrects, as it were, the heroes of yesterday.42 On the same day, the identical phenomenon of protest occurred in Port-au-Prince as in Cap-Haïtien, when violent demonstrations erupted on the Place du Champ-de-Mars, not far from the presidential palace, which already lay in ruins at the time and has since disappeared.43 uRrU The traces of the Battle of Vertières are numerous in Haiti, both in artistic and political spheres as well as in the world of sports, where they eloquently express the battle’s central place in people’s imagination. However, it is important to remember that this phenomenon is relatively recent. In Haiti, there has not been an intent, as there was in France, to conceal the traces of 18 November 1803; nevertheless, those traces had to be extricated and rediscovered in Haiti over time to finally showcase them at the end of a historical process that began in the 1920s and 1930s and expanded through the 1950s. This process culminated with the establishment of the day of the Battle of Vertières in Haiti as a symbol of the triumph of fundamental human rights over slavery and colonization. This development, which played a key role in the construction of the Haitian nation in the twentieth century, remains unknown by the public as well as by most academics.

8

A Recent Place of Memory

The Battle of Vertières has become a national object of worship in Haiti in the aftermath of five milestones: the nineteenth century, the years 1892–1903 (the period encompassing preparations for the commemorations of the first centenary of independence), the years of the American occupation followed by the country’s second independence (1934–50), the preparations for the 150th anniversary of independence under the presidency of Colonel Paul Magloire (1952–54), and the beginning of the Duvalier era in 1957. uRrU With few exceptions, the nineteenth century was a time of forgetfulness, or at least of non-recognition. The combatants of Vertières were not yet considered heroes, and the date of 18 November did not play a special role in creating Haitian “heroic nationalism,”1 as is evident during the first decades immediately following the proclamation of independence. Rather, it was 29 November that, in conjunction with 1 January,2 attracted attention. In 1817, King Henri Christophe even made it an anniversary date, “the anniversary of our deliverance,” in a proclamation, the English translation of which was published on 7 January 1818 in the National Messenger, and the first words of which were: “Behold the anniversary of the expulsion of the French from the territory of Hayti!” While Christophe recalls the Battle of Vertières in the first paragraph of the proclamation, he does not give it any specific symbolism. The battle is only cited after a long enumeration of the countless military exploits of Haitian soldiers.3

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Focussing on the expulsion of the French rather than the battle that preceded their surrender by one day is entirely logical if we consider the more general message conveyed by Christophe’s proclamation. The king takes advantage of the anniversary of the “deliverance” of the Haitians – the term refers, of course, to the liberation of the people of Moses in the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament – to remind his subjects of the importance of sustaining and transmitting the hatred they must, as good Haitians, feel toward their former masters and the French in general. Only this hatred can guarantee the impossibility of their return. How to explain that Vertières was not a part of official Haitian memory in the nineteenth century? Remember that the first Haitian heads of state after Dessalines – Pétion, Christophe, and Boyer – were mainly busy celebrating their own veneration at the expense of more ordinary heroes such as Capois-la-Mort, André Vernet, and Augustin Clervaux. The Almanach Royal d’Hayti pour l’année bissextile 1816 illustrates well this system dedicated to the veneration of a sole leader. Indeed, five out of the seven celebrations planned paid tribute to the family of King Christophe and to royalty in general: the establishment of the monarchy was celebrated on 26 March, the anniversary of the coronation of the king and the queen on 2 June, the king’s birthday on 15 July, the prince’s on 21 July, and the queen’s on 15 August.4 The colonial period, the years of the Revolution, and the War of Independence play no role in this history dedicated to the veneration of Christophe. Another factor that needs to be considered is that the first Haitian heads of state were involved in the settling of many accounts, which led to the obscuring of the historic role played by their rivals in the War of Independence. For example, we can understand that King Christophe, who dominated the North province from 1806 to 1820, did not seek to glorify the memory of Capois-la-Mort, in whose murder he was involved, or that of the generals who went over to his enemy Pétion, who was in power in the South and the West. We can understand that Pétion, in turn, did not want to celebrate the bravery of his rival, Christophe, who was nevertheless present in Cap-Français during the 18 November 1803 attack.5 Another likely factor is Jean-Jacques Dessalines’s controversial place in the pantheon of the fathers of independence inaugurated

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in the nineteenth century. Dessalines, assassinated in 1806 following a plot in which Pétion and Christophe were implicated, was depicted for part of the century as brutal and “a real dictator” 6 who betrayed the ideals of the nation. Yet, it was he who led the fighting at Vertières. How to resurrect the memory of the battle if it is difficult, even impossible, to mention the honourable role Dessalines played in it?7 How to speak of Vertières under Pétion, for example, if the day of Dessalines’s assassination, and not that of the 18 November victory, was considered to be the celebration of freedom?8 While some, such as President Hérard in the 1840s, called for people to celebrate Dessalines and erected memorials in his honour, others were vehemently opposed to it.9 In more general terms, Haitian intellectuals and politicians of the nineteenth century did not always agree about which ancestors should be celebrated, nor about the means by which to do so, mainly due to the opposition between “Blacks” and “Mulattoes” (between Pétion and Dessalines supporters) that divided the elite and influenced historiographical orientations.10 Differences in opinion about the identity of the true heroes of the young homeland persisted until the end of the nineteenth century, as evidenced by the failure to build a national pantheon in the 1870s.11 Of all the factors likely to explain the historical cover-up of Vertières in the nineteenth century, the issue of how it is (or is not) taught in schools is perhaps the most significant. In the nineteenth century, the national history, to a large extent, was not taught – or was barely taught – in the country’s schools, which were few in number and created belatedly; for example, rural elementary schools were only established in 1848. Not until the Revolution of 1843,12 marked by growing and powerful patriotism, was the Department of Public Instruction, led by historian Beaubrun Ardouin, established under the presidency of Philippe Guerrier.13 The first law on public instruction, passed in 1820, only provided for learning sacred history in elementary schools – the Old and New Testaments, and not the history of the “sacred” Haitian Revolution. In the lycées (schools reserved for the nation’s elite), ancient history and general nonHaitian ancient history were prominent.14 It was only as of 1848, under President Faustin Soulouque, that a new law on public instruction provided for the teaching of national history at all grade levels. This change was justified by article 1 of the law, which explains that “the

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essential foundations of Public education … include religion, ethics,” and finally “love of homeland.” As for (boys’) elementary schools, article 76 of the law adds “elements … of the history of Haiti” to the more traditional disciplines such as French grammar. Article 88 states that in high schools, “in particular the history and the geography of Haiti” (emphasis added) must now be taught, in addition to ancient and modern history. The same change was planned for the lycées, where the plan was to convey “above all” the essential elements of the national history. While the law passed in 1848 indicated a significant change, no radical overhaul of practices occurred as a result. Only a tiny minority of the school-age population attended school, and facilities to adequately accommodate students were sorely lacking. Though national history was now part of the curriculum, no textbook on Haiti as yet existed.15 In 1845, the Department of Public Instruction attempted to partially remedy this by recommending the reading of an excerpt of Thomas Madiou’s history of Haiti, as yet unpublished. Titled “La capitulation du Cap” (The surrender of Cap-Français), the excerpt retraces the various stages of the Battle of Vertières. The initiative remained minor and appears only to have reached students of the lycées, a relatively limited public.16 Not until 1875 was the first real history textbook of Haiti, written by Énélus Robin, published. Vertières is mentioned in it, but the author acknowledges that he lacks the space to describe “all the fine feats of arms that our forefathers have accomplished in these past struggles.” He merely refers the reader to two great Haitian historians, Thomas Madiou and Beaubrun Ardouin, for more details.17 The men who today are considered the heroes of 18 November 1803 played a secondary, or often non-existent, role in the national memory in the nineteenth century.18 Historians focus on other figures, such as Toussaint Louverture, who were gradually restored to favour under President Boyer (1818–43), or even non-Haitian heroes, such as John Brown, the American anti-slavery activist who in 1859 tried to rouse slaves in Virginia to rebellion. His arrest, sentencing, and hanging in the United States made him a veritable demigod in Haiti, martyr to a cause fundamental to the young nation. uRrU

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The final decade of the century witnessed a kind of breaking away from this dominant pattern. In Choses haïtiennes, Politique et littérature, published in 1896, author and politician Frédéric Marcelin told an anecdote that illustrates the will, expressed at the time by many intellectuals and members of the elite, to reconnect with the glory of the past. This will stemmed from what apparently was a widely shared acknowledgment: great moments in the history of Haiti were invisible in the country’s culture. On 19 January 1893, Marcelin, then minister of finance, heard the head of state, Florvil Hyppolite, object to this state of affairs: “Apparently we are unaware that we have a history – I am speaking of our Independence – unsurpassed in heroism and in valour.” This oversight, according to President Florvil Hyppolite, was conveyed, among other things, by the invisibility of the great battles of the War of Independence in pictorial art. “Should not battles such as Vertières and Crête-à-Pierrot be popularized in paintings and lithographs?” the president asked his audience.19 Florvil Hyppolite’s call, echoed by Frédéric Marcelin, to cultivate “veneration of our past, when this past is filled with glory and honour,” was shared by numerous intellectuals in the late nineteenth century, a period characterized by a rise in nationalist sentiment, demonstrated by repeated calls to create specifically Haitian art. “When a young, strong nation … wants to walk, grow, and rise up in spirit … it must look to the past,”20 declared poet Isnardin Vieux at a lecture in 1894. Spurred by poets of the “La Ronde”21 generation and members of the Association du centenaire de l’indépendance nationale (Association for the centenary of national independence), founded in 1892 to “glorify the memory of the heroes of our independence”22 by facilitating the instruction of the people, ancestors were now being rediscovered and veneration of the heroes of Vertières was being promoted. This veneration was largely inspired by romantic poetry, dominant in Haiti since the 1830s, and by the epic tradition that featured heroes who were larger than life and who were prepared to sacrifice themselves for the community.23 For example, in the long poem titled “Vertières,” published in the Poésies nationales series in 1893, poet, professor, and future president of the Association du centenaire Massillon Coicou describes the combatants of 18 November 1803 as “deadly demigods who were bolts of lightning” and “demigods [worthy of] noble antiquity.”24 According to the poet, the heroes of

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the battle without doubt represented “Heroism as conceived by the highest divinity.” Emmanuel Édouard, in Le pantheon Haïtien, also places considerable importance on the heroes of the great battle, and on Capois-la-Mort in particular, to whom he devotes a poem and an interpretive note at the end of his work. In another comparison with antiquity, those heroes pale alongside men such as Capois: On saluera ce nom dans la postérité Ni dans les temps présents ni dans l’antiquité, On ne vit plus vaillant et plus mâle héroïsme. (We will salute this name for posterity Not in present times or in antiquity, Have we seen such valiant and manly heroism.)25 The Battle of Vertières is presented as a paroxysm, a powerful expression that made the birth of the nation possible. The hero of the battle’s inspiration is captured in the French by the alliteration of the labial consonant “p” – “postérité … presents … plus” – which calls to mind the name of Capois. In August 1893, the Battle of Vertières was explicitly included, for the first time, in teaching curricula for elementary schools, special high schools, and the classical lycées of the Republic. Vertières extricated itself from the fringes of the national narrative. Teachers in rural elementary schools were given the prerogative to “choose subjects they felt were likely to capture the children’s attention and arouse patriotism,” part of an overall trend to glorify a series of new heroes to discover. While the teachers in these schools were not obliged to retrace the steps of the War of Independence, or to glorify Capoisla-Mort, the creation of new school curricula, planned since the law on public instruction of 1860 (article 17) and created in stages in 1862, 1868, and 1875, filled a significant gap in redefining the national mythology and identifying historical points of reference to convey to all Haitian children. In urban elementary schools, the curriculum for the fourth and final year covered for the first time: “Charrier and Vertières (description) – Battle of Vertières; Capois – Rochambeau’s admiration for and gift to Capois – Surrender of Cap-Français – Final departure of the French army.” This same historical sequence was supposed to be taught in special high schools (boys and girls) during

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the third year of study. In the lycées, the curricula were less detailed, but the history of “the War of Independence and its episodes” appears in the penultimate year referred to as “rhétorique.”26 The insertion of the Battle of Vertières in school curricula was an important stage in the creation of a place of memory specific to 18 November 1803. Henceforth, the battle was part of a tradition to educate successive generations of schoolchildren. The succession of facts – from “Charrier and Vertières (description)” to “Final departure of the French army” – had to be taught in elementary schools to all children and in the lycées where the elite were educated. It remained in the curriculum until 1913 in elementary schools, and until 1918 in high schools. The Battle of Vertières not only appeared in the new school curricula but also was highlighted in activities organized as part of the centenary of independence. In June 1903, for example, a Madame Lagojanis gave President Nord Alexis a “historical and allegorical painting, intended to perpetuate the memory of the celebration of the first centenary of our independence.”27 The Battle of Vertières was one of “three important facts about the War of Independence” depicted on a column placed to the left of the painting. In Cap-Haïtien, a few days before the anniversary of the battle, municipal authorities cleared the place where the habitation Vertières had stood, a sure sign of interest in the history of 18 November 1803.28 The battle was also mentioned in patriotic literature published in newspapers or in anthologies. For example, a poem by Ernest Douyon published in Le Nouvelliste echoed the famous words of Capois-la-Mort: “En avant! En avant!”29 (Forward! Forward!). Capois also appears in Voix du centenaire,30 a collection of “heroic poems” by Arsène Chevry published in 1904, and in a lecture on the life of Jean-Jacques Dessalines given by Jules Rosemond on 17 October 1903 as part of the activities of the Association du centenaire.31 Distributing commemorative medals32 and postcards representing revered ancestors, including Capois-laMort,33 was another way of highlighting the past. During this era, however, a number of obstacles remained that limited widespread dissemination of the history of the battle of 18  November 1803. The first stumbling block was the very low percentage of population receiving any level of schooling up until the 1930s, especially in the primary grades.34 Another significant obstacle

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was the origin of teachers (many were from France) and their lack of training, not to mention the persistent deficiencies in textbooks, the content of which seemed to be intended for schoolchildren in France. A competition launched in 1893 should have partially solved the problem, which was summarized by the Department of Public Instruction as: “the works currently used in classic studies of Haitian History only in part respond to the needs of teaching.”35 Yet no prize was awarded. During the ceremonies marking the centenary, 29 November continued to be regarded as the important date.36 However, there was little consensus on it: several articles in Le Nouvelliste actually stated that Cap-Français was liberated on 27 November 1803. The newspaper reported, among other things, the decision of the Association du centenaire to “commemorate the date of 27 November 1803 illustrated by the indigenous army’s triumphant entry into Cap-Haïtien under the command of Dessalines.”37 The same decision was made by the committee of the Association du centenaire in the city of Miragoâne, in the south of the country, as it “prepared to organize a large popular demonstration on 27 November, the real date of our birth as a nation,” as if the presence of French soldiers on the evening of 18 November 1803 – and in the days preceding their departure – had delayed the liberation. In Le Nouvelliste on 18 November, the error repeated two days earlier was corrected. A large patriotic reception to be held in Port-au-Prince was announced to mark the departure of the French.38 Stereoscopic projections of “ancestors” (was Capois among them?), a lecture, readings of poems, an official announcement by President Alexis: everything was planned to celebrate the birth of Haiti, but nothing indicates that at that point Vertières was ascribed any particular symbolic significance.39 People’s attention focused on 29 November as a “splendid” achievement. In Cap-Haïtien and Port-au-Prince, festivities were organized to celebrate the expulsion of the French and not the memorable final battle in the War of Independence.40 uRrU The years of the American Occupation (1915 to 1934) as well as the country’s second independence (1934–50) were characterized by

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a significant change. During that period, there was a reworking of Haitian nationalism and 29 November gradually gave way to 18  November. The Battle of Vertières then became an essential symbol of the victory of human rights, of citizenship (scorned by the American Occupation), and of freedom in Haiti. It was proof that the nation was not condemned to wallow in its problems.41 The past was the guide: all the people had to do was follow it. The year 1929 particularly stands out in this process. President Louis Borno, in league with the United States, was in power, but the country’s occupation by its powerful American neighbour was increasingly challenged in Haiti. Late in 1929, a series of strikes were violently suppressed, marking not only a turning point in the history of the occupation but also a new Haitian patriotism. This patriotism manifested itself in various ways in the 1920s: in the newspapers opposed to US forces; in the literature of the so-called indigenist movement, including the writings of ethnologist Jean Price-Mars; in the authorization to create new textbooks; and in the creation of a Haitian historical and geographical society.42 Patriotism was highly valued by President Borno, who refused to leave the prerogative up to his nationalist opponents. It was he who made 18 November a national holiday. A decree issued on 10 October 1929 provided that “throughout the Republic, public services and schools will be closed until noon, on 18 November 1929, so that on this date the entire Haitian nation will share the same historical memories.” The definitive expulsion of the French and the possession of land by the indigenous army, considered up to that point as critical moments in the War of Independence, were now pushed into the background in relation to the “courage, sacrifice, the will to conquer, contempt for death, all the high military and civic virtues that characterize the leaders and soldiers of our days of glory.”43 Eradicating 29 November, and replacing it with celebration of the date of the Battle of Vertières, opened the way for new figures to be part of the national pantheon: leaders, but also ordinary combatants. The daily newspaper Le Matin, which reflected the ideology of the government in power, did not merely reproduce the decree of 10 October making Vertières a half-holiday throughout the country (not just the large cities),44 but also reminded its readers of the battle’s epic development, citing extensive excerpts from the

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Dictionnaire géographique et administrative d’Haïti by author Sémexant Rouzier, inspired by Thomas Madiou’s account.45 Then it explained the symbolism. Through the voice of Colonel Auguste Nemours, a historian and politician close to President Borno, the front page of the newspaper on Tuesday, 15 October, described Vertières as the very “symbol” of Haiti. More than any other event, the battle justified the nickname given to the country by Colonel Nemours: “land of heroes.”46 Le Matin also came to the defence of President Borno by objecting to accusations that he knowingly exploited the memory of the heroes of 18 November 1803 – for which both Le Nouvelliste and La Presse, among others, criticized him – to better mask his tyranny and collaboration with the occupation forces.47 According to the newspaper, far from wanting to deflect attention from the protests of the striking students, President Borno was simply a good patriot.48 Borno – at a distance – presided over the ceremonies that took place on 18 November 1929 in Cap-Haïtien in the presence of a crowd that Le Matin estimated at 5,000 people. Although absent, the president was identified with the battle’s heroes. Telegrams of congratulations that he received on this occasion, reproduced in the 20 November edition of Le Matin, spoke volumes: Cap-Haïtien, 18 November 1929 President of Haiti, palais national A splendid day. Indescribable enthusiasm. The people of the North province applaud your patriotic feat. You will join in the same reverence as the heroes of Vertières […]. Councillor Robinson49 Past and present became entangled. Deceased heroes and contemporary patriots met in a shared space where, as the minister of the interior explained, “individual lives are but a long series of ancestral lives.”50 Lacking marble and bronze to depict these lives, a stone stele more than three metres high (also discussed in chapter 9) was erected on the supposed site of the battle. This was the first monument to the memory of the combatants of Vertières, as noted by the prefect from the North in highlighting Borno’s action: since 1803, “twenty-six heads of state have led the country. Not even one of them … thought to commemorate, even with a stone, the place where

Figure 8.1 “To the Glorious Dead on the day of Vertières. The grateful homeland.” Monument in memory of the Battle of Vertières, unveiled in 1929, under President Louis Borno. Originally, the monument was placed in the middle of a flower bed surrounded by a chain, in front of lush vegetation.

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the solemn act of consecration of our national independence was written in letters of fire.” In actual fact, it appears that the idea for the stele came not from President Borno, but rather from a committee made up of Capois patriots, including Luc Grimard, the principal of Lycée Philippe-Guerrier, and three teachers, including Christian Werleigh and Louis Mercier, as attested in a letter sent on 30 August 1928 and received by Borno on 10 November of the same year. The committee members greatly regretted that “Vertières which occupies such a prodigious place in History,” had become “a wasteland that the confused Haitian would not dare to show to a curious stranger.” As a result, they wished to protect “such a historic place” by “erecting a stele” and “dreamed also of a small celebration later this year on November 18.” President Borno in fact issued a cheque for 500 gourdes “as a personal contribution to the celebration,” but seems not to have had a major role in it.51 While the year 1929 was undoubtedly an important one, it was not the end of the creation of the myth and the consecration of the Battle of Vertières in the collective memory. The law of 10 October 1929 instituted only a half-day off for 18 November of that year. Nothing was planned for afterwards. It was the anniversary date itself, 18 November 1929, that to some extent became an object of worship, at least on the part of President Borno’s supporters. “From now on, the day of 18 November 1929 will be rightly called the day of reMeMBrAnce,” declared Le Matin on 13 December.52 Following Borno’s example, President Sténio Vincent, elected on 18 November 1930, attempted to reappropriate the symbolism associated with the anniversary of the battle. He was referred to as “l’Élu du 18 novembre”53 (The man elected on 18 November). Through his courage and perseverance, he embodied the glorious repetition of the past. His supporters were convinced of it: the apparent coincidence of their leader’s election on the anniversary of the Battle of Vertières was an indisputable sign of fate. For example, that is how the authors featured in the March, April, and May 1936 issues of the nationalist journal La Relève presented the facts. Their “Assessment of the first mandate of President Sténio Vincent, 1930–1936” begins by reminding readers of the symbolism of the date their leader was elected. This date was the ultimate proof of his legitimacy: “Fate has determined Tuesday, 18 November 1930, the anniversary

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of the Battle of Vertières … to be the day of election of the definitive president whose glorious mission is to work … toward the second independence of our country … Sténio Vincent was elected under the sign of Vertières, that is under the sign of victory,” we read in this text praising the president.54 Should we regret that Vincent was not elected earlier, for example, in the early twentieth century, which would have avoided many mistakes, in particular the shame of foreign occupation? The authors of the special issue answer the question without hesitation: “fate is master. It decided otherwise. It marked Monsieur Sténio Vincent for greater heights. The symbol of it is found in his election on 18 November 1930, the anniversary day of Vertières.”55 For the authors of La Relève, the past of the battle was resurrected to justify the present and glorify the entrance of the president-elect on the scene. The evocation of the battle made it possible to set a system of moral affiliation: Sténio Vincent was part of the continuity of irreproachable ancestors. The word “Vertières” became a stylistic device, a synonym for apparently insurmountable ordeals, as succinctly summed up by one author of La Relève: “[Sténio Vincent] must have … considered the bleak prospects of new battles of Vertières that he would have to fight.”56 The appropriation of the date of 18 November by Sténio Vincent’s supporters suggests that the battle was not yet a memory that transcended political divisions. It appears that the battle was commemorated mainly in Cap-Haïtien, and specifically at the Lycée Philippe-Guerrier, a showplace for Capois patriotism, where the day of the battle has been observed at least since the mid-1930s.57 Several sources indicate that each morning students there sang Le salut au Drapeau by Christian Werleigh, a poem in which the Battle of Vertières stands out as a seminal moment in the country’s history. We also know that the battle is commemorated there every 17 and 18 November by teachers whose patriotic speeches are interspersed with readings of epic poems by a select group of students.58 Was the patriotism of students and teachers – in particular that of Louis Mercier, a teacher and later the principal at Lycée PhilippeGuerrier – shared by the citizens of Cap-Haïtien and the surrounding area? In the 1930s and 1940s, the anniversary of the battle seemed to be mostly marked by the elite. For example, the Annales capoises reported in 1934 that a simple “minute of silence” was devoted to the

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battle, after which a representative of the municipal authorities laid down a wreath of flowers.59 A minute of silence and a “magnificent wreath of flowers” also summed up the celebrations the following year, as evidenced by the 21 November edition of the same newspaper. We find no reference to any citizen participation in the anniversary of the battle.60 Did the municipal and academic elite of Cap-Haïtien want the general populace to attend? There are grounds for doubt. In a letter published in the Haïti-Journal on 26 November 1945 in response to a patriotic message sent by students at the École Guillaume-Manigat in Port-au-Prince, students at the Lycée Philippe-Guerrier denounced the population’s ignorance. “Many Haitians, degenerate sons of glorious fathers, barely remember with disconcerting indifference the day when the valiant Capois won immortality under French fire. Vertières, Capois, and 18 November: in their eyes none of the above have any meaning.”61 For many inhabitants in both Cap-Haïtien and Port-au-Prince, the words “Vertières” and “Capois” and the date of 18 November may not have had a great deal of meaning, but it would be difficult to speak of indifference on their part. It is possible that a number of them did not go to school and that most did not read newspapers, where in any case the anniversary of the battle is only noted in exceptional cases.62 In addition, the state itself had not yet instituted a day to commemorate their heroes.63 uRrU Under the reign of Magloire (1950–56), the Battle of Vertières truly acquired its status as a seminal theme in Haiti’s history. After the forgetfulness (in the nineteenth century) and marginal status (compared to 29 November), then a first stage of recognition under presidents Borno and Vincent (from the decree of 10 October 1929 to the election in 1930 of the l’Élu du 18 novembre), the Battle of Vertières and its succession of heroes henceforth became the object of veneration thanks to the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the battle. The battle was recalled not only to justify a seizure of power or to glorify the action of a leader. The commemoration of the battle became conducive to reinventing cultural nationalism, as

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clearly reflected in the newspapers of the time. The front page of Le Nouvelliste on 18 November 1953 describes the date of 18 November as “forever [taking root in] History” and as “an important date.”64 The following day, the day of the battle was presented not only as “an extraordinary date in national history” but also as “a significant date in the annals of the world.”65 Vertières was everything and in everything. It was a rhythm running through the nation.66 A new Iliad,67 it embodied Haitian heroism, which no one in the history of humanity could ever equal.68 It was the “crossroads of history” and a model for the colonized people of Africa or Asia who also intended to free themselves and obtain the right to life and self-determination.69 Vertières was an apocalypse. It was the beginning and the end. It was the “Gospel.”70 Its two syllables carried the rights of all humanity.71 It was the Word itself. “Vertières was the final struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor.”72 The trigger for this redefinition of the battle, and through it the sense of the nation, was the preparation and celebration of the 150th anniversary of independence. Between 1951 and 1954, President Magloire, with the help of a Committee for the 150th Anniversary led by Mauclair Zéphirin, originally from Cap-Haïtien and a former teacher at Lycée Philippe-Guerrier,73 made praising the ancestors of the independence and of Vertières, in particular, a major point of his political program, as evident, for example, from his speech to the nation on 1 January 1952: “We thought it our strict duty to commemorate in a very special way, in the year 1954, this tremendous, unique date of 1 January 1804. Our poets and prose-writers will showcase their contribution to human thought. Our history certainly deserves to hold a place of honour … It is not enough that this history be written based on new, more objective data. The history must also be etched in stone, with symbolic monuments … a key element of this commemoration. Discussions are currently underway with the most famous modern sculptors. And, like in the pilgrimages of time past, we will all fortify ourselves before the commemorative monument to be erected on the hillock of Vertières.”74 Vertières, from this perspective, is the outcome of a national process of remembering.75 It is the final and most important stop on a civic “pilgrimage,” a metaphor that was taken up again in a speech

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President Magloire delivered in Gonaïves on 1 January 1954.76 The Haitian state invested considerable sums of money in preparing for the 150th anniversary, along with citizens’ groups, civil servants, and merchants who agreed to contribute to the celebrations.77 While the celebrations were less sumptuous than planned due to the decline in revenue of the Haitian state in 1953 – a consequence of a drop in the price of coffee and of sisal – they still left a lasting impression, both in Haiti and outside the country.78 For example, in his report on 1954, the British ambassador insisted on the popular success of the event: “The strongly developed nationalism of the Haytian was very much in evidence during the celebrations of the sesquicentenary of independence on 1 January and the few days following … it was impossible not to be impressed by the depth of feeling displayed by all classes.”79 In Cap-Haïtien, preparations for the 150th anniversary led to major changes in the urban landscape. Major infrastructure work began80 and a site in memory of the heroes of the battle was set up on a hill overlooking the main road.81 On 18 November 1953, a Mass of Thanksgiving was celebrated in the city’s cathedral in the presence of a delegation of schoolchildren from Limbé.82 Elsewhere in the Republic, combatants were honoured at conferences intended for the urban elite,83 but also at “evening meetings” intended for the working class.84 In addition, an exhibition on Toussaint Louverture opened at the Musée national; a lycée named for the 150th anniversary was inaugurated in Port-au-Prince;85 special radio programs were broadcast;86 and a set of stamps for the 150th was printed – one featuring Capois-la-Mort, another the Battle of Vertières87 – collected in commemorative booklets fastened with a braided cord in the national colours: blue and red.88 In the lycées of the Republic, the Battle of Vertières was also at the fore, as evidenced by one of the baccalaureate topics in the summer of 195389 and by the major celebration organized in the schoolyard of Lycée Pétion on 18 November in the presence of President Magloire. On that occasion, “700 students from the school” presented a largescale re-enactment of the Battle of Vertières “with the assistance of the Haitian Army.”90 “A fresco depicting the battle” – now gone – was unveiled as a prelude to the event.91

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Not to be outdone, patriotic literature also highlighted Vertières. The saga of the heroes led to the publication of a great many poems and essays in which Vertières became the anti-colonial act par excellence.92 For Fernand Alcindor, for example, “the Battle of Vertières is the grave of colonial pride.”93 For Paul-Émile Charles, Vertières was a real “furnace” from which the hero, Capois, emerged like a phoenix rising from the ashes.94 The very beginning of the nation was 18 November 1803, as expressed by J. Dieudonné Lubin: “And Vertières sealed the national soul.”95 Newspapers also played an important role in the acknowledgment of heroes, notably by publishing special issues devoted to the sequence and repercussions of the battle.96 The historical reminders published in newspapers were almost all inspired or selected from Thomas Madiou’s famous account of the battle.97 The song that today is associated with the Battle of Vertières, “Grenadiers, à l’assaut” (see chapter 7), was at the forefront of these patriotic accounts. Lélia Lhérisson, for example, declared in 1954, rather lyrically, that “the ‘chant des grenadiers’ as they launched their attack still runs through our veins and rises, impassioned, up to our brains.”98 Indeed, the song is impassioned in the theatre and poetry of Jean Brierre, as illustrated in his patriotic play, Au milieu des flammes, winner of the 150th anniversary competition. The lyrics “grenadiers, à l’assaut” are not quoted in the text of the play, but are implied when the playwright gives the floor to General Magny, who explains why it is necessary to reject La Marseillaise to signal a radical break from the former homeland: La Marseillaise can be heard in the distance. The song comes closer and is sung by three soldiers, one of whom carries the French flag. He remains downstage. MAGny: General, listen! This song approaching us like an impassioned nation, Whose rhythm guided our steps in battle, This song: its tones plant epic seeds In the still-young hearts of men and of the wind As if each word were dampened with blood,

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Did not come from us: it is their Marseillaise, Taught to us on the way to the fire From now on this message is foreign to us … We rebels need a new song, A chorus transcendently echoing the bursts of gunfire, The slogan can be heard in the cymbals: Liberty or Death!99 Brierre is implicitly alluding to the “chant des grenadiers,” which we find more explicitly in other of his texts, such as the poem La source, written in honour of Jean Price-Mars.100 It embodies the slogan of the nation about to be born: live free or die.101 In 1953–54, “Grenadiers, à l’assaut” became commonplace, a symbolic space in which the nation could come together and find an identity. The song’s absence was experienced as a loss, as indicated in a letter written by Abner Boisson and published in Le Nouvelliste on 26 November 1953. The letter discusses the stage recreation of the Battle of Vertières at Lycée Pétion in Port-au-Prince. While the letter write congratulates the playwright and the actors – “the Battle of Vertières portrayed, on that afternoon, was highly successful” – he nevertheless notes that “only the ‘chant des Grenadiers’ was missing! À l’assaut! Nan point manman! Nan point papa! Pitites mourri! Zaffè yo!”102 (To the attack! Forget your mom! Forget your dad! Children who get killed, that’s their business!) Even if the order of the lyrics has been slightly inverted, we note that, for the author of the letter, the battle is indissociable from the song of his ancestors. Boisson was not the only person to make this connection. For example, a few days earlier, the prefect of the Limbé-Borgne-Plaisance districts reminded people that black soldiers, in the last stage of the war, took over the song, “singing all the parts.”103 The lyrics of the song “Grenadiers, à l’assaut” symbolize the death of slavery and Haiti’s elevation to the great powers of the time. “By singing this heroic refrain [the fathers of independence] hammered the enemy and removed the ramparts of Colonial self-importance,” we read in the 21 February 1953 edition of Le Matin.104 So in a way, the “chant des grenadiers” made it possible to perfect the French revolutionary work begun on 14 July 1789 by the storming of the

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Figure 8.2 Scene of the re-enactment of the Battle of Vertières, 2 January 1954, Cap-Haïtien.

Bastille. Through singing, the black soldiers caused the greatest rampart of the modern era to falter, that of “race,” on which slave societies were based. The celebrations culminated in Cap-Haïtien on 2 January 1954. The day’s program included a mass with the Te Deum in the morning,105 the blessing of the monument honouring the heroes in the afternoon,106 and a reception for distinguished guests at King Christophe’s former palace, Sans-Souci, where Afro-American singer Marian Anderson performed.107 The highlight, however, was the re-enactment of the battle on grounds located off the main road, in the direction of the hill. A route was even marked out to facilitate the movement of the actors and the public toward the theatre of what was announced – and described afterward108 – as the highlight of the day. An imposing warehouse was built to accommodate official cars.109 The re-enactment was performed by the cadets and officers of the Académie militaire, assisted by scouts and by extras recruited from schools and elsewhere in Cap-Haïtien.110 While the actors were portraying the ancestors, Major Paul Corvington, director of the Académie militaire, introduced each stage of the battle, using a huge map for visual support.111 It was an impressive show, much admired

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by viewers, as reported the British ambassador in a dispatch to British Foreign Affairs Minister Anthony Eden.112 A committee comprised of soldiers, historians, and theatre artists that included Mentor Laurent and Jean Brierre carefully planned the re-enactment,113 with the extras and cadets rehearsing the scene over and over for several weeks.114 Even the French ambassador, generally not very enthusiastic regarding any mention of the War of Independence, seems to have been satisfied with the effort that went into the historic re-enactment.115 According to the New York Times of 4 January 1954, no fewer than 400 actors took part in the staging of the “fort” of Vertières, represented by a long crenellated wall built for the occasion.116 Time magazine reported the use of 10,000 cartridges (an average of 25  cartridges per person) and 2,000 charges of gunpowder that day.117 The Washington Post reported in its 4 January edition that the re-enactment, attended by 25,000 people,118 ended at a key moment, with spectators spontaneously participating in the taking of Vertières.119 Another witness, journalist Bernard Diederich, told of how several thousands of Haitian farmers, armed with their cutlasses after returning from their farming duties, could not resist the call of history and joined the actors, striking up the song “Grenadiers, à l’assaut.”120 Several film crews recorded the re-enactment of the battle.121 An excerpt from one of the films shot on that day – apparently intended for American audiences – was found in the fall of 2012 in the archives of the Centre international de documentation et d’information haïtienne, caribéenne et afro-canadienne (cidihcA) in Montreal. In a little over three minutes, the English-speaking narrator describes the impressive nature of the battle. The soldiers of the indigenous army are depicted as “a bunch of patriots” fighting for freedom. The description calls to mind other revolutionaries, like those in the American War of Independence (1776–83), who also fought in defence of their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence of 4 July 1776. In this way, the Battle of Vertières represents a continuation of what was started by the United States in their war of decolonization. The film, which apparently has not been broadcast since 1954, shows a few French people overwhelmed by the events; they faced hundreds of half-naked combatants rushing toward the enemy.

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The resistance of the French was in vain, and very quickly one of Rochambeau’s soldiers has no choice but to wave a white flag. The indigenous army exults, while nearby the horse of the actor playing Capois-la-Mort lies on the ground, sacrificed for the cause.122 uRrU Unquestionably, the 150th anniversary of independence celebrations played a pivotal role in the process that made Vertières a key moment in the nation’s history. They demonstrated great fervour to commemorate the battle. Contrary to what happened after Borno’s presidency, the passion did not lessen after 1954; indeed, the myth of Vertières was kept alive after the celebrations ended. On 18 November 1954, for example, inhabitants of Cap-Haïtien gathered before the new bronze monument to perpetuate the tradition of revering their ancestors and declaiming patriotic poems, singing songs, and giving speeches.123 In July 1955, a “statue of Capoix La Mort [sic] on his horse” and two paintings describing the battle were exhibited at the Musée Paul E. Magloire, inaugurated that year in Cap-Haïtien.124 In Port-au-Prince, homage was also paid to the heroes. On 18 November 1955, students at the École des Frères de l’instruction chrétienne took part in various activities, including a theatrical representation of the battle.125 Approximately one year later, a bust in honour of Capois was installed near the village of Limonade, where he was assassinated. As these examples illustrate, the 150th anniversary celebrations of independence marked a new style of commemoration, especially evident in the north and the northwest, where the great battles of the Revolution and the War of Independence had raged. uRrU In 1957, the status of the Battle of Vertières in official memory underwent a final transformation. Now an uncontested place of memory, it was also to become a favoured site of Duvalier’s politics. Indeed, the heroes of Vertières were associated with the accession to the presidency of François Duvalier, who became Haiti’s new strongman. Once elected, the former doctor, through article 183 of the constitution of 1957,126 quickly set up a holiday, 18 November, dedicated to

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the joint celebration of the army and the heroes of the great battle. Then he laid a wreath of flowers before the bronze monument in Cap-Haïtien.127 These two symbolic acts mark the consecration of Vertières as an “ideal” for the Haitian Army. As the guarantor of power, the army must, finally and forevermore, resurrect the past. To bring back the ancestors of 18 November and restore them to memory, the nation henceforth honoured them not with a half-day off as in 1929, but with an entire day of annual commemoration.128 In his speech to the army at his very first 18 November celebration, François Duvalier described Vertières as one of the homeland’s fundamental moments: “On 18 November 1803 after resistance from the French expeditionary army was crushed by indigenous troops, the Haitian nation was born … The marron of Saint-Domingue now belonged to a nation … Every 18 November calls to mind the final song of the saga that made us what we are.”129 The Haitian “we” is contained in Vertières, which made possible the birth of the nation. Exploitation of the battle under the Duvalier régime became apparent a few years later in the pledge to the flag, sung in the schools of the Republic every morning as of 1964. This pledge confers upon 18 November 1803 a key symbolic place in building the nation and in defending the right to self-determination and freedom: Je jure devant Dieu et devant la nation D’en être le gardien intraitable et farouche. Qu’il flotte désormais dans l’azur Pour rappeler à tous les Haïtiens Les prouesses de nos sublimes martyrs Qui se sont immortalisés, Sous les boulets et la mitraille. Sur la Butte Charrier, à Vertières Dans la Crête à Pierrot Pour nous créer une patrie Où le nègre haïtien Se sent réellement souverain et libre. (I swear before God and before the nation To be the guardian, uncompromising and fierce So from now on it may float in the blue To remind all Haitians

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Of the feats of our sublime martyrs Who are immortalized, Beneath the canon and gunfire At Butte Charrier, at Vertières At Crête à Pierrot To create a homeland for us Where the Haitian Negro Feels truly sovereign and free.) During the Duvalier dictatorship, the battle no longer really belonged to the past. Stripped of its historicity, it became an ideal, that of the Haitian ancestors, of which François Duvalier was the sole guarantor. This type of representation appears year after year in the official commemorative speeches and commentaries published in Le Nouveau Monde, the newspaper of the Duvalierist power. It constantly presents Vertières as a metaphor and a contemporary reality. Journalist Nelson Bell summed up the situation on 17 November 1963: “The Battle of Vertières continues. Yes, inasmuch as the present is laden with the past, inasmuch as the history of such a young people as ours can be defined by the intentional replay of the past by the present, it is clear that the Battle of Vertières victoriously continues to benefit our suffering multitudes … While the sun of 18 November 1803 has long ago set, our sky remains ablaze.”130 One year later, again in the Nouveau Monde, Yvon Hyppolite titled an article, “Vertières continues …” The following year, François Duvalier described soldiers in the Haitian Army as the “living continuity of our dead heroes.”131 In 1970, Nelson Bell reused the same title: “The Battle of Vertières continues.” 132 The rhetoric is immutable:133 Vertières embodies the past, the present, and the future. This repetition is clearly not a curse. It signifies the blaze of glory of the ancestors, who, through their example, forever illuminate the world of the living. uRrU The appropriation of the ancestors of Vertières by the Duvalier dictatorship – both father and son – was the outcome of a long process. Prior to the 1890s, the battle of 18 November 1803 was not part of national memory. Starting in the 1920s, the battle became a

Figure 8.3 At Fort Picolet, close to the entrance, November 2010.

Figure 8.4 At Fort Picolet, place of worship, November 2010.

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recognized moment in history, a phenomenon achieved in the 1950s thanks to celebration of Haiti’s 150th anniversary of independence. Shortly after, Vertières became the symbol of Duvalierist power and of a renewed alliance between the combatants of the present and the ancestors of the War of Independence. This alliance, which transcends the boundaries of time, persists today, some thirty years after the fall of the Duvaliers in 1986. Intended to be a source of unity and an ideal to pursue, remembering becomes a duty that everyone can honour in his or her own way. For example, by singing the “chant des grenadiers.” Or by pausing in contemplation before the various monuments erected to the memory of brave ancestors, from the Monument of Vertières in Cap-Haïtien to Fossé Capois – where the hero of the battle was assassinated – by way of the ruins of Fort Picolet, from atop which the combatants of November 18 were able to savour a hard-won victory.

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Picolet, Fossé Capois, Vertières: In the Footsteps of Ancestors

The ruins of Fort Picolet are one of the first places I visited during my first visit to Cap-Haïtien in late October 2010. From the fort, located on a rocky point at the northwest tip of the city at the entrance to the Bay of Cap-Haïtien, the first cannonballs were fired on French expeditionary forces in February 1802, as historian Thomas Madiou recalls: “as soon as night fell over the city on 4 February, Fort Picolet gave the signal to commence hostilities by firing a cannonball on the squadron.”1 It was also from atop this fort that the final words and glances were exchanged between the few surviving French soldiers and the combatants of the indigenous army during the evacuation of the city, eleven days after the Battle of Vertières. Fort Picolet illustrates the questioning at the heart of my then-emerging research: the ancestors of the battles of the War of Independence, and of Vertières in particulier, undeniably live on in Haitian memory, but the physical traces reminding us of their saga are extremely fragile, as reflected in the uncared-for ruins of the fort. Fort Picolet was part of the system of fortifications set up by the French during the colonial period and reinforced during the War of Independence under the orders of generals Leclerc and Rochambeau. Designed in 1736, it was built in 1739 and later reinforced on several occasions. Ships had to approach it to enter the city and to avoid hitting one of the reefs guarding the bay. Today, the fort is still mentioned on tourist maps, but the site is sure to be abandoned. To reach it, I drive on a dirt road that leaves the Carénage neighbourhood and runs alongside the bay. The road ends close to a hotel and small beach; from there I continue on foot, following the sea. The beach is strewn with bottles, plastic bags, and shoes. A path at

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the edge of the cliff leads to the ruins of the fort. My guide explains that, like other historic places in Cap-Haïtien and the surrounding area, Picolet is a mystical place where voodoo is practised. He shows me nooks and crannies of stones blackened by smoke from the ceremonies. Here and there, I can detect wax stuck to the walls. Once a centre of colonialism, the monumental expression of French imperialism during the Ancien Régime, today Fort Picolet is imbued with a supernatural force in the eyes of voodoo practitioners, as if to better exorcise the colonial presence. One of the masters there, Ogou Feray, the loa of blacksmithing and of war, is fond of the colour blue. Traces of it are found all over, on the masonry walls, on the ground, and on the stones. In one corner, where only a few fragments of wall, stained with red, remain from an old building, branches have been bound together to form a place of worship. No walls or ceiling, just the framework of a place of worship separated into two areas by a small painted wooden balustrade. The peristyle is the central room surrounding a painted red pillar, the potomitan, a place where the loas and the men meet. That is where the initiated dance to the sound of drummers. During my second visit, in the summer of 2013, I notice, across from the place of worship, what looks to be a row of structures, also wooden, which my guide tells me are used for storage of inventory by the merchants who converge on Fort Picolet during religious celebrations. Between the walls of Fort Picolet, past and present intersect. Below, at the back of the fort, facing the Atlantic Ocean that brought African slaves in the eighteenth century and Napoleon’s forces in February 1802, there is a recess in the rock. Inside it, I can make out blue paint once again, traces of a fire, empty liquor bottles, and shoes. A little further below, a rusted cannon rests alongside an earthenware plate. Strange sight. Not far from there, other cannons are strewn on the ground of the former battery, some pointed toward the sky. Located just outside the city and busy roads, Fort Picolet is not a forgotten place: it has an obvious religious function. But its history is hard to see today, and the words uttered inside these walls, notably at the approach of Vertières, remain for the most part inaudible. Why has this heritage site not become a place of memory and patriotic pilgrimage? The question is not new. Back in 1956, a journalist from Le Matin raised it: was it not “high time to think of using Fort Picolet

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for tourism? The former French fortification that played an important role in Leclerc’s expedition and after Rochambeau’s surrender is impressive.”2 As imposing as it is today, Fort Picolet, where walked the ancestors who fought at Vertières, a few hundred metres away, has not been developed to do justice to its historic importance. uRrU Fossé Capois is located opposite Fort Picolet, about fifteen kilometres southeast of Cap-Haïtien, on the outskirts of the village of Limonade. The place calls to mind the assassination of General François Capois, the famous Capois-la-Mort, hero of the Battle of Vertières, killed in October 1806, a few days before Jean-Jacques Dessalines. First visit. At the entrance to the city, the driver, the guide, and I leave the asphalt and take a dirt road to the left. On each side of the battered road, images unfold: a display featuring cans of gasoline of various sizes, small houses, yards where children play and animals doze. We arrive at the site called Fossé Capois. Close to another crossroad, men and children are gathered under an impressive tree, next to a display of merchandise. I also notice what I think is one of those lottery kiosks, a borlette bank (lottery shop), that you see on the roadsides throughout Haiti and all over the cities. To the right, a wooden door opens onto a lane bordered with banana trees. At the end stands a stele topped with a bust of Capois, erected under the presidency of General Paul Eugène Magloire, a native of Cap-Haïtien. A local informs me that a fifty-gourde note – which actually features the face of the great hero – is the price of admission. The place doesn’t seem to get much traffic. As opposed to the nearby fort, built under King Christophe, this is not really a tourist attraction (although it is mentioned in the Petit Futé guide), a fact already lamented in 2007 and 2009 by journalists of Le Nouvelliste.3 So it is even less preserved. The oversized steps leading to the monument are badly cracked. Earthenware tiles are missing around the stele, and vegetation seems to be taking over the place. The bust of Capois, in military dress, is almost entirely blackened. On the stele, words scribbled in red chalk run alongside the official inscriptions dating from the 1950s, like a palimpsest. The following words are engraved on the front of the monument: “Under the Government [these

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Figure 9.1 Monument erected under the presidency of Paul Magloire in memory of Capois-la-Mort, Fossé Capois, November 2010.

three words are gone over in red chalk] of S.E. Paul E. Magloire, this monument was erected in memory of Capois la Mort, the hero of Vertières, fallen here on 10 October 1806.” On the left-hand side, in hesitant writing in red chalk, slanting upward, another version is offered to visitors: “Fòse Ka pWa La mò.” On the abandoned monument, two memories seem to overlap, echoing each other. The official version – that under Magloire made Vertières a seminal moment in Haiti’s history (see chapter 8) – no longer seems relevant. However, the personage of Ka pWa La mò (Capois-la-Mort) is still present in individual memories, as attested by the inscription in chalk, written perhaps by the hand of the child accompanying me who explains in Creole that this is the place where Capois was assassinated.

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Not far from there, I look for the general’s grave, which is mentioned in an article in Le Nouvelliste that appeared in 2009.4 No one seems to know where it is, aside from a local who accompanies us to another crossroad, a few dozen metres from the village. There, in a ditch, lies a rectangle made of bricks. In 2009, when a journalist visited it, a bamboo fence was installed around the structure to protect it and let passers-by know the location of the site. By the time of my first visit here, the fence no longer existed. Our guide laments the town’s lack of action: nothing has been done to preserve the site. A journalist writing in Le Matin in June 2012 shared his opinion: “An abandoned and anonymous grave overrun with weeds where cows, kids, and pigs come to graze.”5 The place is a symbol of the systemic way in which the traces of the Battle of Vertières have been obliterated and the challenge that reconstructing these traces presents. Among the people I meet, everyone has heard of Capois – in school or during the annual 18 November commemorations – but most people do not know that the grave – if indeed it is his – can be found in a secluded ditch gradually covered over by rampant vegetation. The second time I visit, work has been underway at Fossé Capois. The borlette kiosk has been moved, a space has been cleared. At the site entrance, the door has disappeared and workers are busy. Near the road leading to the stele, vegetation has been cut or uprooted, the steps and the low wall have been repaired, and two cabbage palms been planted to welcome visitors. This work is not isolated; it attests to the local government’s wish to highlight the region’s history for purposes of tourism. On the main road, a large sign intended for visitors announces Place Fossé-Capois. In parentheses, it says that this is a “place of memory” (lieu de mémoire). The name is interesting, on more than one level. It echoes the works by Pierre Nora on the “sites of memory” of the French Republic and calls to mind the attempts of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (unesco), since the 1990s, to highlight the heritage of the history of slavery in Caribbean societies, particularly in Haiti, but also in Africa and the continental Americas. Ironically, such wording reveals that Fossé Capois is not – or at least not yet – a place of memory. Were it such, why would it have to be mentioned? The very official designation only concerns Fossé Capois; the

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supposed tomb of the hero of Vertières was still abandoned at the time of my second visit. uRrU I head back on the road to Cap-Haïtien and stop some distance from the city centre, on the left side of National Highway 1. While the word “Vertières” may not exist outside Haiti, it is certainly evident throughout this neighbourhood. Not far from here, heading toward Barrière Bouteille, the entrance of the city, is the Vertières Bar, a Charcuterie de Vertières (delicatessen), the Vertières medical clinic, and the Centre technique polyvalent de Vertières, a vocational school. In front of me stands the “monument to the heroes.” It overlooks a vast plaza built under President Aristide as part of the celebrations for the bicentennial of independence. A high stone wall, then adorned with political graffiti (since erased), separates the esplanade from the artificial promontory on which the monument is installed. It is an imposing bronze statue. The sculpture spectacularly recalls and dramatizes the bravery of the combatants of Vertières who sacrificed themselves to preserve the fundamental rights of all Haitians; it brilliantly depicts their indestructible union and their scorn of death. A little to the left stands a stele inaugurated on 18 November 1929, in the midst of the American Occupation (see chapter 8, figure 8.1), and dedicated to the memory of the combatants: “To the Glorious Dead on the day of Vertières. The grateful homeland, 18 November 1929.” During my first visit, the stele was covered with election posters bearing the image of former prime minister Jacques Édouard Alexis. As these posters attest, the struggles of the past and the present are indissociable. The memory of the War of Independence collides with contemporary Haitian politics. The contrast is striking between this discreet column and the collection of bronze sculptures inaugurated on 2 January 1954 by President Magloire6 (see figures 9.2 and 9.3). Seven people in all are depicted. Six are looking toward the sky, as if to better symbolize the radical break marking the final battle of the war. To the left, a fallen soldier lies alongside a horse also fallen in combat. This is Squadron Leader Paul Prompt, killed while attacking French lines.7 Among the

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Figure 9.2 Paul Prompt, one of the fallen heroes of the Battle of Vertières (monument to the heroes, Vertières neighbourhood, Cap-Haïtien).

six living people, two women lean slightly forward, supporting each other; one of them is touching the body of the fallen cavalry officer. Reassuring presences, they call to mind the connection between life and death, and embody the hope of rebirth of a country ravaged by war. In the middle, three soldiers armed with swords stand proudly. The one in the centre is lavishly dressed and wearing a bicorne: this is General-in-Chief Dessalines. He is holding the hand of General

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Figure 9.3 Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Capois-la-Mort, and Two Anonymous Women (monument to the heroes, Vertières neighbourhood, Cap-Haïtien).

François Capois, to his right. To his immediate left stands another soldier, while a fourth man, placed a bit off to one side, carries the nation’s flag. He is the only one not wearing a military uniform. The latter two men portray generals Jean-Philippe Daut and Paul Gabart. We know the names of the heroes portrayed thanks to an article in Le National dating from 1953, but no identification is provided on the sculpture. The bronze figures essentially serve an allegorical

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function. With difficulty, we can make out the initial of the first name and family name of the foundry worker: V. Lera. It is Vittorio Lera, an Italian caster known for other historic statues as well, including two replicas of a statue of Simón Bolívar on horseback, executed by Adán Tadolini and erected at Bolívar Square in Lima in 1859.8 Few people, either in Haiti or outside the country, know that the Monument of Vertières is the work of Cuban sculptor Juan José Sicre,9 of the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Art in Havana. Nor are many people aware that there was at least one preparatory study, created in 1952. That version, basically unknown, is reproduced in hard-to-access sources, including Historia de la revolución de Haití, a book by José Luciano Franca, a Cuban writer specializing in the slave trade, and in the 15 November 1953 issue of the Cuban magazine Carteles.10 The monument, the final design of which was approved in January 1953,11 was based on a sketch by poet Roussan Camille, the secretary of the executive committee for the 150th anniversary celebrations. At least this is what several articles indicate.12 In 1952, President Magloire predicted that the monument to the heroes of Vertières would become a pilgrimage site for the entire nation, a meeting ground between ancestors and contemporaries seeking a model for confronting the struggles of the present.13 Indeed, the monument has become a pilgrimage site, although exploited by François Duvalier as of 1957. More recently, Jean-Bertrand Aristide also tried to use it to establish his power, as attested by two plaques affixed to the promontory where the sculpture is perched. One refers to the renovation of the site in 2003. The second, dated the same year, is more ideological: “To them. Honour and glory! To us, their worthy sons and daughters, respect, restitution, and reparation.” “Restitution” and “reparation”: these two words recur in the speeches of President Aristide, who tried as best he could that year to stifle the public and political protests – which took place, among other places, in Cap-Haïtien, where demonstrations were forbidden in the days surrounding the commemoration of Vertières – by asking for restitution of the independence debt paid to France in the nineteenth century. With these words, Aristide ended a very long speech delivered before the monument on 18 November 2003 at a celebration that was shunned by most Western representatives.14 A

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few weeks later, the president was forced to leave the country under international pressure. This monument to the heroes, virtually unknown outside Haiti (as opposed to the statue of the “Nègre marron,” or “marron inconnu,” the unknown slave, located opposite the presidential palace in Portau-Prince, which was destroyed by the January 2010 earthquake and which is regularly reproduced in textbooks and magazines), has an important place in the city of Cap-Haïtien, and in Haitian culture in general. In 1987, the monument replaced the face of Jean-Claude Duvalier on the former five-gourde bank note. Since then, it has been regularly depicted on commemorative medals, on murals,15 and in many paintings. As a location for political gatherings and demonstrations (including one recently against MinustAh), the site of musical festivities (such as during the 2013 carnival16), a tourist attraction, or a destination of patriotic pilgrimage, the sculpture and the place surrounding it are powerful symbols. This explains why tensions tend to crystallize around the monument, for example, when it is vandalized or insufficiently protected, according to its defenders. In 2003, for example, some people vehemently denounced a clumsy attempt at restoration during which it was covered in brown oil paint.17 In the spring of 2011, another controversy surrounded the theft of the heroes’ swords and the bridle of the fallen horse. This act was seen as a sacrilege, a direct attack against heroes regarded as sacred.18 The theft gave rise to more emotion as there were two incidents (around 8 May and 16 May), and the police (and thus the state) were unable to prevent the thugs from returning to complete their damage. The swords and the horse’s bridle were not the only objects stolen, as evidenced by a report from the Institute for the Protection of National Heritage (isPAn) in June 2011. Among other things, the report mentions the disappearance of the “wiring of the power supply, the pole of the national flag adorning everything, the water distribution pump, etc.”19 More recently, the monument has been smeared with pink and white paint, colours representing President Martelly.20 During my second visit to Cap-Haïtien in the summer of 2013, the area around the sculpture was strewn with litter. uRrU

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From one place to the next, from Picolet to Vertières, three kinds of historical traces have become apparent. At Fort Picolet, a kind of obliteration – or at least noticeable disregard – of the memory of the War of Independence is evident, which gives way to other forms of appropriation there, primarily religious. Fossé Capois tells the story of the gradual obliteration of traces, not only of the real figure of Capois-la-Mort, the great hero of the Battle of Vertières, but also of the commemorative act that created a monument in his honour in the 1950s. However, in recent years, awareness of this obliteration has sparked outrage from journalists and citizens who have tried to preserve the site in memory of the combatants of Vertières. The movement seems to have been successful: the site is being restored, but that does not necessarily mean it will become a place of pilgrimage, or be identified as a “place of memory.” The elements and function of the third place differ radically from that of Fossé Capois. The Monument of Vertières is a physical trace that attracts attention and tensions. It consecrates the Battle of Vertières, in Cap-Haïtien and in Haiti in general. The sculpture recalls the past, but also serves as a reservoir of meaning for the present. It is the place of memory, in turn glorified and exploited, desecrated and protected. A strong impression emerges from these three sites where traces appear, more or less distinct, obliterated, blurred, neglected, rediscovered, or regarded as sacred. A common tension is apparent. The great battle of 18 November 1803 still pervades these places steeped in history and yet threatened with oblivion, despite alarms raised by citizens and authorities. uRrU Though in Haiti there was no deliberate process to conceal Friday, 18 November 1803, as there was in France, the traces left by the battle and its protagonists – fortifications, commemorative monuments, graves – remain fragile. Vertières is the symbol of Haiti’s survival and unity, both in political and artistic spheres as well as in the world of sports. It serves to remind people of a significant victory of basic human rights: the right to life, liberty, and citizenship. But all of that is not enough to thwart forgetfulness, since Vertières has been regarded as a sacred place only relatively recently, starting in the

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early 1930s. Its memory has also long been exploited in the service of politics, first under the Duvaliers, then under Aristide. These explanations, rooted in Haiti’s uniqueness, should naturally not be disregarded. Yet we have reason to believe that the traces of the Battle of Vertières and of the human rights victory achieved that day will always remain fragile in Haiti so long as they are not recognized abroad, starting with France. In other words, preserving the historic sites of Vertières cannot be ensured until the consecration of 18 November 1803 extends beyond Haiti’s borders and until France, in particular, recognizes that on that day sounds other than the shouting of the combatants and the roar of cannons were heard. In the breaking apart of Haiti and France that was at stake during the battle, in the gaps between hatred and distress, the words of a shared struggle are concealed, one sung in other places at other times. On 18 November 1803, France and Haiti still shared the message of a revolutionary song that Haitian and French combatants, black and white, perhaps – who knows? – had on their lips or in their minds. “Aux armes, citoyens!” (To arms, citizens!) Haiti accomplished in Vertières the aborted dream of the French Republic: the realization of human rights, over and above racial conflicts and slavery. “Aux armes, citoyens!” Perhaps we will never know if these words were audibly uttered in Vertières, in one camp or the other, but their echo, amplified by the hills of Cap-Français, reverberating from one blockhouse to another, refracted by ravines red with blood of the former Paris of the Antilles, continues to be heard.

Conclusion

The Cry of Capois-la-Mort

Shortly after the fall of Jean-Claude Duvalier, in 1986, an equestrian statue of the hero of the Battle of Vertières, Capois-la-Mort, was created in plaster of Paris by a professor at the École nationale des arts in Port-au-Prince, and installed not far from the former Haitian National Palace. It faced the former Ateliers Jérôme, near the Plaza Hotel. I had long searched for this statue that I had been told was missing, until one day in July 2013. On that day, I went to the Musée du Panthéon national haïtien seeking photographs from the Magloire period. Instead, I discovered a plaster of Paris head, depicting Capois-la-Mort, in a tiny space serving as a storage room. To date, that head is the sole trace of the equestrian statue of Capois erected in Port-au-Prince in the second half of the 1980s. The remainder of the statue, which was never cast in bronze, seems to have disintegrated over time. Capois is portrayed with his mouth open, eyes bulging. He is probably shouting the words attributed to him by historian Thomas Madiou: “En avant, en avant!” (Forward, Forward!) His horse lies beneath him, but Capois is determined to storm the Vertières habitation. Today, as this book comes to its end, the cry of Capois resonates strongly. It demands to be heard outside the tiny room where it is enclosed. Myth or reality: does it matter? It must be given its place amid the clamour of countless cries heard throughout the era of Atlantic Revolutions, for more than any other, it embodies the extraordinary strength of a country that is neither a martyr nor cursed, but determined to survive adversity and internal tension. At the beginning of Haiti, there was a battle, called Vertières. At the beginning of Haiti, there was the cry of Capois – “En avant, en avant!” (Forward, forward!), “Grenadiers, à l’assaut!” (To the attack,

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Figure 10.1 Head of Capois-la-Mort (originally part of an equestrian statue, now gone missing, unveiled at the Place du Champ-de-Mars in 1987), Musée du Panthéon national haïtien, photo and reproduction with permission from Madame Frisch, museum director.

grenadiers!), or perhaps “Aux armes, citoyens!” (To arms, citizens!) –which refused to die. It is the “cry of Vertières,” a cry stifled in France, but glorified in Haiti, although it continues to remain fragile there. It fights to defend the rights of all men, black or white, free or enslaved. It is the cry of a coming reconciliation, a call for the uniting of “two hemispheres” today separated by the silences and murmurings that form the framework of this book.

Notes

Preface 1 See Jeremy Black, European Warfare in a Global Context, 1660–1815 (New York: Routledge, 2007). See also Roger Chickering and Stig Förster, eds., War in an Age of Revolution, 1775–1815 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Introduction 1 See Marcel Dorigny, Révoltes et révolutions en Europe et aux Amériques (1773–1802) (Paris: Belin, 2004). 2 For example, in Le Monde, Haiti was the subject of 159 articles, editorials, and letters (as opposed to 23 in 2003). Most of the texts published shared the same point of view, summed up by the title of these two articles, published 29 January 2003 and 17 February 2004: “Haïti ou la permanence du malheur” (Haiti or permanent misfortune) and “Haïti s’enfonce dans le chaos” (Haiti sinks into chaos). 3 For a literary portrayal of these events, see Lyonel Trouillot, Bicentenaire (Arles: Actes Sud, 2004). 4 Marcel Dorigny, Révoltes et révolutions, 94. 5 See Saint-Just, “La Marseillaise et les petits Varois,” (Cuverville: 15 July 2005), www.cuverville.org/spip.php?page=print&id_article =43194; ldh section of Toulon, “La bataille de Vertières” (18 novembre 1803), vous connaissez?” 17 November 2005, www.ldh-toulon. net/la-bataille-deVertieres-18.html. 6 See Roland Sabra, “René Maran: le travail du déchirement et de la rectitude,” Madinin’Art, 20 December 2007, www.madinin-art.net/

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Notes to pages 4–6

rene-maran-le-travail-du-dechirement-et-de-la-rectitude/. See also the lecture by Louis-Pascal Jacquemond, Académie inspector – Regional pedagogical inspector, “Les revolutions atlantiques,” 31 January 2007, www.acgrenoble.fr/disciplines/hg/articles.php?lng=fr&pg=375. Matthieu Brevet, Les expéditions coloniales vers Saint-Domingue et les Antilles (1802–1810), doctoral dissertation (Lyon: Université Lyon 2, 2007), 18: “For a good part of the day [the author is speaking of 18 November 1803], the ‘Indigenous’ army bravely attacked the French entrenchments (often while singing La Marseillaise).” Unfortunately, this assertion is not footnoted. The issue of the competition gave rise to many publications. See the historiographical article by Guy Lemarchand, “À propos des révoltes et révolutions de la fin du XVIIIe siècle: essai d’un bilan historiographique,” Annales historiques de la Révolution française,” no. 340 (April–June 2005): 145–74. Sergeant Major Philippe Beaudoin, Carnet d’étapes. Souvenirs de guerre et de captivité lors de l’expédition de Saint-Domingue. Extraits du Carnet de la Sabretache, années 1908 et 1909 (Paris: Librairie historique F. Teissèdre, 2000), 56. The website (www.debatidentitenationale.fr), in which the “lifeblood” of the nation could express themselves, no longer exists. A few screenshots are disseminated online (for example, on the site of the magazine L’Express, www.lexpress.fr/actualite/politique/a-quoiressemble-le-granddebat-sur-l-identitenationale_826237.html). The debate came to a halt due to numerous racist outbursts, opposition from some conservatives, and regional elections planned for spring 2010. It officially ended on 8 February 2010. See “L’identité nationale en débat,” in Regards sur l’actualité, no. 358, February 2010. On the question of national identity, see Patrick Weil, Liberté, égalité, discriminations. L’identité nationale au regard de l’histoire (Paris: Folio, 2009); Gérard Noiriel, À quoi sert l’identité nationale? (Paris: Agone, 2007). Stéphane Beaud and Gérard Noiriel, “Le retour du refoulé,” Le Monde, 20 September 2009. Denis Bertrand, Alexandre Dézé, and Jean-Louis Missika, Parler pour gagner. Sémiotique des discours de la campagne présidentielle de 2007 (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po., 2007); Louis-Jean Calvet and Jean Véronis, Les mots de Nicolas Sarkozy (Paris: Seuil, 2008); Laurence De Cock, Fanny

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Madeline, Nicolas Offenstadt, and Sophie Wahnich, Comment Nicolas Sarkozy écrit l’histoire de France (Paris: Agone, 2008); Nicolas Offenstadt, L’histoire bling-bling. Le retour du roman national (Paris: Stock, 2009). “Le discours d’investiture de Nicolas Sarkozy,” Le Monde, 15 January 2007, www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2007/01/15/le-discoursd-investiture-denicolas-sarkozy_855369_3224.html?xtmc=la_loi_des_tribus&xtcr=148. “Discours de Nicolas Sarkozy,” Libération, 6 May 2007, www.liberation. fr/politiques/2007/05/06/le-discours-de-nicolas-sarkozy_9889. See also his speeches given in Caen on 9 March 2007 and in Nice on 30 March 2007. See Daniel Lefeuvre, Pour en finir avec la repentance coloniale (Paris: Flammarion, 2006) and Faut-il avoir honte de l’identité nationale? (Paris: Larousse, 2008). See also Jean Sévillia, Le terrorisme intellectuel. De 1945 à nos jours (Paris: Perrin, 2004) and Historiquement correct. Pour en finir avec le passé civique (Paris: Perrin, 2006). On this point, see François Hartog, Régimes d’historicité. Présentisme et expériences du temps (Paris: Seuil, 2003). See Association Liberté pour l’histoire, www.lph-asso.fr/. The main conclusion of the report (www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/ rapports-publics/084000707/index.shtml) merely repeats a proposal by Serge Barcellini (see “L’inflation du sacré républicain: trop de journées commémoratives transforment la liturgie patriotique en rassemblements revendicatifs. La nation y perd,” Le Monde, 11 November 2006, 19), which consists of reducing the number of national days of remembrance to three: 11 November, 8 May, and 14 July. See Mission d’information sur les questions mémorielles, “Rapport d’information,” no. 1262, 18 November 2008, www.assembleenationale. fr/13/rap-info/i1262.asp. La Marseillaise was also booed at a game between Bastia and Lorient on 11 May 2002 and at a game between Israel and France on 30 March 2005. No soccer game was ever held between France and Haiti, except in the under-17 age group. For example, the two teams faced off in Group D at the U-17 World Cup in 2007. “Football U-17: Haïti/France 1-1, lors d’un match à couleur historique,” 22 August 2007, www.alterpresse. org/spip.php?article6333. Haiti may not have played against the former colonial power, but it did face off against the teams of Martinique and Guadeloupe, two former colonies that became French departments in 1946 (these two teams are not recognized by FiFA), in competitions

exte

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Notes to pages 8–9

of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football. Law no. 2003-239 of 18 March 2003 for internal security, article 113: “The act of publicly insulting the national anthem or tricolour flag at a demonstration organised or regulated by the public authorities is punished by a fine of €7,500. Where it is committed as a group action, the insult is punished by six months’ imprisonment and a fine of €7,500,” article 433-5-1 of the Penal Code, www.legifrance.gouv.fr/home.jsp. Decree 2007-373 of 21 March 2007, article 7, II, 1, modifying article R311-15, https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle. do;jsessionid=C1AEA9AA540765954E85C5C8EF24D8AA.tplgfr34s_ 3?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006070158&idArticle=LEGIARTI00000 6335579&dateTexte=20200206&categorieLien=id#LEGIARTI000006335579. This reggae version of La Marseillaise is not an exception in the history of national anthems. It is part of a long tradition of musical adaptation and rewriting, whether parodic or not. As early as 1946, Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli created a stir with their gypsy-style interpretation of the French national anthem entitled “Échos de France” (Echoes of France). Difficult not to mention, a few years later, Jimmy Hendrix’s interpretation of the American anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” at the Woodstock festival held in New York state in 1969. The performance was then seen by some as a national anti-anthem and the symbol of the struggle against the Vietnam War. Nor should we forget the most famous reworking of the British anthem “God Save the Queen” by the Sex Pistols (1977) or La Marseillaise by the punk group Oberkampf (1983). On the history of La Marseillaise, see Frédéric Robert, La Marseillaise (Paris: Nouvelles éditions du pavillon, Imprimerie nationale, 1989). Le Figaro Magazine, 1 June 1979: lxv. Bruno Lesprit, “Gainsbourg métisse ‘La Marseillaise,’ ” Le Monde, 1 September 2006; “Concert de Serge Gainsbourg annulé à Strasbourg,” ina, 5 January 1980, www.ina.fr/art-et-culture/musique/video/ CAB8000061901/concert-de-serge-gainsbourg-annule-astrasbourg.fr.html. On Gainsbourg’s reggae version of La Marseillaise, see Didier Francfort, “La Marseillaise de Serge Gainsbourg,” Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire, vol. 93, no. 1 (2007): 27–35; Jacques Cheyronnaud, “Un blasphème très contemporain, ‘La Marseillaise’ de Gainsbourg,” Mentalités. Histoire des cultures et des sociétés, no. 2, “Injures et blasphèmes” (1989): 151–9. Didier Francfort, “La Marseillaise de Serge Gainsbourg,” par. 27, 34.

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28 Marcel Dorigny, “Aux origines: l’indépendance d’Haïti et son occultation,” in Pascal Blanchard, Nicolas Bancel, and Sandrine Lemaire, eds., La fracture coloniale. La société française au prisme de l’héritage colonial, 50 (Paris: La Découverte, 2005). 29 Jean Price-Mars mentions the “Marseillaise de gloire” (Marseillaise of glory) heard at Crête-à-Pierrot, Ainsi parla l’Oncle (Montréal: Mémoire d’encrier, 2009), 29. Pamphile de Lacroix, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de la révolution de Saint-Domingue, vol. 2 (Paris: Pillet, 1819), 164. See also Michel Étienne Descourtilz, Voyage d’un naturaliste, vol. 3 (Paris: Dufart, 1809), 372. Among those who describe La Marseillaise at Crêteà-Pierrot, see the recent article by Bernard Gainot, “‘Sur fond de cruelle humanité’: les politiques du massacre dans la révolution d’Haïti,” La Révolution française. Cahiers de l’Institut d’histoire de la Révolution française, “Les massacres aux temps des Révolutions,” January 2011, http://lrf. revues.org/index180.html: “We must remember the anecdote told by General Pamphile de Lacroix, when his soldiers launching an assault on Crête-à-Pierrot abruptly stopped on the other side of the Palissades as the besieged broke into La Marseillaise.” The first person guilty of extrapolation is probably C.L.R. James: “Some nights they heard the blacks in the fortress singing the Marseillaise, the Ça ira, and other revolutionary songs.” (The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution) (London: Penguin Books, 2001 [1938]), 257. This interpretation is the point of departure for another recent article: Sujaya Dhanvantari, “French Revolutionary Song in the Haitian Revolution, 1789–1804,” in Geneviève Fabre and Klaus Benesch, eds., African Diasporas in the New and Old Worlds: Consciousness and Imagination, 101–20 (Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, “Cross/Cultures” series, no. 69, 2004). See also Berthony DuPont, Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Itinéraire d’un révolutionnaire (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2006): “The 900 rebels from Crêteà-Pierrot, despite their lack of food, water, and even ammunition, felt proud, humming the verses of La Marseillaise” (146). 30 Massillon Coicou, Le genie Français et l’âme haïtienne (Paris: Librairie de la renaissance latine, 1904), 17. 31 Archives des Affaires étrangères La Courneuve, series B Amériques, 1952–1963, Haïti, file 48, Dispatch from the French ambassador to the Dominican Republican to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, 12 January 1954. 32 Association internationale des parlementaires de langue française (International Association of French-speaking Parliamentarians), “Séance

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inaugurale du 17 mai 1967, présidée par M. Lamine Gueye (partie 2),” 38, http://apf.francophonie.org/IMG/pdf/1967_05_Seance_inaugurale_2.pdf.

Chapter One 1 See Matthieu Brevet, Les expéditions coloniales. 2 Frédéric Berjaud, “Les troupes du corps expéditionnaire de SaintDomingue,” La revue Napoléon, no. 11 (July–August–September 2002): 71–81, and no. 12 (October–November–December 2002): 66–73. 3 Revue du Club français de la figurine historique, special issue, “L’expédition de Saint-Domingue, 1789–1809,” vol. 1, no. 4 (1991); and vol. 2, no. 1 (1992). 4 Le Briquet, no. 4 (1998). 5 See the recent article by Jean-Louis Donnadieu, “Un officier français face à la Révolution outre-mer: les infortunes du lieutenant-colonel Jacques d’Ounous à Saint-Domingue, aux États-Unis et en Louisiane (1792–1802),” Revue historique des armées, no. 265 (2011): 75–86. See also Gabriel Debien, “Un marin de l’expédition de Saint-Domingue, J.-B. Drinot, juin 1801–novembre 1802,”Revue de la Société haïtienne d’histoire, no. 113 (1968): 27–46. 6 Georges Duby, Le Dimanche de Bouvines, 27 juillet 1214 (Paris: Gallimard, 1985 [1973]), 22. 7 The history of war, nevertheless, continues to often be told in the traditional way, emphasizing great battles, great men, institutions, and military strategy. See André Corvisier, ed., Dictionnaire d’art et d’histoire militaires (Paris: PuF, 1988), and Histoire militaire de la France, vol. 2 (Paris: PuF, 1992); see also Thierry de Montbrial and Jean Klein, eds., Dictionnaire de stratégie (Paris: PuF, 2000). More and more historians are proposing rethinking the history of wars in light of the new cultural history and applying the model of history from below. See John Keegan, The Face of Battle (London: Cape, 1976); Nicolas Offenstadt, ed., Le Chemin des Dames. De l’événement à la mémoire (Paris: Seuil, 2004); Hervé Drévillon, Batailles. Scènes de guerre de la Table Ronde aux Tranchées (Paris: Seuil, 2007); Lucette Valensi, Fables de la mémoire. La glorieuse bataille des Trois Rois (Paris: Seuil, 1992); Nicolas Offenstadt, “Histoire-bataille,” in Christian Delacroix, François Dosse, Patrick Garcia, and Nicolas Offenstadt, eds., Historiographies, vol. 1, Concepts et débats, 162–9 (Paris:

Notes to pages 14–18

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Gallimard, 2010). Also by Nicolas Offenstadt, see chapter 7, “Un exemple de champ renouvelé: histoires de guerres, histoires de paix,” in Que sais-je? L’historiographie, 98–108 (Paris: PuF, 2011). Also consult chapter 7 in part two, “L’histoire-batailles renouvelée,” in François Dosse, Renaissance de l’événement: un défi pour l’historien. Entre Sphinx et Phénix, 209–14 (Paris: PuF, 2010). Nicolas Offenstadt, L’historiographie, 106. Hervé Drévillon, Batailles. Scènes de guerre, 14. François Dosse, “Événement,” in Christian Delacroix, François Dosse, Patrick Garcia, and Nicolas Offenstadt, eds., Historiographies, vol. 2, Concepts et débats, 756 (Paris: Gallimard, 2010). Lyonel Trouillot, Bicentenaire, 10. See Roger Chartier, Au bord de la falaise. L’histoire entre certitudes et inquiétude (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998). See Beaubrun Ardouin, Études sur l’histoire d’Haïti, vol. 5 (Paris: Dézobry and E. Magdeleine, 1854), 455. The same silence from another Haitian historian of the nineteenth century, Joseph Saint-Rémy, in Pétion et Haïti, étude monographique et historique, vol. 3 (Paris: Chez l’auteur, 1864), 240–1. Saint-Rémy, however, does not refer the reader to Madiou. He explains that he is running out of space and announces his plan to write a history of the war of independence. Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti, vol. 3 (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de J.H. Courtois, 1848), 85–6. In his reference work L’historiographie, mentioned earlier, Nicolas Offenstadt reminds the reader of the importance of the first accounts of a battle in terms of recording images: “Accounts that describe the battle, especially the first ones, play their role in its definition and the efforts to name it, define its extent spatially or even more important its chronology, remove or increase the status of a protagonist, often presenting major challenges that need to be brought to light” (166). Note that there is really no effort to name Vertières, for Madiou’s account prevails. Maximilien Laroche, “La bataille de Vertières et le Cahier d’un retour au pays natal: deux westerns du Tiers-Monde,” Présence africaine, no. 151–2 (3rd quarter 1995): 182.

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Chapter Two 1 See Yves Bénot, La révolution française et la fin des colonies (Paris: La Découverte, 1988), in particular chapter 10, “Dans le miroir truqué des historiens,” 205–18. Regarding the place of the colonial question in the historiography of the French Revolution, see also the summary by Marcel Dorigny, Révoltes et revolutions. 2 See Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787–1804 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2004); Julius Scott, The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution (London: Verso, 2018); David B. Gaspar and David Geggus, eds., A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997); Yves Bénot, La Guyane sous la Révolution ou l’impasse de la Révolution pacifique (Kourou: Ibis Rouge Éditions, 1997). 3 See David Geggus, “The French Slave Trade: An Overview,” William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 58, no. 1 (January 2001): 119–38. The slave ships that arrived in Saint-Domingue in the eighteenth century are listed in The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, www.slavevoyages.org. 4 Historians do not agree on the real impact of the Haitian Revolution and the place of the discourse of human rights in the revolutionary thought of rebel slaves or even on their exact role in the insurrection. On this topic, see three seminal books: C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint Louverture and the San Domingo Revolution (London: Penguin, 2001 [1938]); Carolyn Fick, The Making of Haiti: The Saint-Domingue Revolution from Below (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990); Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2004). Laurent Dubois is also the author, with John Garrigus, of an edition of original sources of the Revolution: Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789–1804: A Brief History with Documents (New York: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2006). See also David Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002); David Geggus and Norman Fiering, eds., The World of the Haitian Revolution (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009). We also note the recent rising tide of a revisionist trend in the historiography of the Haitian Revolution. According to some historians, the slaves did not really have the concept of human rights and universalism in mind; their objectives were often

Notes to pages 20–2

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to reform and their leaders often first sought to get rich and seize power. See David Geggus, “The Caribbean in the Age of Revolution,” in David Armytage and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, eds., The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760–1840, 83–100 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Seymour Dresher, Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), in particular chapter 6, “Franco-American Revolutions, 1780s–1820s,” 146–80; and, to a lesser extent, Jeremy Popkin, You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). On the tradition of white revolts in Saint-Domingue against the power of France, see Charles Frostin, Les révoltes blanches à Saint-Domingue aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2008). On the attempts of royal reform of slavery in 1784 and 1785, see Malick Ghachem, The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 156ff.; Laurent Dubois, “An Enslaved Enlightenment: Rethinking the Intellectual History of the French Atlantic,” Social History, vol. 31, no. 1 (February 2006): 11. See Gabriel Debien, Les colons de Saint-Domingue et la Révolution. Essai sur le Club Massiac (August 1789–August 1792) (Paris: Colin, 1953). See John Garrigus, Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French SaintDomingue (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Florence Gauthier, L’aristocratie de l’épiderme. Le combat de la Société des citoyens de couleur, 1789–1791 (Paris: cnrs éditions, 2007). The runaway slave advertisements published in Saint-Domingue may be consulted at the following address: www.marronnage.info. See John Thornton, “African Soldiers in the Haitian Revolution,” Journal of Caribbean History, vol. 25, nos. 1 and 2 (1991): 58–80. See Laurent Dubois, “An Enslaved Enlightenment: Rethinking the Intellectual History of the French Atlantic,” 1–14. See also Nick Nesbitt, “The Idea of 1804,” Yale French Studies, no. 107, “The Haiti Issue,” (2005): 30; the slaves did not just act: they thought. Aimé Césaire, Toussaint Louverture. La Révolution française, 177. On the unthinkable nature of the Haitian Revolution, see Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon, 1995). See Laurent Dubois, “Avenging America: The Politics of Violence in the Haitian Revolution,” in David Geggus and Norman Fiering, eds., The World of the Haitian Revolution; by the same author, “‘Unworthy of

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Liberty?’: Slavery, Terror, and Revolution in Haiti,” in Isaac Land, ed., Enemies of Humanity: The Nineteenth-Century War on Terrorism, 45–62 (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008). On the fear of black violence, see Vincent Brown, “A Vapor of Dread: Observations on Racial Terror and Vengeance in the Age of Revolution,” in Thomas Bender, Laurent Dubois, and Richard Rabinowitz, eds., Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn, 179–96 (New York: New York Historical Society). On this point, see Carolyn Fick, “La révolution de Saint-Domingue: de l’insurrection du 22 août 1791 à la formation de l’État haïtien,” in Laënnec Hurbon, ed., L’insurrection des esclaves de Saint-Domingue, 55–74 (Paris: Karthala, 2000). A first decree, dated 15 May 1791, gave equal rights to a very limited number of free people of colour. This decision was overturned in September of that year. See chapter 8, “The ‘Volte-Face’ of Toussaint-Louverture,” in David Patrick Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 119–36. See Marie-Antoinette Menier, Gabriel Debien, and Jean Fouchard, “Toussaint Louverture avant 1789: légendes et réalités,” in Jacques de Cauna, ed., Toussaint Louverture et l’indépendance d’Haïti. Témoignages pour un bicentenaire, 61–6 (Paris: Karthala, 2004). See also Laurent Dubois, Avengers, 171–93; Madison Smartt Bell, Toussaint Louverture: A Biography (New York: Pantheon Books, 2007); Jacques de Cauna, Toussaint Louverture. Le grand précurseur (Bordeaux: Éditions Sud-Ouest, 2012). Victor Schoelcher, Vie de Toussaint Louverture (Paris: Karthala, 1982 [1889]), 94. On Toussaint Louverture’s decision to defend the Bourbons rather than align himself with the commissioners of the Republic Sonthonax and Polvérel, see Jeremy D. Popkin, “Liberty in Black, White, and Color: A Trans-Atlantic Debate,” in Thomas Bender, Laurent Dubois, and Richard Rabinowitz, eds., Revolution!, 168. On this theory, see Laurent Dubois, Avengers, prologue, 1–7; Nick Nesbitt, Universal Emancipation: The Haitian Revolution and the Radical Enlightenment (Charlottesville/London: University of Virginia Press, 2008), 7. Nesbitt describes the Haitian Revolution as “the greatest political event of the age of Enlightenment,” (17). See also Doris L. Garraway, ed., Tree of Liberty: Cultural Legacies of the Haitian Revolution

Notes to pages 26–7

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in the Atlantic World (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008), 2. Garraway explains in the book’s introduction that the Haitian Revolution “is the one that exposed the ideological limitations of the French and American revolutions, in which vindications of individual liberties rested on a tacit assumption of the right to human property.” On what made the Haitian Revolution exceptional, and especially on the specificity of the nationalist discourse behind it, see Doris L. Garraway, ‘“Légitime Défense:’ Universalism and Nationalism in the Discourse of the Haitian Revolution,” in Doris. L. Garraway, ed., Tree of Liberty, 63–90. The issue the author raises focuses on the evolution of the definition of the notion of freedom in the context of the Haitian Revolution. According to Garraway, freedom was defined very early on in Haiti as a universal value. To start with, the universal definition of freedom was intimately linked to the (particularist) rhetoric of the French Republic. Starting with the War of Independence, the demand for the universal (rather than cultural distinctiveness) was founded on Haitian nationalism and alone would have justified the anti-colonial struggle. Independence would have been legitimized, first and foremost, by a struggle for freedom rather than by the existence of a community united around shared values. Sidney W. Mintz, Three Ancient Colonies: Caribbean Themes and Variations (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press), 94. On the influence of the new Haitian state in the redefinition of the concept of freedom, see Ada Ferrer, “Haiti, Free Soil, and Antislavery in the Revolutionary Atlantic,” American Historical Review, vol. 117, no. 1 (February 2012): 40–66. See David Geggus, Slavery, War, and Revolution: The British Occupation of Saint-Domingue, 1793–1798 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982); Michael Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower: The British Expeditions to the West Indies and the War Against Revolutionary France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987). Claude Moïse, Le projet national de Toussaint Louverture: La Constitution de 1801 (Port-au-Prince: Éditions Mémoire, 2001), 13ff. On Louverture’s regime, see also Sabine Manigat: “Le regime de Toussaint Louverture en 1803: un modèle, une exception,” in Yves Bénot and Marcel Dorigny, eds., Rétablissement de l’esclavage dans les colonies françaises. Aux origines de Haïti, 109–26 (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2003). To better understand Louverture’s plan to return to the plantation system, see the règlement de culture (farming regulation) of 12 October 1800,

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which defines the working conditions of former slaves, reproduced in Claude Moïse, Le projet national de Toussaint Louverture, 91–7. Ibid., 101 and 103. Ibid., 26. See Yves Bénot, La démence coloniale sous Napoléon (Paris: La Découverte, 1992). On the Saint-Domingue expedition, see Claude B. Auguste and Marcel B. Auguste, L’expédition Leclerc, 1801–1803 (Port-au-Prince: H. Deschamps, 1985); Mayeul Macé, Novembre 1803: fin de campagne. La défaite du corps expéditionnaire français à Saint- Domingue, master’s thesis (Paris: Université Paris 1, 2002); Bernard Gainot and Mayeul Macé, “Fin de campagne à Saint-Domingue, novembre 1802–novembre 1803” in Marcel Dorigny, ed., Haïti, première République noire, 15–40 (Saint-Denis: Société française d’outre-mer, 2003); Matthieu Brevet, Les expéditions coloniales. On this point, see Laurent Dubois, “The Haitian Revolution and the Sale of Louisiana; or Thomas Jefferson’s (Unpaid) Debt to JeanJacques Dessalines,” in Peter Kastor and François Weil, eds., Empires of the Imagination: Transatlantic Histories of the Louisiana Purchase, 93–116 (Charlottesville/London: University of Virginia Press, 2009). Regarding the weapons and ammunition sent to Saint-Domingue, see Service historique de la Défense, Vincennes (hereafter shd), series B7, box 2, rapport du ministre de la Guerre au premier consul, 14 February 1802. See also shd, series B7, box 27, rapport de la direction de l’artillerie, 19 November 1808. Centre d’accueil et de recherche des Archives nationales (cArAn), AF/ix/1190, file 1, 17 February, 1802. The instructions received by Leclerc are reproduced in Paul Roussier, ed., Lettres du général Leclerc, commandant en chef de l’armée de Saint-Domingue en 1802 (Paris: Société de l’histoire des colonies françaises and E. Leroux, 1937), 263–74. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 8, Kerverseau to General Pamphile de Lacroix, 4 November 1802. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 23, Pierre Thouvenot to the minister of the navy and the colonies, 21 May 1803. On popular resistance in Saint-Domingue, see Carolyn Fick, “La résistance populaire au corps expéditionnaire du général Leclerc et au rétablissement de l’esclavage à Saint-Domingue (1802–1804),” in Yves Bénot and Marcel Dorigny, eds., Rétablissement de l’esclavage, 127–48.

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40 He was criticized in particular for his close relationships with the Whites and his desire to reproduce the plantation system. 41 Beaubrun Ardouin, Études sur l’histoire d’Haïti, 194. 42 Pamphile de Lacroix, La Révolution de Haïti (Paris: Karthala, 1995), 354. 43 On the origins of Dessalines, see Deborah Jenson, “Sources and Interpretations: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the African Character of the Haitian Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 69, no. 3 (July 2012): 615–38. See also Berthony Dupont, Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Itinéraire d’un révolutionnaire (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2006), especially chapter 1. Finally, see two older works: Gérard M. Laurent, Six études sur J.-J. Dessalines (Port-au-Prince: Les presses libres, 1950), and in particular, on the War of Independence, chapter 2, and Saint-Victor Jean-Baptiste, Le fondateur devant l’histoire (Port-au-Prince: Eben-Ezer, 1954). 44 See Deborah Jenson, “Before Malcom X, Dessalines: Postcoloniality in a Colonial World,” in Deborah Jenson, Beyond the Slave Narrative: Politics, Sex, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011), 82. 45 cArAn, AB/xix/5002, Archives Leclerc, “Archives Nogerée et Collet s/Toussaint,” “Gaston de Nogerée” envelope, undated document. 46 The map is available at the Archives nationales d’outre-mer (Anon.) in two places: cc9A 34 and, in the series of maps, division l, subdivision ii, no. 734. In this series, it is dated 1 March 1803. It accompanies a large summary table of the war dated 10 March 1803. The table is titled “Situation de l’île de Saint-Domingue et carte d’une partie de cette île avec tableau des positions occupées par nos troupes et par les insurgés.” 47 Quoted in Julia Gaffield, “Haiti and Jamaica in the Remaking of the Early Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World,” William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 69, no. 3 (July 2012): 583. 48 See shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 10, 22 August 1803. 49 Capois was also known by the name “Capouet” – at least that is how he was recorded with the men who resigned from the 3rd battalion of the 9th demi-brigade on 20 June 1802 (Anon., shd, series B7, box 5). On Capois, see François Dalencour, Biographie du general François Cappoix (Port-au-Prince: Librairie Cart, 1956); Claude Moïse, ed., Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution haïtienne, 1789–1804 (Montreal: Les éditions Images/cidhicA, 2003), 66–71. 50 National Archives, Kew, AdM 1/253, 4 July 1803. 51 Jean-Pierre Béchaud, “Voyage en Amérique, de Monsieur J.P. Béchaud

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56 57 58

Notes to pages 31–4

présentement major du 66e régiment d’infrie. de ligne,” s.l., s.n., 1807, Letter of 28 July 1803, 89, www.archive.org/details/ voyageenamriqu00bech. Anon., cc9B 18, date illegible (the letter is found in a correspondence file of General de Noailles). Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti, vol. 2 (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de J.H. Courtois, 1847), 327. Philippe-Albert De Lattre, Campagnes des Français à Saint-Domingue (Paris: Locard, 1805), 68. François Dalencour, Biographie du général François Cappoix, 53. See also Claude Moïse, ed., Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution haïtienne, 1789–1804, 66–71. See François Dalencour, Biographie du général François Cappoix, 17. National Archives, Kew, AdM 1/253, 4 July 1803. On the declaration of 29 November (“L’indépendance de SaintDomingue est proclamée”), see Deborah Jenson, Beyond the Slave Narrative, 127–31.

Chapter Three 1 See “Cap Français, The Last Act,” in Jan Pachonski and Reuel K. Wilson, Poland’s Caribbean Tragedy: A Study of Polish Legions in the Haitian War of Independence, 1802–1803 (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1986), 226–35. See also Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti, vol. 3 (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de J.H. Courtois, 1848), 82–3. 2 Charles Arthaud, Description de l’hôpital général du Cap, Cap-Français, 1792, 7 and 11–13. By the same author (one of the founders and the first president of the Cercle des Philadelphes), see Discours prononcé à l’ouverture de la première séance publique du Cercle des Philadelphes … avec une description de la ville du Cap, pour servir à l’histoire des maladies que l’on y observe dans les différentes constitutions (Paris: 1785), 24 and 29. Regarding odours emanating from cemeteries, see also M.L.E. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie française de Saint-Domingue, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Chez l’auteur, 1797), 439 and 586–7. On Moreau de Saint-Méry, see Jeremy Popkin, You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 54.

Notes to pages 34–6

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3 Not to mention the odour of dead animals in the city and its surroundings that could be smelled from the Hôpital des Pères, according to the chief of staff of the Clauzel division, in a letter dated 18 April 1803 (Anon., cc9B 10). 4 See shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 4, “Rapport des operations de la brigade de droite pendant la journée du 3 prairial an 10.” 5 See Jean-Pierre Béchaud, “Voyage en Amérique,” 75. The same expression, with the same spelling, is found in a letter from the battalion commander at Gros-Morne to Division General Brunet, shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 7, 12 September 1802. 6 See John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998 [1992]), 321. 7 M.L.E. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique, 107. 8 Today the city has approximately 250,000 inhabitants and is the administrative centre of the North Department. 9 Eugène Herpin, ed., Mémoires du chevalier de Fréminville (1787–1848) (Paris: H. Champion, 1913), 35. 10 M.L.E. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique, 625. On the wealth of Cap-Français, see also Alexandre P.M. Laujon, Souvenirs de trente années de voyages à Saint-Domingue, dans plusieurs colonies étrangères, et au continent d’Amérique, vol. 1 (Paris: Schwartz et Gagnot, 1835), 353–4. On business activity in Cap-Français in early 1802, see Alexandre P.M. Laujon, Souvenirs de trente années, vol. 2 (Paris: Schwartz et Gagnot, 1835), 236. 11 See M.L.E. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique, 475. 12 Eugène Herpin, ed., Mémoires du chevalier, 42. 13 The governor of Jamaica, George Nugent, announced the blockade of Cap-Français to the British secretary of war and colonies, Lord Hobart, in a letter dated 21 July 1803 (National Army Museum, London, Nugent Papers, Mss Nugent Letters Jamaica 1803, 6807/183-4, 191–4). 14 Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Ms. n-2293, box 1, file 23, “Déclarations d’arrivées,” 29 April 1803–2 November 1803. 15 On the refugees of Saint-Domingue, see Nathalie Dessens, The SaintDomingue Refugees and the Preservation of Gallic Culture in Early American New Orleans (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007); Ashli White, Encountering Revolution: Haiti and the Making of the Early Republic (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010); Kate Marsh, “Remember Saint-Domingue: Accounts of the Haitian Revolution by

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16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25

26 27

28

Notes to pages 36–7

Refugee Planters in Paris and Colonial Debates Under the Restoration, 1814–1825,” in Kate Marsh and Nicola Frith, eds., France’s Lost Empires: Fragmentation, Nostalgia, and la fracture coloniale, 17–30 (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2011). Eugène Herpin, ed., Mémoires du chevalier de Fréminville (1787–1848), 85. He became renowned during the American War of Independence. Anon., cc9B 19, Rochambeau to Minister of the Navy and the Colonies Decrès, 2 November 1803. Anon., cc9B 19, Rochambeau to Decrès, 9 July 1803. Anon., Subseries F6, Papiers Dauvergne, document 24. Jacques de Cauna, Haïti, l’éternelle révolution. Histoire de sa décolonisation (Monein: PrnG, 2009), 175; Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti, vol. 3, 83. On Rochambeau, also see Philippe Girard, The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian War of Independence (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2011), 297–9; and Joan Dayan, Haiti, History, and the Gods (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 160–1. Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti, vol. 3, 84. Massachusetts Historical Society, box 1814, Manifeste du Roi (Cap-Henry: P. Roux, 1814). References to the period preceding 1492 legitimize the black struggle, connecting it with the struggles that preceded it. Sémexant Rouzier, Dictionnaire géographique et administratif universel d’Haïti (Port-au-Prince: Aug. Héraux, n.d. [1892]) has two entries in his dictionary, one for Vertières, another for Verdières. It is, in fact, the same place. See Philippe Girard, The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon, 308. See Victor Schoelcher, Vie de Toussaint Louverture (Paris: Karthala, 1984 [1889]), 362. Schoelcher spoke about the Battle of Vertières at public lectures, in particular at the Salle des Folies-Bergères on 27 July 1879. See also Louis Joseph Janvier, La République et ses visiteurs, 1840–1882 (Paris: Marpon/Flammarion, 1883), 458; Sténio Vincent, Petites histoires d’Haïti à l’usage des commençants (and not commerçants as stated in the bibliographical note on the Gallica platform), (Paris: C. Dunod et P. Vicq, 1895). Anon., Dépôt des papiers publics des colonies (dPPc), Saint-Domingue, 5suPsdoM/1, “État des Habitations Séquestrées Dans Lemorne du

Notes to pages 37–8

29

30

31

32

33

167

Cap & Autres Lieux,” 24 January 1796. According to this document, the habitation then belonged to “cy-devant religieux” and was leased to “cy-devant à Vertieres.” We assume this refers to Marie-François-Joseph Pourcheresse de Vertières, who left Saint-Domingue at an unspecified time in the 1790s for Maryland before returning to the colony and serving under Leclerc. On this point, see Robert Genevoy, “Deux Comtois à Saint-Domingue: le président Pourcheresse de Vertière et son fils,” Conjonction. Revue franco-haïtienne, no. 160 (January 1984): 25–9. Before the Revolution, the habitation therefore did not belong to MarieFrançois-Joseph’s father, Claude-Pierre Pourcheresse de Vertières: see Jacques de Cauna, “Aperçus sur le système des habitations aux Antilles françaises: vestiges architecturaux et empreinte aquitaine en Haïti (ancienne Saint-Domingue),” in Christian Lerat, ed., Le monde caraïbe. Échanges transatlantiques et horizons postcoloniaux, 147 (Pessac: Maison des sciences de l’homme d’Aquitaine, 2003). See Anon., dPcc, Saint-Domingue, 5suPsdoM/1, “État general des biens nationaux et séquestrés du département du Nord établis en sucreries, caféyeres, jardins, places à vivres, four à chaud, thuileries …,” 5 May 1797. See Anon., dPcc, Saint-Domingue, 8suPsdoM/313 and 5suPsdoM/2, État détaillé des liquidations opérées à l’époque du 1er janvier 1830 (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1830), 138–9. Anon., dPcc, Saint-Domingue, 5suPsdoM/1, “Rolle des habitations avoisinant La Ville du Cap.” Unfortunately, the document is undated. A comparison between this document and those preceding it nevertheless suggests that it dates from the year IX (1801). The description is generally associated, in Madiou’s account of the Battle of Vertières, with Fort Bréda (see Thomas Madiou, Histoe d’Haïti, vol. 3, 85). However, an earlier version of this account exists, published in 1845: Capitulation du Cap (1803). Épisode de l’Histoire d’Haïti. Extrait d’un ouvrage inédit du citoyen thomas madiou fils (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de la Feuille du Commerce; a version of this text may be found at the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, dA 27). This “first” version of Madiou’s account of the Battle of Vertières contains some differences from the 1848 edition, including the description of plants surrounding the French post. Several versions of the Journal de la campagne du Nord exist: printed, retranscribed, or published as excerpts. The version used for this book

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36 37 38 39 40

41

42

Notes to pages 38–9

is found in the British colonial archives for Jamaica, National Archives, Kew, London, co 137/111, 1–10. Thanks to Julia Gaffield for sending me a digital version of this document in the spring of 2010. National Archives, Kew, London, co 137/111, 4. shd, Vincennes, 1vM 98, article 14, box 3, piece 23, “Carte des environs du cap Français depuis le bourg de la petite anse Jusqu’à la baie de L’acul par le Colonel du Génie Moulut,” dated from “year 11;” shd, Vincennes, 1vM 98, article 14, box 3, piece 20, “Carte des environs du Cap, depuis la petite anse jusqu’au Port français; relative aux Mémoires de M. le chef de bataillon Moulut sur la défense de cette place,” 3 September 1803; shd, Vincennes, 1vM 98, article 14, box 3, piece 18, “Plan de la ville et plaine du Cap avec ses défenses. Le Cap et ses Environs,” dated 1801 (it shows, however, blockhouses built in 1803). Beaubrun Ardouin, Études sur l’histoire d’Haïti, 194. Henry de Poyen-Bellisle, Histoire militaire de la révolution de SaintDomingue (Paris and Nancy: Berger-Levrault et Cie, 1899), 431. Henri Castonnet des Fosses, La perte d’une colonie. La Révolution de SaintDomingue (Paris: A. Faivre, 1893), 344. See M.L.E. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique, 612. shd, Vincennes, 1vM 98, article 14, box 3, “Idées générales sur l’attaque de la ville du Cap Français,” 30 January 1802. The document is also available in series B7, box 2, but without the map attached. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 8, “Mémoire sur les Moyens de Défenses que l’on peut tirer des Positions militaires du Pendant Est du morne du Cap, contre l’Attaque des Nègres sur le Coté Sud-Ouest, de Cette Ville, au 15 Brumaire an 11.” A note has been added in pencil at the top right-hand corner of the first page: “From engineer Colonel Pinot.” The engineer colonel, author of the report in question, however, foresaw the scenario that occurred one year late, on 18 November 1803. He imagined that the Butte Charrier was taken by the black soldiers and foresaw its logical progression: the loss of the post of Verrière below. This tactical change is described in detail in a report prepared by the engineering service on 1 December 1802. This report also describes the flaw of the second line of defence, constituted, among other things, by the Charrier and “Verrière” habitations. The positions of this second line were “dominated on all sides.” On blockhouses, see also Mary Hassal, Secret History: Or, the Horrors of St Domingo (Philadelphia: Bradford & Inskeep, 1808), letter 9, 65ff.

Notes to pages 39–40

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43 Jean-Pierre Béchaud, “Voyage en Amérique,” 73; Alexandre P. M. Laujon, Précis historique de la dernière expédition de Saint-Domingue (Paris: Delafolie, Le Normant, 1805), 180. 44 Anon., cc9A 33/34, Rochambeau to Decrès, 14 March 1803. A copy of this letter is found in shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 22, 243. See also shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 22, Pierre Thouvenot to Decrès, 12 March 1803: “this system of defence … will require fewer troops; it will place them in the hills where they will find healthy air and a temperate climate.” 45 Anon., cc9A 33/34, Rochambeau to Decrès, 14 March 1803. 46 Anon., cc9A 36, Thouvenot to Decrès, 12 March 1803. 47 shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 10, Egron, chief health officer of the frigate La Guerrière to Brigadier General Lacroix, 11 September 1803. The health officer, who left Cap-Français on 24 July, remarked that “every day new blockhouses were being built there.” 48 shd, Vincennes, series 1vM 98, article 14, box 3, “Mémoire abrégé sur les fortifications du Cap pour faire suite à ceux des 15 brumaire, 10 frimaire et 10 fructidor an Onze.” This unsigned document is probably the work of Moulut. The reports of 10 Frimaire and 10 Fructidor are found in the same series. Already on 16 March 1803, General Clauzel complained to Rochambeau about “the diversity of opinions” that existed regarding the construction and shape of the blockhouses, which slowed their construction considerably (Anon., cc9B 10, Clauzel to Rochambeau, 16 March 1803). 49 Jean-Pierre Béchaud, “Voyage en Amérique,” 73. 50 cArAn, Papiers Rochambeau, 135AP 3, file 21, spy reports, report of 11 November 1803. 51 Anon., cc9B 18, Staff of General Clauzel to Captain Bouchard, 1 April 1803. 52 Anon., cc9B 10, Staff of General Clauzel to Captain Bouchard, 2 April 1803. 53 This is probably why the place continued to be considered a position of importance after 1803. For example, in 1865, the forces of President Geffrard clashed there with those of General Salnave, who sought to overthrow him. The confrontation was mentioned in a Bahamian newspaper article inserted in the daily The Philadelphia Inquirer on 31 July 1865. In his Dictionnaire géographique et administrative universel d’Haïti, Sémexant Rouzier informs us that, on 5 June 1865, “during Salnave’s insurrection in Cap-Français, the fort of Vertières was occupied

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Notes to page 42

by rebels. General Léon Montas, leading the infantry corps, seized and took as prisoner warrant officer General Pyrrhus.” (253). Vertières still existed at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Henri Chauvet described it, in the early 1890s, as a “a hillock surmounted with ruins” (Henri Chauvet, À travers la république d’Haïti. Relations de la tournée présidentielle dans le Nord, 1st series (Paris: Imprimerie V. Goupy, 1894), 29. At about the same time, Sémexant Rouzier, again, mentioned a farm “of one carreau” belonging to the state (Sémexant Rouzier, Dictionnaire géographique et administratif universel d’Haïti, 252). More specifically, a book published in 1909 in praise of President Alexis, sent into exile in 1908, mentions the deposed president’s purchase of the “habitation Vertières where the immortal battle of that name was waged” (the 11 March and 22 April issues of the newspaper Le Moniteur: Le Journal official de la République d’Haïti indeed mention an authorization given to the secretary of state of the interior to make this purchase on behalf of the state). No other detail is given on the shape of the habitation, other than that President Nord Alexis planned to erect not far from there a monument in memory of combatants (Frédéric Marcelin, Général Nord Alexis, vol. 1 [Paris: Kugelmann, 1909], 23–4). Two other sources, dated June 1915, a few weeks before the start of the US occupation, also mention the existence of a “fort” in Vertières where “rebel” troops of Rosalvo Bobo confronted those of President “elect” Vilbrun Guillaume Sam (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4 June 1915, and New York Times, 5 June 1915). In 1929, celebrations were organized in CapFrançais honouring the heroes of Vertières. “A visit to the historical fort” was then organized (Le Matin, 5 December 1929). 54 On 4 April 1803, the order was given by the chief of staff of the Clauzel division to “cover [Vertières] at once” “as rain was flooding the troops stationed there” (Anon., cc9B 10, Chief of Staff to Captain Bouchard, 4 April 1803). 55 shd, Vincennes, 1vM 98, article 14, box 3, Engineer Battalion Commander Moulut, “Mémoire abrégé sur les fortifications du Cap, contenant les ouvrages dépendans de son systême du Côté de la Terre, contre les differentes attaques des brigands, depuis l’arrivée de l’armée à St Domingue,” 1 December 1802. 56 shd, Vincennes, series 1vM 98, article 14, box 3, card 23, “Carte des environs du Cap Français depuis le bourg de la Petite Anse jusqu’à la Baie de l’Acul par le colonel du génie Moulut,” 1802.

Notes to pages 42–3

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57 On activity in the harbour of Cap-Français, see two sources: Anon., cc9B 20, file “Correspondance du commissaire de marine Dusaulchoy, pluviôse-ventôse an XII,” “Precis des Operations Maritimes du Mois de Brumaire, Affaire du 26. Evacuation du Cap; Notes sur la Position et les Forces Actuelles de St Domingue et de la Jamaïque, Extraits du Journal du Lt de Vau Babron, embarqué sur la Surveillante”; Anon., cc9B 19, Chief of Brigade Montalleau was commissioned by Rochambeau to hand deliver his dispatches to the minister of the navy and the colonies and to the first consul. In a letter dated 1 January 1804, Montalleau announced his arrival in the port of Corogne to the minister. He appended a “raport de la Situation de la Colonie de St Domingue du 20 brumaire an 12,” six days before Vertières. 58 Anon., cc9B 19, Rochambeau to Decrès, 9 July 1803. 59 Anon., cc9B 11, “Registre no. 1er, correspondance avec les généraux. Exercice du général de brigade Boyé, chef d’état-major de l’armée, commencé le 22 fructidor an 11e,” letter addressed to Chief of Brigade Luzy, in command of the engineering branch, 16 September 1803. 60 University of Florida, Gainesville, Rochambeau Papers, part 2, microfilm 1, lot 14, Pascal Sabès, commander of Place du Cap-Français to Rochambeau, report of 15 July 1803. 61 Anon., cc9B 11, “Registre no. 1er, correspondance avec les généraux,” Boyé to General Lapoype and to Chief of Brigade Borthon, 18 September 1803, and Boyé to Colonel Borthon, 2 October 1803. 62 Anon., Papiers Dauvergne, subseries F6, document 19, letter from Henri, 4 October 1803. 63 Anon., cc9B 11, “Registre no. 1er, correspondance avec les généraux,” Boyé to General Lapoype, 5 October 1803. 64 Anon., cc9B 11, “Registre no. 1er, correspondance générale. Exercice du général de brigade Boyé, chef d’état-major de l’armée, commencé le 22 fructidor an 11e,” 10 October 1803. 65 Anon., cc9B 11, “Registre no. 1er, correspondance avec les généraux,” Boyé to General Lapoype, 7 October 1803. 66 The cases of “desertion” increased late in the summer of 1803 and worried authorities. On the connection between the “desertion” of the black inhabitants and the fear of extermination at the hands of the French, see Henry Barré (captain, in command of naval forces in SaintDomingue) to Rochambeau, on 7 September 1803, Rochambeau Papers, part two, microfilm 2, lot 103. Also, University of Florida at Gainesville,

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68 69

70 71 72

73 74

75

76 77

78

Notes to pages 43–4

Rochambeau Papers, part two, microfilm 1, lot 14, Sabès to Rochambeau and GT Néraud to Rochambeau, reports of 13 August and 13 September 1803. See also cArAn, Papiers Rochambeau, 135AP 3, file 21, espionage reports of 10 and 12 September 1803. Hérard Dumesle, Voyage dans le Nord d’Haïti ou révélations des lieux et des monuments historiques (Aux Cayes: Imprimerie du Gouvernement, 1824), 216. Anon., cc9B 11, “Registre no. 1er, correspondance avec les généraux,” Boyé to General Ferrand, 14 October 1803. In an espionage report on 24 September 1803, we learn that Christophe “gave an order to Toussaint-Odo to place the cavalry detachments in the North plain, to observe our movements and prevent us from foraging.” (cArAn, Papiers Rochambeau, 135AP 3, file 21). shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 26, letter written from “Sto Domingo” on 22 November 1803. On this point, see shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 23, Thouvenot to Decrès, 22 August 1803. Anon., cc9B 11, “Registre no. 1er, correspondance générale. Exercice du général de brigade Boyé, chef d’état–major de l’armée, commencé le 22 fructidor an 11e,” 30 September 1803. University of Florida, Gainesville, Rochambeau Papers, lot 14, Néraud to Rochambeau, report of 16 September 1803. See Jean-Pierre Béchaud’s letter to his mother on 20 August 1803, in “Voyage en Amérique,” 119: “the kind of death to which Negro prisoners were most regularly subjected was drowning; I was assured that many times thousands had been drowned at once, and their bodies had often been seen floating on the surface and drifting to the shore.” See also Alexandre P.M. Laujon, Souvenirs de trente années vol. 2, 251. On 3 September, “six white soldiers from various corps recognized as bad subjects” were also led to their drowning. See University of Florida, Gainesville, Rochambeau Papers, lot 14, Néraud to Rochambeau, reports of 4, 23, and 24 September 1803. University of Florida, Gainesville, Rochambeau Papers, lot 14, Néraud to Rochambeau, report of 16 November 1803. University of Florida, Gainesville, Rochambeau Papers, lot 14, Néraud to Rochambeau, report of 6 September 1803. Another example of hanging was reported by the commander of Cap-Français on 31 July 1803. Maurice Begouen Demeaux, Mémorial d’une famille du Havre. Stanislas Foache, négociant de Saint-Domingue, 1737–1806 (Paris: Larose, 1951), 223.

Notes to pages 44–6

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79 Anon., cc9B 23, “Detail des Evenements arrivés a Saint-Domingue, pendant Les Sieges de Leogane et des Cayes, a L’epoque des armées, sous Le Commandement du Général Le Clerc, et Rochambeau en 1802 et 1803.” The letter, very detailed, is signed by someone named De Courtarde. It is not dated, but several elements contained in it allow us to suppose it was written around 1815, following the Restoration. This episode of the War of Independence is quoted by Thomas Madiou, but Kerpoisson was only hanged in his version. According to Madiou, the sign was placed on the victim’s back, carrying the words “crime never goes unpunished” (Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti, vol. 3, 10). Sanon also refers to the Kerpoisson event (Horace P. Sanon, La guerre de l’indépendance [Port-au-Prince: Chéraquit, 1925]), which is the source used by Carolyn Fick, The Making of Haiti, 235. 80 Jean-Pierre Béchaud, “Voyage en Amérique,” 122. 81 Anon. dPcc, hoP 78, Le Cap, St Domingue (Hôpitaux), La Providence, Years XI et XII, folios 6 and 7. 82 Anon. dPcc, hoP 71, Cap-Français, St Domingue (Hôpitaux), Cap Français, Year XI, Year XII, folio 4. 83 Anon. dPcc, hoP 70, Cap-Français, St Domingue (Hôpitaux), Hôpital des Pères (Cap), Years VII to XII. 84 R. Massy, “Louis-Esprit Bonamy, pharmacien militaire (1750–1809). Communication faite le 23 October 1957 à la Commission d’histoire de la pharmacie militaire,” Revue d’histoire de la pharmacie, vol. 47, no. 161, 1959, 91. 85 shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 10, War Council report, 5 October 1803, for the evacuation of Port-au-Prince. 86 Anon. dPcc, hoP 78, Le Cap, St Domingue (Hôpitaux), La Providence, Years XI and XII. 87 Anon. cc9B 10, the chief of staff of the Clauzel division to the engineer commander, 20 April 1803. 88 University of Florida, Gainesville, Rochambeau Papers, lot 14, Sabès to Rochambeau, 14 July 1803. 89 Eugène Herpin, ed., Mémoires du chevalier de Fréminville, 65. 90 On the food shortage, see shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 23, Thouvenot to the war minister and the minister of the navy, 14 August 1803: “Soldiers are dying due to lack of help and proper food.” 91 Jean-Pierre Béchaud, Voyage en Amérique,” 121–2. 92 This point is denounced by one of the associates of Saint-Domingue merchant Stanislas Foache in a letter dated 16 August 1803. See Maurice

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94

95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102

Notes to pages 46–8

Begouen Demeaux, Mémorial d’une famille, 221–2: “One cannot perish more gaily then we ourselves are doing: we are sinking very gently, and instead of pumping and seeking to keep afloat, we have parties, balls, and concerts: we feast and tomorrow will have no bread.” See the Gazette officielle de Saint-Domingue, 29 September 1803. See also Jacqueline Letzter and Robert Adelson, “The Legacy of a One-Woman Show: A Performance History of Julie Candeille’s Catherine, ou la belle fermière,” Nineteenth-Century French Studies, vol. 33, nos. 1 and 2 (fall– winter 2004–05): 11–34. Regarding this play, see the César database, an electronic calendar of shows during the Ancien Régime and the Revolution, www.cesar.org. uk/cesar2/titles/titles.php?fct=edit&script_UOID=130174. The text of the play is available in the digital collections of the University of Warwick, http://contentdm.warwick. ac.uk/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/ Revolution&CISOPTR=5047&REC=3. See also Richard Wrigley, “From Ancien Régime Fall-Guy to Revolutionary Hero: Changing Interpretations of Janot and Dorvigny’s ‘Les Battus paient l’amende’ in Later Eighteenth-Century France,” British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 19, no. 2 (fall 1996): 125–40. On theatre in Saint-Domingue, see Laurent Dubois and Bertrand Camier, “Voltaire et Zaïre ou le théâtre des Lumières dans l’aire atlantique française,” Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, vol. 54, no. 4 (October–December 2007): 39–69; Jean Fouchard, Le théâtre à Saint- Domingue (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de l’État, 1955). Anon., cc9B 11, “Registre no. 1er, correspondance avec les généraux,” Boyé to General Ferrand, 29 October 1803. Anon., cc9B 11, “Registre no.1er, correspondance avec les généraux,” Boyé to Luzy, 10 November 1803. Anon., cc9B 11, “Registre no. 1er, correspondance générale,” Boyé to Commander of Place du Cap Néraud, 12 November 1803. Anon., cc9B 19, Boyé to General Decrès, 12 October 1803. cArAn, Papiers Rochambeau, 135AP 2, Boyé to General Rochambeau, 14 October 1803. cArAn, Papiers Rochambeau, 135AP 3, file 21, report of 14 November 1803. Anon., cc9B 11, “Registre no. 1er, correspondance avec les généraux,” Boyé to Chief of Brigade Moulut, 15 November 1803. Journal de la campagne du Nord, folio 76, 1.

Notes to pages 48–9

175

103 University of Florida, Gainesville, Rochambeau Papers, part two, microfilm 2, lot 103, Henry Barré to general-in-chief. The letter is undated, but is filed after 14 November 1803. 104 shd, Vincennes, series 1vM 98, article 14, box 3, “Mémoire succinct sur la nécessité de Palissader ou de fermer la ville du Cap par une enceinte continue, pour augmenter sa défense contre une attaque de vive force,” 2 September 1803, signed by Chief of Brigade Moulut. 105 Anon., cc9B 20, file “Correspondance du commissaire de marine Dusaulchoy, pluviôse-ventôse an xii,” “Precis des Operations Maritimes du Mois de Brumaire, Affaire du 26. Evacuation du Cap; Notes sur la Position et les Forces Actuelles de St. Domingue et de la Jamaïque, Extraits du Journal du Lt de Vau Babron, embarqué sur la Surveillante.” 106 Some of Félix Boisselier’s prints are reproduced in Thomas Bender, Laurent Dubois, and Richard Rabinowitz, eds., Revolution!, 222, 225, and 234. On the uniforms of the troops, see shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 16, Armée de Saint-Domingue, general orders, 18 May 1802. 107 Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti, vol. 3, 84. 108 Shortly after the arrival of Leclerc’s troops, many French soldiers had nothing to put on their feet. See shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 19, Thouvenot to the war commissioner, 11 August 1802. 109 cArAn, Papiers Rochambeau, 135AP 2, file 13, Duveyrier to Boyé, 18 September 1803. 110 Boston Public Library, Ms Haiti, box 66, file 194, document 2. 111 Anon., cc9B 20, file “Correspondance du commissaire de marine Dusaulchoy, pluviôse-ventôse an xii,” “Precis des Operations Maritimes du Mois de Brumaire, Affaire du 26. Evacuation du Cap; Notes sur la Position et les Forces Actuelles de St Domingue et de la Jamaïque, Extraits du Journal du Lt de Vau Babron, embarqué sur la Surveillante.” Rochambeau speaks of six o’clock in the morning in his letter to Decrès of 22 November 1803, Anon., cc9B 19. 112 Anon., cc9B 19, Luzy, chief of brigade in command of the engineering branch of the former army of Saint-Domingue to Decrès, 25 December 1803. 113 Anon., dPcc, Saint-Domingue, 8suPsdoM/390, file C, envelope 4, “Réponses des Citoyens Faucher et le Bell, tous deux arrivant du Cap, aux questions à eux faittes par le Cn Bescher Boisgoly agent français à St. Jaques de Cuba,” 17 April 1804: “The rebel army amounted to approximately 8,000 men, some of whom were unarmed.” The second

176

114

115

116 117

118 119

Notes to pages 49–50

assessment is found in Anon., cc9B 19, “Raport de la Situation de la Colonie de St Domingue du 20 brumaire an 12.” shd, Vincennes, Mémoires sur Saint-Domingue, 1M593, Donatien-MarieJoseph de Rochambeau, “Appercu General Sur les troubles des Colonies Françaises de L’amerique. Suivi d’un precis de la Guerre dans cette partie du Monde,” 105. The precis in question is titled: “Rapport detaillé des Operations de L’armée de Saint Domingue.” Anon., cc9B 20, file “Correspondance du commissaire de marine Dusaulchoy, pluviôse-ventôse an XII,” “Precis des Operations Maritimes du Mois de Brumaire, Affaire du 26. Evacuation du Cap; Notes sur la Position et les Forces Actuelles de St Domingue et de la Jamaïque, Extraits du Journal du Lt de Vau Babron, embarqué sur la Surveillante.” Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti, vol. 3, 83. Anon., cc9B 19, “Raport de la Situation de la Colonie de St Domingue du 20 brumaire an 12”; Anon., cc9B 20, file “Correspondance du commissaire de marine Dusaulchoy, pluviôse-ventôse an XII,” “Precis des Operations Maritimes du Mois de Brumaire, Affaire du 26. Evacuation du Cap; Notes sur la Position et les Forces Actuelles de St. Domingue et de la Jamaïque, Extraits du Journal du Lt de Vau Babron, embarqué sur la Surveillante.” See also Notice historique sur les désastres de St-Domingue pendant l’an XI et l’an XII. Par un officier français, détenu par Dessalines (Paris: Pillot, n.d.) 44. The author of the report estimates the troops present in Cap-Français to be “2,500 men at most, including the militia.” Anon., dPcc, hoP 78, Le Cap, St Domingue (Hôpitaux), La Providence, Years XI and XII, folio 6. Anon., cc9B 18, file “Correspondance des commissaires de France aux Etats-Unis,” “Extrait d’une lettre du Cap Français datée du 7 décembre adressée à une personne de Charleston,” appendix to a letter of the French commissioner to the United States to the minister of the navy and the colonies; Anon., cc9B 19, Rochambeau to Decrès, 22 November 1803. In his memoir on the Saint-Domingue expedition (shd, Vincennes, Mémoires sur Saint-Domingue, 1M593, “Appercu General Sur les troubles des Colonies Françaises de L’amerique. Suivi d’un precis de la Guerre dans cette partie du Monde”), Rochambeau estimates the number “of attackers [who] remained to be from 12 to 1,500” (36). In the same source, he speaks of the loss of two-thirds of the French soldiers who fought at Vertières (107). The author of another memoir about Saint-Domingue, also found in the shd archives, Vincennes, code 1M598, estimates that approximately 300 soldiers were admitted to hospital on

Notes to pages 50–6

120 121

122

123

124

125 126

177

the day of the battle. As for Madiou, he speaks of 1,200 dead and 2,000 wounded for the entire day of 18 November (Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti, vol. 3, 91). Lieutenant Babron mentions a loss of 194 men. Journal de la campagne du Nord, folio 73, 16. On the duration of the battle, see Anon., cc9A 36, letter of the commissioner of trade relations in Newport to the minister of the navy and the colonies, 23 December 1803. shd, Vincennes, Mémoires sur Saint-Domingue, 1M598, “Mémoire Succint sur la Guerre de St Domingue et sur les evenemens qui y ont eu lieu pendant les campagnes des années 10, 11 et 12 (1801 à 1804),” 81. shd, Vincennes, Mémoires sur Saint-Domingue, 1M593, Donatien-MarieJoseph de Rochambeau, “Appercu General Sur les troubles des Colonies Françaises de L’amerique. Suivi d’un precis de la Guerre dans cette partie du Monde,” 107. On the final moments of the post of Vertières, see also the journal of the merchant of Cap Hardvilliers, excerpts of which are reproduced in Maurice Begouen Demeaux, Mémorial d’une famille, 235. Anon., cc9B 20, file “Correspondance du commissaire de marine Dusaulchoy, pluviôse-ventôse an XII,” “Precis des Operations Maritimes du Mois de Brumaire, Affaire du 26. Evacuation du Cap; Notes sur la Position et les Forces Actuelles de St Domingue et de la Jamaïque, Extraits du Journal du Lt de Vau Babron, embarqué sur la Surveillante.” Ibid. Ibid.

Chapter Four 1 The village of Vertière is joined to another village, Lantenne. They form the commune of Lantenne-Vertière. 2 Le Petit Robert 2 (Paris: Le Robert, 1993), 1864. 3 The years consulted are: 1974, 1975, 1977, 1985, 1986, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011. 4 Same silence in the entries for Cap-Haïtien, Napoléon as well as for Leclerc and Rochambeau. In the 1993 edition, Leclerc “led the French Saint-Domingue expedition” (1040). As for Rochambeau, he “returned to Saint-Domingue in 1802, after taking part in the Italian campaign; he was forced to hand himself over to the English in 1803” (1539). 5 This is also the case with the Dictionnaire Larousse, which remains silent regarding the years from 1795 to 1804 (2010 edition, 1380). 6 Le Petit Robert 2, 1587.

178

Notes to pages 56–9

7 Jean-Marie Théodat, “Haïti,” Encyclopaedia Universalis, www.universalisedu.com/encyclopedie/haiti/. 8 See also “L’histoire d’Haïti débute à Vertières,” “Retour sur l’histoire: actualité” column, Historia, no. 686 (February 2004): 22. 9 Marcel Dorigny, “Aux origines: l’indépendance d’Haïti et son occultation,” in Pascal Blanchard, Nicolas Blancel, and Sandrine Lemaire, eds., La fracture coloniale. La société française au prisme de l’héritage colonial, 50 (Paris: La Découverte, 2005). 10 See www.histoire-image.org. 11 Luce-Marie Albigès, “Jean-Baptiste Belley, député de Saint-Domingue à la Convention,” Histoire-Image, www.histoire-image.org/site/etude_comp/ etude_comp_detail.php ?i=737. 12 See Gérard Barthélémy and Christian Giraud, eds., La République haïtienne. État des lieux et perspectives (Paris: Karthala, 1993). Another more recent cover page poses a similar problem. The work in question deals with a slave rebellion that took place in Louisiana in 1811. The illustration chosen for the book seems at first relevant (we see Blacks confronting white soldiers). The caption, however, reveals that it is a portrayal of the Battle of “Vertires.” Not only is Vertières spelled incorrectly but also the event disappears, overshadowed by another that it is supposed to portray (Daniel Rasmussen, American Uprising, New York, Harper, 2011). 13 See Philippe Beaudoin, Carnet d’étapes. Souvenirs de guerre et de captivité lors de l’expédition de Saint-Domingue. Extraits du Carnet de la sabretache, années 1908 et 1909 (Paris: Librairie Historique F. Teissèdre, 2000). 14 See Joseph Elisée Peyre-Ferry, Journal des opérations militaires de l’armée française à Saint-Domingue 1802–1803. Sous les ordres des capitaines généraux Leclerc et Rochambeau (Paris: Éditions de Paris, 2006). 15 See Michel Étienne Descourtilz, Voyage d’un naturaliste (Paris: Dufart, 1809). 16 Pamphile de Lacroix, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de la revolution de Saint-Domingue, vol. 2 (Paris: Pillet, 1819), 252–4. All quotations in the following paragraph are taken from the same work. 17 Before the announcement of the defeat of the French, news conveyed by the Napoleonic press was reassuring. In the Mémorial antibritannique of 14 January 1803, for example, we read that “the garrison of Cap-Français is strong and well disciplined. The forts and batteries of cannon, left by the English in the worst condition, were repaired perfectly.” The situation

Notes to pages 59–62

18 19

20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31

32 33

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on the ground was obviously very different (see chapter 3). This type of propaganda is of course not new. The inhabitants of the colony who had access to newspapers published in France indeed denounced the situation. This is seen, for example, in a letter sent to the first consul on 6 October 1802: “All public papers that come to us from France distress us; they only deal with the submission of the Negroes, the tranquility of the country, and a thousand other similar falsehoods, while the colony has never been in such great danger” (cArAn, AF/iv/1213, file 6). Journal des débats, 23 February 1804. Événemens qui ont précédé et suivi l’évacuation de Saint-Domingue, publiés par un Officier de l’État-Major de l’Armée (Paris: Desprez Librairie, 1804), 30. See the Mémorial of 28 January and especially of 7 May 1804. In this last issue, we learn that the proclamation of Haitian independence was dictated in England. See also the Journal des débats, 20 February 1804. Regarding this point, see the Mémorial, 25 February 1804. See the Mémorial, 21 May 1804. See the Journal des débats, 6 May 1804. Mathieu Dumas, Précis des événements militaires ou essais historiques sur les campagnes de 1799 à 1814 (Paris: Treuttel et Würtz, 1819), 336. Victoires, conquêtes, désastres, revers et guerres civiles des Français, de 1792 à 1815, vol. 14 (Paris: C.L.F. Panckoucke, 1819), 326. Victoires, conquêtes, désastres, revers et guerres civiles des Français, de 1792 à 1815, vol. 26 (Paris: C.L.F. Panckoucke, 1819), 318. Adolphe Thiers, Histoire du consulat et de l’empire faisant suite à l’histoire de la Révolution française, vol. 4 (Paris: Paulin, 1845), 363. Ibid. Henry de Poyen-Bellisle, Histoire militaire de la révolution de SaintDomingue (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1899), 438. See also, by the same author, Les guerres des Antilles de 1793 à 1815 (Paris and Nancy: BergerLevrault et Cie, 1896). Henry de Poyen-Bellisle, Histoire militaire de la révolution, 431. Catts Pressoir, Henock Trouillot and Ernest Trouillot, Historiographie d’Haïti (Mexico City: Instituto Panamericano de Geografía e Historia, 1953), 126. See the Archives of the Institut national de l’audiovisuel (inA), part two of Visages d’Haïti, Phd98048264, 8 min 30 s –10 min 44 s. inA, part one of Visages d’Haïti, Phd980482263, 19 min 1 s–19 min 16 s.

180

Notes to pages 63–4

34 Immediately preceding him, Ambassador Ludovic Chancel, posted there until 1952, asked that the film Lydia Bailey, which recounted the French debacle in Saint-Domingue, be censored in France and excluded from the import market (Archives des Affaires étrangères, La Courneuve, series B Amériques, 1952–63, Haiti, file 44, envelope “Haïti, relations culturelles, mars 1952–novembre 1954,” dispatch no. 228/am, 5 May 1952). 35 Archives des Affaires étrangères, La Courneuve, series B Amériques, 1952–63, Haïti, file 44, envelope “Haïti, relations culturelles, mars 1952– novembre 1954,” copy of dispatch no. 531 of 30 September 1953. 36 Archives des Affaires étrangères, La Courneuve, series B Amériques, 1952–63, Haïti, file 48, envelope “Fête du 150e anniversaire de l’indépendance haïtienne,” no. 20/am, 5 January 1954. See also file 44, envelope “Haïti, relations culturelles, mars 1952–novembre 1954,” no. 49/am, 15 January 1954. The ambassador considers that “it infinitely unfortunate and regrettable that Haitian students doing their secondary studies, called upon to make up the country’s elite, learn, in an official textbook, that the French were vultures and monsters still dripping with the blood of suckling children.” 37 See Henri Mézière, Le général Leclerc (1772–1802) et l’expédition de SaintDomingue (Paris: Taillandier, 1990), 244. 38 See Madison Smartt Bell, Master of the Crossroads: A Novel of Haiti (New York: Vintage Books, 2004 [2000]), 710. 39 Tony Jaques, Dictionary of Battles and Sieges: A Guide to 8,500 Battles from Antiquity through the Twenty-first Century (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2007). 40 See François Blancpain, La colonie française de Saint-Domingue. De l’esclavage à l’indépendance (Paris: Karthala, 2004). 41 Jean Tulard, ed., Dictionnaire Napoléon, vol. 2 (Paris: Fayard, 1999), 692. Need we mention here that between Verstolk and Vestale, no reference is made to Vertières? The work, however, is heavy and meant to be authoritative. See also, by Jean Tulard, La France de la Révolution et de l’Empire (Paris: PuF, 2000 [1995]), 139. The events that took place between 2 November 1802 and 19 November 1803 are summed up here in one sentence: “In the face of the success of the rebelling indigenous leaders, Dessalines and Christophe, General Rochambeau surrendered on 19 November 1803.” 42 Jean Tulard, ed., Dictionnaire Napoléon, vol. 2, 689–91. See also the entry “Dessalines,” vol. 1, 646–7.

Notes to pages 64–7

181

43 See the entry “Rochambeau,” in Jean Tulard, ed., Dictionnaire Napoléon, vol. 2, 655: “due to the illness which continued to reduce the size of the corps, despite the shipment of further reinforcements from France, he, on 28 November 1803, had to evacuate Cap-Français and go over to the English, who had formed a coalition with the Blacks.” Everything is done to avoid 18 November.

Chapter Five 1 “Rapport au Ministre des affaires étrangères, M. Dominique de Villepin, du Comité indépendant de réflexion et de propositions sur les relations Franco-Haïtiennes,” January 2004, 8–9, www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/IMG/ pdf/rapport_haiti.pdf. 2 Jean-Clément Martin, “Massacres, tueries, exécutions et meurtres de masse pendant la Révolution, quelles grilles d’analyse?,” in Bruno Hervé and Pierre Serna, eds., “Les massacres au temps des Révolutions,” Cahiers de l’Institut d’histoire de la Révolution française, no. 3, 2011, par. 21, http:// lrf.revues.org/201. 3 cArAn, AF/iv/1213, file 6, “Extrait d’une lettre du Cap du 18 vendémiaire an 11.” See also Maurice Begouen Demeaux, Mémorial d’une famille, 215. This work presents Stanislas Foache’s correspondence with his associates, including a letter from 5 March 1803, an excerpt of which follows: “The slaves have become masters of their masters, farmers of their habitations, officers, commanders; they no longer fear the whites; they hate them.” 4 The passage in question is quoted in Laurent Dubois and John Garrigus, eds., Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 56. 5 On the unthinkable nature of the Haitian Revolution, see Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past. 6 See, for example, shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 21, Pierre Thouvenot to Battalion Commander Navarres, commandant at Le Borgne, 13 September 1802: “You will monitor the conduct of the farmers’ wives. They are the ones who usually act as spys for the brigands and through their speech maintain the brigands in their revolt.” See also series B7, box 22, letter no. 198, n.d., addressee unknown as paper torn in the upper right-hand corner of the letter: “their wives are often more barbaric.” (Thouvenot is speaking of the “bloodthirsty men” confronting the French.) 7 cArAn, AF/iv/1213, file 6, “Une lettre du Port Républicain le 14 vendémiaire an 11.”

182

Notes to pages 67–70

8 shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 22, letter no. 198. 9 shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 23, Thouvenot to Secretary of State Marc [the rest of the name is illegible], 11 July 1803. 10 cArAn, AF/iv/1213, file 6, “Extrait d’une autre lettre du Cap le 18 vendémiaire.” 11 cArAn, AF/iv/1213, file 6, “Une lettre du Port Républicain le 14 vendémiaire an 11.” 12 cArAn, AF/iv/1213, file 6, letter from Lebreton, n.d. Lebreton is transmitting a letter dated 4 Prairial Year 11. 13 cArAn, AF/iv/1213, file 6, “Une lettre du Port Républicain le 14 vendémiaire an 11.” 14 shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 20, Pierre Thouvenot to Chief of Brigade Parnageon, 28 August 1802. 15 See Enzo Traverso, L’histoire comme champ de bataille. Interpréter les violences du XXe siècle (Paris: La Découverte, 2011), 156–60. 16 See what Pierre Nora has to say in Le Monde, 22 December 2011. He maintains it would be more accurate to speak of massacres or extermination rather than genocide. 17 See shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 19, Thouvenot to General Clauzel, 23 August 1802. 18 Christophe Wargny, Haïti n’existe pas: 1804–2004, deux cents ans de solitude (Paris: Autrement, 2004), 46. 19 See Yves Bénot, La démence coloniale (Paris: La Découverte, 1992), 7 and 57. 20 Bernard Gainot, “‘Sur fond de cruelle inhumanité.’ Les politiques du massacre dans la Révolution de Haïti,” in Bruno Hervé and Pierre Serna, eds., La Révolution française. Cahiers de l’Institut d’histoire, par. 28 and 38, http://lrf.revues.org/239. 21 Ibid., par. 50. 22 See Mayeul Macé and Bernard Gainot, “Fin de campagne à SaintDomingue, novembre 1802–novembre 1803,” in Marcel Dorigny, ed., Haïti, première République noire, 30–4 (Saint-Denis and Paris: Publications de la société française d’histoire d’outre-mer and Association pour l’étude de la colonisation européenne, 2003). 23 See Malick Ghachem, “‘The Colonial Vendée,” in David Patrick Geggus and Norman Fiering, eds., The World of the Haitian Revolution, 170. 24 See Bruno Hervé, “Noyades, fusillades, exécutions. Les mises à mort des brigands entre justice et massacres en Loire-Inférieure en l’an II.” 25 Thierry Lentz and Pierre Branda, Napoléon, l’esclavage et les colonies (Paris: Fayard, 2006), 11.

Notes to pages 72–9

26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33

34 35

36

37 38 39

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Ibid., 11 and 147. Ibid., 147 and 134. Ibid., 93 and 151. See the Journal des débats, 28 April 1804. Philippe Girard, “Caribbean Genocide: Racial War in Haiti, 1802–4,” Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 39, no. 2 (2005): 158. The article was re-published in 2007 in A. Dirk Moses and Dan Stone, eds., Colonialism and Genocide (London/New York: Routledge, 2007). See Philippe Girard, “Caribbean Genocide: Racial War in Haiti, 1802–4,” 145. Ibid., 146–7. See Philippe Girard, “French Atrocities during the Haitian War of Independence,” Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 15, no. 2 (May 2013): 133–49. Ibid., 134 and 146. See Claude Ribbe, Le crime de Napoléon (Paris: Privé, 2005). Ribbe’s hypothesis, which is to make the war in Saint-Domingue the forerunner to the extermination of the Jews, is summarized on p. 12. Ibid., 25. “L’homme glorieux qui a entrepris l’extermination des récalcitrants en les gazant.” (The glorious man who undertook the extermination of the rebellious by gassing them.) Thierry Lentz and Pierre Branda, Napoléon, l’esclavage et les colonies, 154. Ibid., 155. Ibid., 156.

Chapter Six 1 Quoted in Yves Bénot, La démence coloniale, 24. 2 On this point, see Laurent Dubois, “Avenging America,” in David Geggus and Norman Fiering, eds., The World of the Haitian Revolution, 115. 3 See Daniel Thouvenot, L’oublié de la gloire. De la guerre d’indépendance des États-Unis au blocus de Bayonne. L’incroyable épopée de Pierre Thouvenot, Général lorrain, Baron de l’Empire (Moyenmoutier: Edhisto, 2011). On Thouvenot, see also Philippe Girard, The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon: 299–300; Matthieu Brevet, Les expeditions coloniales vers Saint-Domingue et les Antilles (1802–1810), 434–6. 4 shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 2, Adjutant Commander Dampierre to General Desfourneaux, 8 February 1802. 5 shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 2, “Idées générales sur l’attaque de la Ville

184

6 7 8 9

10

11 12 13 14 15 16

Notes to pages 79–82

du Cap français … présentées au Capitaine Général Leclerc d’après sa demande en date du 10 pluviôse an 10.” shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 2, “Idées générales.” See shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 3, Dalton, Saint-Marc headquarters, 26 March 1802. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 19, Thouvenot to General Boyer, 14 August 1802. In the Journal des débats of 6 May 6 1804, the soldiers of the black army are described as “ferocious animals.” A letter from an inhabitant of Cap-Français speaks of “ferocious beasts that have been tamed,” cArAn, AF/iv/1213, file 6, 6 October 1802. Regarding use of the expression “bête fauve,” see Eugène Herpin, ed., Mémoires du chevalier de Fréminville (1787–1848), 79. On the comparison between the marrons and the “bêtes fauves,” see Condorcet, Réflexions sur l’esclavage des nègres (Neufchâtel: Société typographique, 1781): “Although their masters enjoy chasing them like wild beasts, and people boast about having murdered a brown Negro, as in Europe people pride themselves on having killed from behind a stag or a doe,” 27, available on Gallica, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ ark:/12148/bpt6k823018/f40.image. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 21, General Brunet to the general-inchief, 18 September 1802. See also Brunet’s letter to Leclerc dated 25 September 1802, same box. See Carolyn Fick, The Making of Haiti, 37–8. On the use of the word “carnage,” see shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 21, Thouvenot to General Dugua, 2 October 1802. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 21, Thouvenot to Commander Achille, 22 September 1802. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 21, Thouvenot to General Dugua, 2 October 1802. Ibid. cArAn, AB/xix/5002, Archives Leclerc, entry 4182, Dampierre, Adjutant Commander of General Desfourneaux’s division to Leclerc, n.d., year X: “Never have troops been more harassed. While the gunshots sustained them during the previous marches, the length of this one was certainly felt. It caused the most discouraging remarks among the soldiers … while they listened to our admonitions, the next minute they would hide themselves in the first ditch and let themselves fall again, shouting it was hardly courage they lacked but that we could kill them before they

Notes to pages 82–5

17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24

25 26 27 28

29 30

31

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would take another step … Those whose exhaustion led them to utter such words were truly ghosts.” Abbé Pierre-Étienne de Bonnevie, Éloge funèbre de Victor-Emmanuel Leclerc (Lyon: Imprimerie de Ballanche père, year XI), 18. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 21, Thouvenot to Makajoux, 2 October 1802. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 19, Thouvenot to the post commander at Escaliers, 11 August 1802. Ibid. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 19, Thouvenot to post commander at Mapou, 12 August 1802. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 7, Dugua, army chief of staff, to Thouvenot, chief of staff of the right northern division, 2 September 1802. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 19, Thouvenot to Brigadier General Grandet, 13 August 1802. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 20, Thouvenot to Squadron Leader Jolicoeur, 30 August 1802. The expression is reused almost verbatim by Thouvenot in a letter written to General Rochambeau on 15 ventôse year 11 (6 March 1803): “as the colony has been brought under control … 12,000 men will still be indispensable to the colony for a long time, to rid the Negroes of the idea of rising up again,” shd, Vincinnes, series B7, box 23. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 21, Thouvenot to Battalion Commander Navarres, 13 September 1802. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 21, Thouvenot to General Dugua, 30 September 1802. shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 10, Thouvenot to Brigadier General Grandet, 25 August 1802. Paul Roussier, ed., Lettres du général Leclerc, commandant en chef de l’armée de Saint-Domingue en 1802 (Paris: Société de l’histoire des colonies françaises and E. Leroux, 1937), 238. Ibid., 256. Regarding the conditions imposed on women, see also shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 22, Thouvenot to [illegible as paper is damaged], letter no. 198. A few weeks later, Captain Rapatel proposed sparing only children ages five or six and under. See Matthieu Brevet, Les expéditions coloniales, 100.

186

Notes to pages 85–91

32 cArAn, AF/iv/1213, file 6, excerpt from a letter written by an inhabitant of Cap-Français and sent to the first consul, 3 October 1802. 33 Anon., cc9A 30, proclamation, 6 October 1802. 34 The image of the torrent occurs also in the first proclamation of Haiti’s independence on 29 November 1803 signed by Dessalines, Christophe, and Clerveaux: “If they [the free men of Haiti] had to shed torrents of blood, if, to preserve their freedom, they had to burn seven-eighths of the globe, they are absolved in advance before the justice of providence, which did not create men to make them groan beneath shameful and harsh servitude” (Journal des débats, 21 February 1804). On the history of this document and its dissemination in American newspapers, see Deborah Jenson, “Dessaline’s America,” in Deborah Jenson, Beyond the Slave Narrative, 127–31. 35 shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 8, Hector Daure to Pierre Thouvenot, 4 November 1802. 36 See cArAn, Papiers Rochambeau, 135AP 6, General Brunet to General Leclerc, 24 October 1802. 37 Eugène Herpin, ed., Mémoires du chevalier de Fréminville (1787–1848), 75. 38 cArAn, AF/iv/1213, letter from an inhabitant of Cap-Français, 24 May 1803. 39 shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 8, the commanding general of the eastern part, Kerverseau, to General Pamphile de Lacroix, commanding the department of Cibao, 4 November 1802. 40 See Anon. cc9A 33, anonymous letter, 18 June 1803. 41 Anon. cc9A 34, Rochambeau to the minister of the navy and the colonies, 21 January 1803 and 2 March 1803. 42 On the use of dogs during the war of Saint-Domingue, see Philippe Girard, “War Unleashed: The Use of War Dogs During the Haitian War of Independence,” Napoleonica. La Revue, no. 15 (December 2012): 80–105. 43 shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 22, letter no. 198. 44 Ibid. 45 shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 22, Thouvenot to Citizen Lespinasse, Senator, 8 March 1803. 46 See shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 22, 6 March 1803: Thouvenot informed Rochambeau of the number of troops needed to restore order. 47 Anon. cc9B 19, “Le Général en chef. Instructions données au général de brigade Boÿer,” 14 April 1803. All the quotations in this paragraph and the following one are from this document.

Notes to pages 91–5

187

48 The solution is not new, nor is it “French.” In February 1802, a rich Jamaican planter had already proposed this expeditious method: “There is one and only one way to make St Domingo again a Sugar Colony as well as Guadeloupe … and that is by extirpating the present race of Negroes in them and resettling them with new Negroes from Africa … I am confident there is no other Medium … but by extirpating the present generation of Negroes.” Cited in Vincent Brown, “A Vapor of Dread: Observations on Racial Terror and Vengeance in the Age of Revolution,” 193. 49 See Philippe Girard, “French Atrocities,” 142. 50 shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 22, Thouvenot to his friend Page, 8 May 1803. 51 shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 22, Thouvenot to Devaivres, head of the Colonial Office, 18 April 1803. 52 shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 22, Thouvenot to his friend Page, 8 May 1803. 53 shd, Vincennes, series B7, box 22, “Notes,” 11 May 1803. 54 See cArAn, AF/iv/1213, Pierre Boyer, chief of the general staff of the army, to Division General Daoust, commander of the infantry of the Guard of the First Consul, 17 June 1803. 55 shd, Vincennes, 7yd 630: “[he] received the last wishes of General Leclerc, who ordered him to convey them to the first consul. He was en route on the frigate La Franchise, to carry out his mission, when he was captured by the English (28 May 1803).” 56 cArAn, AF/iv/1190, 2nd file, 6 June 1803. 57 cArAn, AF/iv/1190, 2nd file, 19 July 1803. 58 Anon. Cc9A 38, Lescours to the first consul, 25 September 1803. 59 The plan to kill the Blacks of Saint-Domingue, at least in part, was presented to Admiral Duckworth, posted in Jamaica, in November 1802 (see his correspondence, National Archives, Kew, AdM 1/253, “Jamaica 1803. Admiral Sir Thomas Duckworth”). See also the correspondence of the governor of Jamaica to the British minister of war and colonies, National Archives, Kew, co 138/36, 31 March 1803: “The French cannot succeed ultimately, without exterminating the Brigands.” 60 See Événemens qui ont précédé et suivi l’évacuation de Saint-Domingue, 47–52. 61 cArAn, AF/iv/1213, file 4, Rochambeau to the minister of the navy and the colonies, 4 November 1803.

188

Notes to pages 95–100

62 Letter from Armand de Vanssay to his brother Achille, in Cap-Français, Messidor 10, year XI (29 June 1802), published in Gabriel Debien, Autour de l’expédition de Saint-Domingue. Les espérances d’une famille d’anciens planteurs (1801–1804), “Notes d’histoire colonial,” series, vol. 3 (Port-auPrince: Imprimerie V. Valcin, n.d.), letter 49. 63 Juste Chanlatte, Histoire de la catastrophe de Saint-Domingue (Paris: Peytieux, 1824), 61. 64 Ibid., 61–2. 65 See cArAn, AF/iv/1213, file 4, Rochambeau to the minister of the navy and the colonies, 4 November 1803. 66 cArAn, AF/iv/1213, file 5, General Ferrand to the minister of the navy and the colonies, 17 July 1804.

Chapter Seven 1 Regarding Durand and Coicou, see Amy Reinsel, Poetry of Revolution: Romanticism and National Projects in Nineteenth-Century Haiti, PhD diss., (University of Pittsburgh, 2008), 112ff., 182ff. 2 Jean Brierre, Black Soul (Havana: Editorial Lex, 1947), 35. 3 See Jean Métellus, Le pont rouge (Paris: Nouvelles du Sud, 1991), 72. See also René Despestre, Poète à Cuba (Paris: P.J. Oswald, 1976), 144. 4 Dany Laferrière, An Aroma of Coffee, trans. David Homel (Toronto: Coach House Press, 1993), 103. 5 Battle of Vertières i and Battle of Vertières ii, in Cécile Accilien, Jessica Adams, and Elmide Méléance, eds., Revolutionary Freedoms: A History of Survival, Strength, and Imagination in Haiti, 213–14 (Coconut Creek: Caribbean Studies Press, 2006). 6 “Capois-la-Mort” by Sénèque Obin is reproduced on the cover of the Haitian edition of Laurent Dubois, Les vengeurs du nouveau monde. Histoire de la Révolution haïtienne (Port-au-Prince: Éditions de l’université d’État d’Haïti, 2009). The central part of the painting “La bataille de Vertières” is reproduced on the cover of Alain Yacou, ed., Saint-Domingue espagnol et la révolution nègre d’Haïti. Commémoration du bicentenaire de la naissance de l’État d’Haïti (1804–2004) (Paris: Karthala, 2007). The entire painting is found in Haïti. Art naïf, art vaudou (Paris: Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, 1988), 94. The painting “Capois-la-Mort à Vertières” is reproduced in Christie’s East, Latin American Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, Prints and Haitian Paintings: 21 November 1995

Notes to pages 100–1

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(New York: Christie’s, 1995), 62. On historic Haitian painting and pictorial representations of the Haitian Revolution, see Danielle Bégot, “Peinture et Révolution: la révolution de Saint-Domingue à travers les peintres haïtiens d’aujourd’hui,” in M.-L. Martin and A. Yacou, eds., De la Révolution française aux révolutions créoles et nègres 151–77 (Paris: Éditions caribéennes, 1989). On Haitian painting in general, the authoritative work is Michel Philippe Lerebours, Haïti et ses peintres de 1804 à 1980. Souffrances et espoirs d’un people (Port-au-Prince: Imprimeur ii, 1989). 7 On 6 June 2013, the painting was available for sale in the New York gallery Arte del Pueblo, item 184, www.trocadero.com/stores/jznica/ items/976512/item976512.html. The painting is reproduced in Ute Stebich, Kunst aus Haiti (Neu-Ulm: Die GmbH, [1981?]), 21 and 111. 8 “Haïti: 500 ans d’histoire,” École normale supérieure de Lyon, 12 January 2012, www.ens-lyon.eu/actualites/haiti-500-ans-d-histoire-159452. kjsp?STNAV=&RUBNAV. The painting is also reproduced (with better resolution) in Jean-Marie Drot, La rencontre des deux mondes vue par les peintres d’Haïti (Edizioni Carte Segrete: 1992), 154–5. 9 It is impossible to give a comprehensive listing of paintings portraying the Battle of Vertières. To locate certain works, we used the inventory of Haitian works of art that have been reproduced prepared by Bob Corbett, www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/art/chart-1.htm. Among them are Michel Mercier Obin, La bataille de Vertières, in Jean-Marie Drot, Journal de voyage chez les peintres de la Fête et du Vaudou en Haïti (Genève: Albert Skira, 1974), 23; Where Art is Joy: Haitian Art – The First Forty Years (New York: Ruggles de Latour, 1988), 17; Drago Zdunic, Primitive Paintings: An Anthology of the World’s Naive Painters (New York: Alpine Fine Arts Collection, 1981), 285; Joel Delva, Bataille de Vertières, in Edwidge Danticat and Jonathan Demme, Island on Fire: Passionate Visions of Haiti from the Collection of Jonathan Demme (Nyack, New York: Kaliko Press, 1997), 147; Rose Marie Desruisseau, Victoire à Vertières, in Rose-Marie Desruisseau, La Rencontre des Trois Mondes (Port-au-Prince: H. Deschamps, 1992), 74–5. Also of note are the paintings of Antoine Derenoncourt, Combat de Vertières, in Michel Philippe Lerebours, Haïti et ses peintres, 200, and finally the works of Armand Fleurimont and Jean-Baptiste Jean (Rochambeau livre le cap à Dessalines), in Grande vente de tableaux haïtiens pour commémorer le bicentenaire d’Haïti, la première république noire, lundi 17 mai 2004, painting 144. Jean-Claude Sévère, a student of Philomé Obin, also created a painting about the

190

10

11

12 13

14

Notes to pages 101–4

battle, which is part of the Rodale family collection. On this topic, see Steve Siegel, “Vibrant Haitian Art at Allentown Art Museum Reveals Optimism and Desire,” The Morning Call, 16 February 2013, http:// articles.mcall.com/2013-02-16/entertainment/mc-allentownart-museumrodale-haiti-20130216_1_haitian-artists-dewitt-petersrodale-institute/2. Dieudonné Cédor painted Vertières, a painting mentioned in Danielle Bégot, “Peinture et Révolution,” 179. See Cahiers de la revue d’art et de littérature, musique, issue 8 (Haïti: Le chasseur abstrait Éditeur, 2009), 306; www.artistasalfaix.com/revue/ IMG/pdf_Cahier-HAITI.pdf; and www.mimibarthelemy.com/attached/ EBook.pdf. Jean Price-Mars, Ainsi parla l’Oncle suivi de Revisiter l’Oncle (Montreal: Mémoire d’encrier, 2009), 28–9. There are numerous spelling variations of this song (see Pierre Pluchon, Haïti. République Caraïbe [Paris: L’école des loisirs, 1974], 43; Hubert Cole, Christophe: King of Haiti [New York: The Viking Press, 1967], 23), some of which are more creolized than others. The “chant des grenadiers” has also been translated into English several times (see C.L.R. James,The Black Jacobins [London: Penguin Books, 2001], 297; Laurent Dubois, Avengers, 296). Some English versions have been retranslated into French (see the French version of C.L.R. James’s book) without going back to the original text. One variant of the song involves replacing the absence of the father by the absence of the children: “pwen pitit.” In short, there is not just one version of the song. Timoléon Brutus, L’homme d’airain. Étude monographique sur Jean-Jacques Dessalines (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie Théodore, 1946), 304. Horace Pauléus Sannon, Histoire de Toussaint Louverture, vol. 3 (Portau-Prince: Impr. Auguste A. Héraux, 1933) 193–4. The expression “Marseillaise altière” to designate the “chant des grenadiers” was used again by Jean Price-Mars in a 1954 article in Revue d’histoire des colonies: “Puissance de la foi religieuse chez les nègres de Saint-Domingue dans l’insurrection générale des esclaves de 1791 à 1803,” Revue d’histoire des colonies, XLI (1st quarter 1954): 13. Jean Price-Mars ends his article by referring to “the last battle at the ridge of Vertières, on the outskirts of Cap-Français, on 18 November 1803.” The soldiers “climbed the hill / singing their noble Marseillaise.” He then quotes the “chant des grenadiers.” Jean Fouchard, La méringue. Danse nationale d’Haïti, Léméac (Montreal: Leméac, 1973), 56. In his Anthologie de la littérature créole haïtienne

Notes to pages 104–5

15 16

17 18

19

20

21 22

23

191

(Port-au-Prince: Éditions Antilla, 1999), Jean-Claude Bajeux classifies Grenadiers, à l’assaut in the “Premiers textes” section, 9. Maximilien Laroche, La double scène de la représentation. Oraliture et littérature dans la Caraïbe (Sainte-Foy: Grelca, coll. “Essais,” 1991), 142. Maximilien Laroche, “La métaphore du guerrier dans la poésie érotique,” in Maximilien Laroche, L’image comme écho. Essais sur la littérature et la culture haïtiennes (Montreal: Éditions Nouvelle Optique, 1978), 62–3. Maximilien Laroche, “La tragédie du roi Christophe du point de vue de l’histoire d’Haïti,” Études littéraires, vol. 6, no. 1 (1973): 44. Jean Casimir, “La suppression de la culture africaine dans l’histoire d’Haïti,” Socio-anthropologie, no. 8 (2000), “Cultures-Esthétiques” file, par. 26, http://socio-anthropologie.revues.org/index124.html. On the absence of the mother and the father in voodoo songs, see the song “Kongo, Kongo, Kongo ede m kriye!” (“Mwen san mamman, mwen san papa / Mweh san marenn, mwen san parenn”), quoted by Christina Mobley in ‘“Kongo, Kongo, Help Me Cry:’ Central Africans in Saint-Domingue,” unpublished paper presented at the workshop “Les résistances à l’esclavage dans le monde atlantique à l’ère des Révolutions,” McGill University, May 2013. The play was published in 1991 at Éditions Nouvelles du Sud. It appeared for the first time one year before in the journal of the Institut d’Haïti, Conjonction: Revue franco-haïtienne. Spécial Jacmel, nos. 184–185– 186 (1990). Grenadiers, à l’assaut is quoted on p. 472. See Jean Price-Mars, La République d’Haïti et la République dominicaine (Port-au-Prince: coll. “Tricinquantenaire de l’indépendance d’Haïti,” 1953), 22. Excerpt from Abrégé d’histoire d’Haïti by Stephen Alexis published in Le Matin, 22 April 1953. See Hubert Cole, Christophe: King of Haiti (New York: The Viking Press, 1967), 23. The “chant des grenadiers” also seems to have resonated outside the country. For example, we find a reference in Martiniquan theatre, in Rosanie Soleil, a play by Ina Césaire, daughter of Aimé Césaire. In the play, Madame Soleil hums several Haitian songs, including “Grenadiers, à l’assaut,” at the end of the play, while an insurrection is brewing. Stéphanie Bédard, Théâtre des Antilles. Traditions et scenes contemporaines (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2009), 132. See Franklin Midy, “Haïti. Imaginaire et mémoire de la violence … espoir de changement,” in André Corten, ed., La violence dans l’imaginaire latinoaméricain, 246 (Paris: Karthala, 2008).

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Notes to pages 105–6

24 The slogan “Grenadiers, à l’assaut” was heard, for example, in the days following the collapse of a school in the Nérette neighbourhood of Piéton-Ville, Le Matin, 10 November 2008. Some residents and friends and family of children buried in the rubble, impatient at the caution of the first-aid workers, used the “chant des grenadiers” to indicate that they were ready to take the risk of working in the rubble. 25 Enock Néré, “Grenadiers! À l’assaut!!!,” Le Nouvelliste, 12 June 2008. The name of Vertières is associated with other sports. On 18 November 2012, the Fédération haïtienne de boxe amateur (Haitian federation of amateur boxing) organized a series of eighteen fights in Cap-Haïtien. The series was named, naturally, “le combat de Vertières” (the battle of Vertières). See “La caravane de boxe est de retour,” Association haïtienne de presse sportive, www.ashaps.com/sports/boxe/1858-la-caravane-de-boxe-est-deretour-. Recently a bicycle race and a car race in memory of the heroes of 18 November 1803 were also organized. Note that Haitian female soccer players are now known as “grenadières.” 26 Personal e-mail, 20 July 2011. In the 1960s, there was a soccer team called Vertières; see the account of the Vertières-Atomique game in Le Nouveau Monde, 21 November 1965. We don’t know if there is still a team bearing the name, nor do we know to which division the Vertières team belonged. 27 The song is part of the album titled La révolte des zombies, released in 2008. 28 The song is available on the site of the Fédération haïtienne de football (Haitian soccer federation), www.fhfhaiti.com/TV.aspx?VID=43, as well as on YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWaCk3Iz2sg. 29 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufYVZGvkZWQ. The video clip shows the musicians dramatizing the battle. 30 www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkGvRYyirrI. I thank Ray-G and Remy Jean Renald, for sending me the song lyrics. 31 www.youtube.com/watch?v=axfaMI7-CF8. I thank Kiko Tru Rasta for giving me information about the composition of the song. Note also the piece “Bataille de Vertières” that appeared on the album Révolution ma Résolution of the Quebec group MC Dessalinien in 2008. 32 During the 2013 carnaval in Cap-Haïtien, the monument honouring the heroes of Vertières was depicted on at least one of the floats making their way along the city streets. Note also that the carnival festivities were launched at the foot of the Vertières monument. “Haïti-Carnaval: l’image du Cap-Haïtien rehaussée,” 11 February 2013, AlterPresse, www. alterpresse.org/spip.php?article14088.

Notes to pages 106–9

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33 See “26 Anniversary of the vsn,” www.youtube.com/watch?v= yQxcRPPiaxY&feature=youtube_gdata_player. “Grenadiers, à l’assaut” is sung starting at 5 min 8 s. My thanks to Jonathan Katz for this reference. 34 Jean Dominique, “La fin du marronnage haïtien: éléments pour une étude des mouvements de contestation populaire en Haïti,” Collectif Paroles, no. 32 (May–December 1985): 40. 35 For another example of the use of the song during the Duvalier period, see Le Petit Samedi Soir, 31 October 1980. My thanks to Frantz Voltaire for lending me several reels of the newspaper. 36 There are a great many examples of the use of the song during demonstrations. On 17 November 2002, a large demonstration against Aristide held in Cap-Haïtien took the name “Cri de Vertières,” probably referring to the “chant des grenadiers.” The demonstration, organized by the Initiative citoyenne du Cap (Cap-Haïtien citizens’ initiative), ended on that day at the foot of the monument inaugurated in 1954 to honour the combatants of 18 November 1803. It marked a turning point in the process leading to Aristide’s downfall. Subsequently, a group of opponents formed, known as the “groupe des 184” (group of 184). On 6 April 2003, a pro-Aristide demonstration took place in the same city. The demonstrators wanted to head to the Carénage neighbourhood. They were armed with cans of gasoline and shouted “Grenadiers!” (Réseau national de défense des droits humains, “Rapport sur les événements survenus au Cap-Haïtien, 6 April 2003” [now unavailable]). The song was also used during the large demonstrations in December 2003 against Aristide and in November 2010 against MinustAh (on anti-MinustAh demonstrations, see “Deux morts, des blessés, des scènes de pillages, la MinustAh dans la tourmente,” Le Nouvelliste, 15 November 2010; “Haïti: ‘À l’assaut! Tant pis pour ceux qui meurent,’ crient des manifestants,” Le Nouvelliste, 8 December 2010; “Haïti s’enflamme: résultats, émeutes et fusillades,” La Presse, 8 December 2010). Another case in point: in August 2006, the inhabitants of Martissant decided to fight against the armed gangs by also referring to the story of the heroes of independence and using again the song that the heroes sang at Vertières (see Le Nouvelliste, 1 August 2006). 37 www.fctempete.com/tiblanc_bat_le%20RCH.htm, 26 January 2012 (no longer available). 38 Le Nouveau Monde, 20 May 1977. 39 Archives of Télévision nationale d’Haïti. 40 Le Petit Samedi Soir, no. 361, 22–28 November 1980.

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Notes to pages 109–11

41 See n36 in this chapter. 42 Skype interview with Syrus Sibert on 20 November 2010. 43 See Valéry Daudier, “Sur fond de colère et de cholera,” Le Nouvelliste, 19 November 2010.

Chapter Eight 1 See Carlo Célius, “D’un nationalisme héroïque,” Revi Kiltir Kreol, no. 4 (2004): 38–48. See in particular the conclusion, 48. 2 The principle of a holiday to mark independence was adopted for the first time in the constitution of 1805, but no date was specified before the constitution of 1816. (Louis-Joseph Janvier, Les Constitutions d’Haïti (1801–1885) [Paris: C. Marpon et E. Flammarion, 1886], 116). Speeches given at celebrations on 1 January were regularly announced and reproduced in newpapers, at least in the first part of the nineteenth century. For example, see the 21 Janurary 1821 issue of the newspaper Le Télégraphe, available on the digital platform of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Gallica. In this issue can be found the proceedings of the celebrations in Cap-Haïtien, Les Cayes, Miragoâne, and Môle-SaintNicolas. Such proceedings can also be found in the Recueil général des lois et actes du gouvernement d’Haïti prepared by Linstant Pradines. On the form and evolution of the celebrations of 1 January as of 1804, see the works of Carlo Célius and those of Erin Zavitz summarized in the text “Performing Revolution: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the Haitian Independence Day, 1804–1904,” paper presented at the workshop “The Haitian Declaration of Independence in an Atlantic Context,” Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, 7–8 March 2013. The author discusses the significance and impact of accounts and speeches published in newspapers, particularly as they contribute to shaping a group of citizens commemorating the memory of 1 January 1804 (pages 2 and 3) from a distance in time and space. Thanks to Julia Gaffield for giving me access to articles presented during this workshop. 3 See National Messenger vol. 1, no. 31 (7 January 1818): 2: “With noble enthusiasm ought not the recollection of the brilliant exploits which led to this glorious event, and thus crowned our arms with success, to inspire and animate you. Fort Labouque, the Tannerie, Trois Pavillons, La Croix … Crête-à-Pierrot … Petit Goâve, Acquin … Haut du Cap, Vertières.”

Notes to pages 112–14

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4 See the Almanach Royal d’Hayti pour l’année bissextile 1816 (Cap-Henry: P. Roux, 1816). 5 On this topic, see Carlo Célius, “Neoclassicism and the Haitian Revolution,” in David Patrick Geggus and Norman Fiering, eds., The World of the Haitian Revolution, 367–8. 6 Beaubrun Ardouin, Études sur l’histoire d’Haïti, vol. 6: 71, quoted in Kate Hodgson, ‘A Series of Marvellous Resurrections’: Afterlives of the Haitian Revolution, forthcoming manuscript, p. 37 (many thanks to the author for having sent me her text). 7 On the construction of Dessalines as a tyrant and on the mechanisms put in place so as to forget him after his assassination, see Erin Zavitz, “Performing Revolution,” 10–15. 8 See Library of Congress, Washington, “Haitian Collection, 1775–1915,” box 1, file on Alexandre Pétion (1807–1820), law of 3 April 1807. 9 See Catts Pressoir, L’enseignement de l’histoire en Haïti (Mexico: D.F., 1950), 30; Carlo Célius, “Neoclassicism and the Haitian Revolution,” 381–2, and “D’un nationalisme héroïque,” 43–4. 10 On “clan conflicts” due to supposed differences in colour, see Carlo Célius, “D’un nationalisme héroïque,” 42. 11 See Carlo Célius, “Neoclassicism and the Haitian Revolution,” 382. The first stone of the monument was laid; the speech given by Thomas Madiou on this occasion has been reproduced in “Documents inédits. Thomas Madiou rend homage à l’empereur,” Revue de la société haïtienne d’histoire et de géographie, no. 145 (December 1984): 5–12. 12 See Léonidas C. Lhérisson, Les écoles de Port-au-Prince. Historique, organisation, statistique (Port-au-Prince: H. Amblard, 1895), 16. The first minister of public instruction was appointed on 7 January 1844. 13 On the teaching of history in Haiti, see Catts Pressoir, L’enseignement de l’histoire en Haïti, especially the chapter titled “L’enseignement de l’histoire nationale,” 23–58. See also Edner Brutus, Instruction publique en Haïti, 1492–1945 (Port-au-Prince: Éditions Panorama, 1979); and Claudy Delné, L’enseignement de l’histoire nationale en Haïti. État des lieux et perspectives (Montréal: cidhicA, 2000), especially chapter 2, “Histoire de l’enseignement de l’histoire d’Haïti.” 14 See Catts Pressoir, L’enseignement de l’histoire en Haïti, 11. 15 See Léonidas C. Lhérisson, Les écoles de Port-au-Prince. Historique, organisation, statistique, 33.

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Notes to pages 114–15

16 See Thomas Madiou, Capitulation du Cap. (1803). Épisode de l’histoire d’Haïti. Extrait d’un ouvrage inédit adopté par le conseil des ministres, sur la recommandation de Mr Beaubrun ardouin, ministre de l’Instruction publique, et prescrit pour l’enseignement de l’histoire d’Haïti, dans les lycées nationaux et autres établissements d’instruction publique (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de la Feuille du Commerce, 1845). The Madiou text is very rare. We consulted it at the Massachusetts Historical Society, reference dA 27. For more details on this text, see Catts Pressoir, L’enseignement de l’histoire en Haïti, 31. 17 See Énélus Robin, Abrégé de l’histoire d’Haïti rédigé pour l’enseignement de l’histoire d’Haïti dans les écoles (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de l’auteur, 1880), 189–92. 18 Which of course does not exclude the possibility that the heroes of the great battle continued to exist in popular memory, especially in the North, particularly in songs and stories. However, at present, sources do not provide proof of this. 19 See Frédéric Marcelin, Choses haïtiennes. Politique et littérature (Paris: P. Taillefer, 1896), 129. 20 Isnardin Vieux, L’esclavage à travers le monde. Conférence faite à l’association du centenaire de l’indépendance nationale le 17 janvier 1894 (Paris: Imprimerie V. Goupy, 1894), 4. 21 On the journal La Ronde and the authors associated with it, see Dantès Bellegarde, Histoire du peuple haïtien (1492–1952), Port-au-Prince, coll. “Tricinquantenaire de l’indépendance d’Haïti,” 1953, 207–8. 22 M. Jérémie, Inauguration de l’association du centenaire de l’indépendance nationale et de l’école du soir. Discours prononcé à Port-au- Prince, au palais de la Chambre des Députés, le 17 janvier 1892 (Paris: Imprimerie V. Goupy et Jourdan, 1892), 5. Many documents connected to the founding and organization of the association have been assembled in Jérémie, Haïti indépendante (Port-au-Prince: Chéraquit, 1929). See in particular the statutes of the association, 28–31. Regarding the origins of the association and its merging with the Comité du centenaire in the very early twentieth century, see Dantès Bellegarde, Histoire du peuple haïtien (1492–1952), 212. 23 See Amy Reinsel, Poetry of Revolution. Regarding the origins, first demonstrations, and development of the Haitian epic tradition, see the manuscript by Kate Hodgson, ‘A Series of Marvellous Resurrections,’ chapter 1 (on the parallel between the representation of Haitian ancestors and the figure of the romantic hero, see 69).

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24 Massillon Coicou, Poésies nationales, 75 and 78. See also the poems Exultation (Exaltation) “O mes divins aïeux, comment dire mes voeux ! / […] Devant vous je m’incline, / Louverture, Capois, Pétion, Dessaline,” 87 (Oh my ancestors divine, to express the wishes that are mine! / […] I bow before you, / Louverture, Capois, Pétion, Dessaline), À Pétion (95), and Vision (208). On Coicou, see Amy Reinsel, Poetry of Revolution. The image of the demi-gods was the norm in the late nineteenth century. We find it in poetry and in patriotic speeches. See, for example, M. Jérémie, Inauguration de l’association du centenaire, 25: “Were our ancestors still alive, we would separate them from the rest and designate them as demi-gods.” 25 Emmanuel Édouard, Le panthéon Haïtien (Paris: Auguste Ghio éditeur, 1885), 59. On Emmanuel Édouard, see Kate Hodgson, ‘A Series of Marvellous Resurrections.’ 26 Sténio Vincent and Léonidas C. Lhérisson, La législation de l’instruction publique de la République d’Haïti, 1804–1895 (Paris: C. Dunod et P. Vicq, 1895) 571ff. 27 Le Nouvelliste, 17 July 1903 and 24 August 1903. Madame Lagojanis’s work was presented to the Musée de l’indépendance des Gonaïves at the centenary celebrations. Another painting depicting Vertières, perhaps named L’attaque du Fort de Vertières, was also exhibited (Gérald Alexis, Peintres haïtiens [Paris: Éditions Cercles d’Art, 2000]), 26; Eugène Aubin, En Haïti. Planteurs d’autrefois, Nègres d’aujourd’hui (Paris: Armand Colin, 1910), 319. 28 See Le Nouvelliste, 14 and 21 November 1903. 29 Le Nouvelliste, 21 October 1903. A “patriotic sonnet” by the same author was published in the 26 October issue. See also the 5 and 16 November 1903 issues. 30 See Arsène Chevry, Voix du centenaire. Poèmes héroïques (Port-au- Prince: Imprimerie de l’Abeille, 1904). See the poems titled Le porte-drapeau, 11–13; Vertières, 21–4; L’oeuvre, 33–4; and L’oraison du centenaire, 43–5. 31 See Jules Rosemond, Conférence historique sur la vie de Jean-Jacques Dessalines (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de l’Abeille, 1903), 45–7. 32 See Le Nouvelliste, 21 August 1903. 33 See Le Nouvelliste, 17 December 1903. 34 Regarding this topic, see Léon Denius Pamphile, L’éducation en Haïti sous l’occupation américaine, 1915–1934 (Port-au-Prince: Presses de l’Imprimerie des Antilles, 1988), 69–70, 130, and 135–6. The author

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36

37 38 39 40 41

42

43 44 45 46 47 48

Notes to pages 118–20

reproduces on 110 and 111 several tables attesting to the low percentage of enrolment in elementary schools. The tables are extracted from J.C. Dorsainvil, Problème de l’enseignement primaire en Haïti (Port-auPrince: Imprimerie centrale, 1922). The textbook of the former secretary of state of public instruction, Dr Roche-Grellier, Histoire d’Haïti à l’usage des écoles (Paris: Librairie Arthur Rousseau, 1892), for example, does not mention the Battle of Vertières. The end of the war in general is presented very briefly in it. The same is true for another textbook by the same author, Abrégé de l’histoire d’Haïti à l’usage des écoles primaires (Paris: A. Rousseau, 1893). See announcement by President Nord Alexis on the day of the 29 November anniversary, “one of the most brilliant dates in our history,” Le Moniteur. Journal officiel de la République d’Haïti, 2 and 5 December 1903. Le Nouvelliste, 5 November 1903. See Le Nouvelliste, 18 and 30 November, and 3, 5, and 6 December 1903. See Le Nouvelliste, 26, 28, and 30 November, and 3 and 7 December 1903. See Le Nouvelliste, 21 November and 5 December 1903. See, for example, the poem by Edmond Laforest, Thrène pour Haïti, published in Le Nouvelliste on 3 August 1915 (a few days after the beginning of the American Occupation). The poem is reproduced in Jean Desquiron, Haïti à la une. Une anthologie de la presse haïtienne de 1724 à 1934, vol. 2 (1870–1908) (Port-au-Prince: Chez l’auteur, 1994), 218–20. Regarding the Société d’histoire, see Catts Pressoir, L’enseignement de l’histoire en Haïti, 33–4. On the nationalist context and the effects of this context on efforts to preserve and highlight Haitian “heritage,” see Carlo Célius, “Le musée, le passé et l’histoire,” in Hildegard K. Vieregg, ed., Museology and History: Museology. A Field of Knowledge, 164–73 (Munich: International Council of Museums (icoM), 2006). Département de la Justice, Bulletins des lois et actes, Année 1929 (Port-auPrince: Imprimerie nationale, 1929), 410. See Le Matin, 10 October 1929. See Le Matin, 14 October 1929. Le Matin, 15 October 1929. See La Presse, 17 October 1929; Le Nouvelliste, 25 and 28 October, and 4 November 1929. On President Borno’s patriotism, see the panegyric of citizen Louis Charles “Commissaire du gouvernement près le tribunal de première instance” of the public prosecutor’s department in Jérémie, sent for

Notes to pages 120–4

49 50 51 52 53

54 55 56 57

58 59 60 61

62

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publication to the newspaper L’Essor, a copy of which was sent to President Borno on 29 October 1929. The document in question is kept at the Archives nationales d’Haïti, Port-au-Prince, bundle 11801. Le Matin, 20 November 1929. Le Matin, 5 December 1929. Private “Borno” archives, at François Blancpain, 89 rue de Villiers, Neuilly. My thanks to François Blancpain for giving me access to these archives. Le Matin, 13 December 1929. Sténio Vincent, Sur la route de la seconde indépendance, en compagnie du soldat et du citoyen haïtiens (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de l’État, 1934), foreword; Le Nouvelliste, 18 November 1940. La Relève, March–May 1936, 56. Ibid., 340–1. Ibid., 341. Also see 346. Was the Battle of Vertières commemorated in Cap-Français before the mid-1930s? Unfortunately, because sources are lacking, the question cannot be answered precisely. An article in the newspaper Le Matin published on 27 and 28 November 1955 dates the commemorative tradition in Cap-Haïtien back to approximately 1915. While not impossible, it is very improbable. We have seen previously that in 1928 Vertières was a place apparently forgotten, considered even a dumping ground – in other words, dismissed as a place of memory – by the teachers and citizens of Cap-Français. Apparently, it was really in 1929, when a public space was set up dedicated to the memory of the heroes of Vertières – honoured by a stele (see chapter 9) – that the commemorations of the battle began. Interview with Charles Manigat, Cap-Haïtien, 6 July 2013. See “La Fête de l’anniversaire de l’élection présidentielle,” Les Annales capoises, 17 November 1934. See “La Commission Communale à Vertières,” Les Annales capoises, 21 November 1935. Haïti-Journal, 26 November 1945. The letter from the students at École Guillaume-Manigat was published on 17 November. Details of the patriotic demonstration organized by the students on the occasion of the 142nd anniversary of the battle are available in the 15 November 1945 issue. When the anniversary of Vertières is mentioned in newspapers, the event is usually recalled in only a few lines. See the 18 November 1937 issue of Haïti-Journal.

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63 To conclude this aspect of the discussion, caution is advisable regarding the popularity of the celebrations in Cap-Haïtien marking the anniversary of Vertières, as not all the sources agree or are easy to interpret. For example, an article in the Cap-Haïtien newspaper in 1948 described “a considerable crowd” during the “civic demonstration of 18 November 1948 in front of the stele of Vertières.” It is very possible that with time a segment of the population, probably the most educated, gradually became involved in honouring the heroes of Vertières. This would not be surprising given the strong patriotic feeling that culminated in Haiti with the end of the American Occupation (on this topic, read “Anniversaire de Vertières: 18 Novembre 1803–18 Novembre 1948,” La Jeunesse. Organe de la pensée des Jeunes de la défense nationale [28 November 1948]). Haitian patriotism in the years following the occupation would make possible a cult dedicated to 18 November 1803 that was passed on in textbooks (Vertières is one of the important dates in the history of Haiti in the work by Alfred Nemours, Abrégé d’histoire et de géographie d’Haïti. Conformément au “programme Dumarsais Estimé,” (Port-au-Prince: n.p., 1950), 5–6–6bis). The same applies to the work by Stephen Alexis, Abrégé d’histoire d’Haïti, 1492–1942. Cours élémentaire et moyen (Port-au-Prince: H. Deschamps, 1942); in the songs sung at school; and in poetry, drama, and art competitions (see the one in 1946 that led to the creation of a stamp in honour of Capois-la-Mort [Gérald Alexis, Peintres haïtiens, 40–2]). 64 Le Nouvelliste, 18 November 1953. 65 “L’héritage de Vertières,” Le Nouvelliste, 19 November 1953. 66 See the poem by Roger Depestre, Invocation, published in Le National on 18 October 1953. The poet describes the “tam-tam martelé / cadençant la ronde éblouissante / des nègres de Vertières” (the tom-tom hammered out / giving rhythm to the dazzling dance / of the Negroes of Vertières). 67 On the comparison with Homer’s The Illiad, see Justin Kenol, “Vertières” and “Extrait de pérégrinations à travers le calvaire d’une communauté. Âmes et visages de preux,” Le Matin, 14 January 1954. 68 See Colonel P. Cham, “Vertières ou l’héroïsme,” Le Matin, 8–9 March 1953. 69 See Le Matin, 18 November 1953. 70 “Le beau discours du président du Comité régional du tricinquantenaire au Cap-Haïtien; Me Lascaze Bernadin, au dévoilement du monument de Vertières,” Le Matin, 2–3–4–5–6 January 1954. The author of the speech speaks of “l’Évangile de Vertières” (The gospel of Vertières).

Notes to pages 125–6

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71 On this topic, see Gérard Jolibois, “Vertières,” Le Matin, 18 November 1953, partially republished in Le Nouveau Monde, 17 November 1970. 72 “La commémoration de la bataille de Vertières au Cap-Haïtien. Discours de Me Edmond Gratia,” Haïti-Journal, 19 November 1953. 73 See “Mauclair Zéphirin,” Haïti-Journal, 19 November 1953. 74 “Proclamation de son excellence le président de la République au peuple haïtien à l’occasion du 1er janvier 1952,” in Secretariat of the Presidency (information, press, and propaganda service), Bilans et realisations … Quand un chef nous parle (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie Théodore, 1952), 58–62. 75 This process finds expression, notably, on the part of the government of the day, in an attempt to find and gather together the archives of the revolutionary period scattered around the world. Mauclair Zéphirin, the secretary of state for the presidency, appears to have played a key role in this effort to collect archival material. A large register of correspondence kept at the Archives nationales d’Haïti in Port-au-Prince (bundle 343) attests to this. The register in question consists of copies of letters sent by Zéphirin to representatives of Haiti in London, Vienna, Rome, Havana, and even Lima and Le Havre. In his letters, Mauclair Zéphirin tells of the state’s desire to return home to Haiti objects and letters attesting to the greatness of the fathers of independence as part of the 150th anniversary of independence. 76 On that day, Magloire compared the worship of the heroes of independence to that of Christians travelling to Jerusalem or Muslims travelling to Mecca. The speech is reproduced in the archives of the British ambassador to Haiti, National Archives, Kew, Fo 371/109098, “Celebration of 150th Anniversary of Independence of Haiti.” 77 On the contributions of the merchants of Cap-Français, of soldiers and employees of the public service, see Le Matin, 21 March, and 12–13 and 14–15 April 1953. An association was even founded to centralize donations: Union patriotique du tricinquantenaire (see Le Matin, 5 May, 29 April, and 28–29 June 1953). 78 On the contrast between the first plans for the celebration and the events that were organized in the end, see the correspondence of the British ambassador (National Archives, Kew, Fo 371/109080, “Annual Review for Haiti for 1953”) and that of the French ambassador, Foreign Affairs, La Courneuve, series B Amériques, 1952–1963, Haïti, file 48, sub-folder “Fête du 150e anniversaire de l’indépendance haïtienne.” On the impact of celebrations outside the country, there are a great many newspaper

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81 82

83

84

85 86

Notes to page 126

articles or, at least, references to articles. In Cuba, the celebrations for the 150th anniversary are described in the magazine Carteles and the newspaper El Diario de la Marina (1, 3, and 5 January 1954). In Venezuela and Argentina, news of Haiti was also reported, as indicated in the newspaper Le Matin on 3 September and 7 October 1953. The American press (see below) also reported on them, as did the British, German (see Le Matin, 26 January), Jamaican (see the Jamaica Gleaner, 3 and 4 January 1954), and Italian (see the Osservatore Romano of 11 December 1953 and 4–5–6 January 1954, as quoted by Mauclair Zéphirin in his correspondence with Alfred Nemours of 7 and 21 January 1954). In Guatemala, celebrations were announced on the radio (Le Matin, 21 November). As we saw in chapter 4, the French press was an exception in terms of coverage of the 150th anniversary celebrations. National Archives, Kew, Fo 371/114331, “Annual Review for Haiti for 1954.” The tone of the French ambassador, more balanced regarding the degree of people’s participation, is a more general reflection of an undisguised animosity toward expressions of Haitian nationalism. Regarding these works, see “News and Notes from the Field of Travel,” New York Times, 23 November 1952; “Le Cap, cité d’avenir,” Le Matin, 21 February 1953; “Les grands travaux d’urbanisme ont transformé le Cap en une ville modern,” Le Matin, 29 July 1953; and “Cap Haitien Primps for Haiti’s Anniversary,” New York Times, 1 November 1953. See Le Nouvelliste, 18 November 1953. See Le Matin, 18 November and 5 December 1953. The program for the day of 18 November in Cap-Français may be found in the 17 November 1953 edition of Haïti-Journal. One of the speeches delivered on that day (by Edmond Gratia) is reproduced in the 19 November 1953 edition of Haïti-Journal. The first official conference, organized by the Comité des sciences sociales du tricinquantenaire, took place in November 1952. The text of the conference is available in Le Matin of 21 November 1952. See “Préludes au Cent-cinquantenaire,” Haïti-Journal, 13 November 1953, and the photo of a “festin populaire au Portail Léogâne,” Haïti-Journal, 14 November 1953. See Le Matin, 8 October 1953. Several radio programs are described in the newspapers; see “Préludes aux fêtes commémoratives du cent- cinquantenaire,” Haïti-Journal, 17 November 1953; “18 November,” Circuit Artibonite, 18 November 1953.

Notes to pages 126–7

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87 The issuing of commemorative stamps was announced in the 17 December 1953 issue of Le Nouvelliste. 88 See New York Public Library, Schomburg Center, Haiti: “Miscellaneous Collections, 1785–1970,” scM 02-36. Regarding the issue of these stamps, see “News of the World of Stamps,” The New York Times, 10 and 24 January 1954. 89 See André Georges, La composition d’histoire au baccalauréat haïtien (Portau-Prince: Cahiers pédagogiques, n.d.), 285: “Suppose that during one of the demonstrations meant to take place in Vertières on 18 November 1953, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the famous battle, a student in the next-to-last year of lycée is invited to speak on behalf of his fellow students in the lycées and colleges of the Republic. You will write his speech, briefly recalling the various episodes of the battle, and highlighting the lessons this brilliant victory contains for young people.” 90 “Une belle fête au lycée Pétion,” Le Nouvelliste, 16 November 1953; “Ce soir, au lycée Pétion,” Le Matin, 18 November 1953; “Vertières au lycée Pétion,” Le Matin, 20 November 1953; “La fête du lycée Pétion,” Le Matin, 21 November 1953; and “Le 18 novembre au lycée Pétion,” Haïti-Journal, 19 November 1953. A smaller-scale celebration was also held at the Lycée Nord-Alexis in Jérémie, as attested in “Dans le cadre du Cent-cinquantenaire. Grandiose manifestation au lycée Nord-Alexis,” published in Haïti-Journal, 28 November 1953. 91 See “Au lycée Pétion,” Le Nouvelliste, 19 November 1953. The fresco is the work of a young painter named Jean-Marie Durand. Regarding the fresco, see Férère Laguerre, “La bataille de Vertières ‘vue’ par un peintre,” Le National, 24 December 1953. If we go by the description published in Le National, the dominant colours were blue, brown, and black. The Lycée Louverture also celebrated, although more simply, the anniversary of the Battle of Vertières. See the article “150e anniversaire de la bataille de Vertières au lycée Louverture,” Le Nouvelliste, 19 November 1953. 92 See, for example, Lallier C. Phareaux, La vie contemporaine (Port-auPrince: Imprimerie de l’État, coll. “Tricinquantenaire de l’indépendance d’Haïti,” 1953), 81–5 (excerpts of this text were published in the 28 December 1953 issue of Haïti-Journal), and Gérard BonaparteAuguste, Haïti. Mon pays… et son histoire (Maline: Éditions du C.E.L.F., 1952), 33–5. The patriotic authors of the late 1950s and early 1960s continued to celebrate Vertières. See Jean Brierre, Aux champs pour Occide, sur un clavier bleu et rouge (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie Théodore,

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95

96 97

98 99 100 101

Notes to pages 127–8

1960), 39–43; Julien Minuty, Nègre ou Noir? Le miracle nègre (Port-auPrince: N.p., 1959), 104–26. This collection contains about ten poems on the Battle of Vertières, including “Glorieuse chevauchee,” “Le Cap, cette Bastille,” “Plan de combat,” “Vertières,” and “L’intrépide Capois.” Many patriotic poems were also published in newspapers. See Alix Ambroise, “Le combat de Vertières ou l’épilogue d’une lutte,” Le Matin, 20 November 1952; Julien Minuty, “Message d’un Noël nègre,” Le Matin, 24 December 1953; Emmeline Lemaire, “1804–1954,” El Alba, 24 January 1954. Fernand Alcindor, La contribution du nord-ouest à l’indépendance nationale (Port-de-Paix? N.p., 1954 [the preface is signed 8 March 1953]), 84. See Paul-Émile Charles, Caraïbes en fleurs. Poèmes (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de l’État, coll. “Tricinquantenaire de l’indépendance d’Haïti,” 1954), 91–2. J. Dieudonné Lubin, Héros et héroïnes de la liberté d’Haïti et du monde (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de l’État, coll. “Tricinquantenaire de l’indépendance d’Haïti,” [1953?]), 44. See “Les glorieux lendemains de la bataille de Vertières,” Le Matin, 22–23 November 1953. See Richard Constant, “La dernière bataille,” Le National, 6 September 1953; “Sesquicentenaire de la bataille de Vertières … Récit de la bataille,” Le Matin, 18 November 1953; “Il y a 150 ans le Cap-Français devenait définitivement le Cap-Haïtien,” Le Matin, 28–29–30 November 1953. Lélia Lhérisson, Les héros de l’indépendance dans l’histoire d’Haïti (Port-auPrince: coll. “Tricinquantenaire de l’indépendance d’Haïti,” 1954), 20. 1803. Liberté ou la mort. 1953. L’union fait la force (Port-au-Prince: coll. “Tricinquantenaire de l’indépendance d’Haïti,” 1953), 18. Jean Brierre, La Source. Poèmes (Buenos Aires: coll. “Jubilé du docteur Jean Price-Mars,” 1956), 19. The connection between this slogan and the “chant des grenadiers” was explained a few years later in Julien Minuty, Nègre ou Noir? Le miracle nègre. The line “vivre liBre ou Mourir, voilà leurs propos!” (Live free or die, that is their aim!) is followed by the lines “Ils scandent ces refrains qui clament leur mérite / En claironnant : ‘Nan point manman, na point pitite’ / (Grenadiers, à l’assaut!),” 104–5. (They chant these refrains that proclaim their worth / Shouting: “Forget your mom, forget your child” [To the attack, grenadiers!])

Notes to pages 128–30

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102 Le Nouvelliste, 26 November 1953. 103 Le Nouvelliste, 20 November 1953. On the natural connection between the battle and the song “Grenadiers, à l’assaut!” in the years of celebration of the 150th anniversary of independence, see the article, “Pour le 150e anniversaire de l’indépendance nationale: Grenadier à l’assaut,” Le Matin, 21 February 1953; Lucien Balmir, “Prière devant Charrier, la Butte,” Le National, 15 November 1953; Gérard Jolibois, “Vertières,” 18 November 1953 (the author adds the following lyrics to the song: “Balle cé poussière / Mitraille cé roche” (Bullets are like dust / Machine guns are like stones); the caption of a photo recreating the battle, “Grenadiers à l’assaut! Voici les sublimes va-nu-pieds …,” Le National, 10 January 1954; “Vertières,” Le Matin, 14 January 1954; Gérard G. Cayot, Les titans de 1804: Condensé (Montreal: N.p. m1952–55), 135; Julien Minuty, “Glorieuse chevauchee,” in Nègre ou Noir? Le miracle nègre, 104–5. 104 “Pour le 150e anniversaire de l’indépendance nationale: Grenadier à l’assaut,” Le Matin, 21 February 1953. 105 The sermon delivered on this occasion by Mgr Cousineau was published in the Catholic newspaper La Phalange on 4–5 January 1954. 106 See the speech he delivered at the unveiling of the monument, “Le beau discours,” Le Matin, 2–6 January 1954. 107 A copy of the official program is found in the archives of the British ambassador to Haiti, National Archives, Kew, Fo 371/109098, “Celebration of 150th Anniversary of Independence of Haiti.” 108 See “L’Apothéose du cent-cinquantenaire de l’indépendance nationale,” Le Mercure, 13 January 1954. 109 See “Les travaux de Vertières,” Haïti-Journal, 4 December 1953. 110 See “Haiti’s Happy 150th New Year. Les enfants de Dessalines Plan a Joyful Celebration of their Independence Day on January 1,” The New York Times, 27 December 1953. Students were recruited, in particular from Lycée Jean-Claude-Guerrier and Collège Notre-Dame. 111 See Académie militaire d’Haïti, La bataille de Vertières. On the sequence of the recreation, also consult the article “Film des fêtes commémoratives du 150e,” Le National, 3 January 1954, and “Reconnaissance aux pères de la patrie,” El Alba, 10 January 1954. 112 National Archives, Kew, Fo 371/109098, “Celebration of 150th Anniversary of Independence of Haiti.” 113 See “Ils ont visité le Cap,” Le Matin, 9 October 1953. The commission “set up in order to study possibilities of recreating the glorious Battle of

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116

117 118 119 120

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Notes to page 130

Vertières” included Clément Lanier, Mentor Laurent, Clovis Bonhomme, Jean Brierre, Major Paul Corvington, and Lieutenant Franck Laraque. See Le Matin, 2 and 15 December 1953. See also “La bataille de Vertières,” Le Matin, 13 and 14 December 1953; this article contains the list of schools participating in the daily rehearsals for the re-enactment. The French ambassador was mainly relieved at not having to attend a crude portrayal of the French defeat, which would have put him in an awkward position with other members of the diplomatic corps. Here is how he described the re-enactment in a dispatch sent to the minister of foreign affairs on 5 January 1954: “The commemoration of the Battle of Vertières was carried out in a manner perfectly acceptable for the French and we can only be very pleased at the impartiality with which the head of the military school retraced, as a tactician and a strategist, the plan of the struggle, at the places where it occurred,” Archives des Affaires étrangères, La Courneuve, series B Amériques, 1952–63, Haïti, file 48. His wife, on the other hand, was too filled with emotion to contemplate the French defeat. On the ambassador’s wife and her emotions during the festivities for the 150th anniversary of independence, see Bernard Diederich, Bon Papa: Haiti’s Golden Years (Princeton: Marcus Wiener Publishers, 2008), 131 and 138. See also what the British ambassador said about it, National Archives, Kew, Fo 371/109098, “Celebration of 150th Anniversary of Independence of Haiti.” See “700 at Haitian Fete Mark Independence,” The New York Times, 4 January 1954. See also “Haiti’s Happy 150th New Year: Les enfants de Dessalines Plan a Joyful Celebration of Their Independence Day on January 1,” 27 December 1953 and “Haiti Marks 150th Anniversary of Freedom Won from France,” The New York Times, 2 January 1954. See “Haiti: Proud Anniversary,” Time, 11 January 1954. Even 60,000 according to the newspaper La Phalange, 8 January 1954. “‘Battle’ Spectators Free Haiti Again,” The Washington Post, 4 January 1954. Bernard Diederich, Bon Papa, 137–8. See also “Les grandioses manifestations commemoratives du cent-cinquantième anniversaire de l’indépendance nationale,” Le Matin, 2–6 January 1954 or La Phalange, 8 January 1954. On this topic, see the “Nouvelles rapides” section in Haïti-Journal, 23 December 1953. Louis Doret, the photographer of the Palais national, was one of the filmmakers. The newspaper La Phalange on 8 January 1954 spoke of a “small army” of filmmakers. A film was shot by the Centre audiovisuel of the National Department of Education

Notes to pages 130–3

122

123 124 125

126 127 128

129 130 131 132 133

207

(see L’expérience Magloire dans le domaine de l’éducation nationale [Portau-Prince: Imprimerie Théodore, 1956], 163). The re-enactment was also photographed, in particular by Édouard Peloux. Several of his photos have recently been published. Other photos (also by Peloux?) were reproduced in Le National on 10 January (“Autour des fêtes commémoratives du cent-cinquantenaire”) and on 17 January (including one of Capois’s horse). A photo of Capois-la-Mort, smiling after conquering the fort of Vertières, is found on the front page of the 10 January 1954 edition of the Haiti Sun. See also the photos published in the 10 January issue of the newspaper El Alba. See National Archives, Kew, Fo 371/109098, “Celebration of 150th Anniversary of Independence of Haiti”: “It was a pity, however, that it was thought necessary to carry realism to the point of killing the horse on which ‘Dessalines’ was mounted during the mock battle.” The ambassador is mistaken: it was Capois’s horse that was sacrificed. See Bernard Diederich, Bon Papa, 136. See Le Matin, 24 November 1954. See Catalogue du “Musée Paul E. Magloire” au Cap-Haïtien. Cap-Haïtien, le 2 juillet 1955 (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie Théodore, 1955). See “Le 18 November à l’école J.M. Robert de Lamenais,” Le Matin, 19 November 1955. Regarding the participation of students from this school, see also the special radio program broadcast on Voix de la République d’Haïti on 18 November 1954 (Le Matin, 18 November 1954). See Haïti. Constitution de la République d’Haïti, 1957 (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de l’État, 1957), article 183, 35. See François Duvalier, Souvenir d’une campagne, septembre 1956– septembre 1957 (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie Théodore, 1958), 63. See François Duvalier, “Message adressé au peuple haïtien à l’occasion de la commémoration de l’anniversaire de la bataille de Vertières et du jour des forces armées d’Haïti,” 18 November 1958, Face au peuple et à l’histoire (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de l’État, 1961), 155. Ibid., 253. Le Nouveau Monde, 17 November 1963. Le Nouveau Monde, 28 November 1965. Le Nouveau Monde, 17 November 1970. See also “Le chef de l’État exalte l’union entre l’armée et la revolution,” Le Nouveau Monde, 20 November 1966; and “La leçon de Vertières,” Le Nouveau Monde, 17 November 1970.

208

Notes to pages 136–44

Chapter Nine 1 Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti, vol. 2, 142. 2 Le Matin, 21 November 1956. 3 See Samuel Baucicaut, “Réhabiliter la mémoire de Cappoix-La-Mort,” Le Nouvelliste, 12 April 2007; and Patrice Manuel-Lerebours, “Pauvre Capois,” Le Nouvelliste, 18 August 2009, http://lenouvelliste.com/ lenouvelliste/article/73094/Pauvre-Capois.html. 4 See Patrice Manuel-Lerebours, “Pauvre Capois.” 5 Blanco Jean, “Ci-gît Capois-Lamort, Héros de l’indépendance,” Le Matin, 20 December 2012, www.lematinhaiti.com/contenu.php?idtexte=34037. 6 This contrast was something the people of Cap-Haïtien wanted; they wished to celebrate their heroes with “more worthy memorials,” to use the words of a news brief published in Le Matin on 13 August 1953. 7 See “À la gloire des héros de Vertières,” Le National, 6 September 1953. 8 See Rafael Pineda, Las estatuas de Simón Bolívar en el mundo (Caracas: Centro Simón Bolívar, 1983), 159 and 168. 9 By the same artist, see two busts of Simón Bolívar reproduced in ibid., 183. Juan José Sicre is also known for his representations of José Martí, including the famous statue located on the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana. On Sicre, see Leslie Bethell, A Cultural History of Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 413. 10 See José L. Franco, Historia de la revolución de Haití (Havana: Instituto de historia, Academia de Ciencias, 1966), 265; “Un Cubano inaugura un monumento en Haití,” Carteles, vol. 34, no. 46 (15 November 1953): 13. Four photos appear in the magazine; at least two were previously unknown. The first shows the two women seen from below; the second shows the cleared battlefield as well as three people, one of whom is perhaps Juan José Sicre. The photo of the sketch of the monument was also reproduced in Le National on 6 September 1954 and in El Alba on 1 January 1954. 11 See “À la gloire des héros de Vertières,” Le National, 6 September 1953. 12 See Le Nouvelliste, 25 November 1953. See also Le Matin, 28–30 November 1953 on the arrival of the monument and on the sculptor’s presence in Haïti to see to its installation. We do not know when Juan José Sicre was approached for the first time and by whom. (Perhaps by Roussan Camille, who had already worked with Cuban sculptors as part of the biecentenary of Port-au-Prince?) We know that Juan José Sicre was

Notes to pages 144–5

13

14

15

16 17 18

19 20

209

in Haïti in March 1953 and that a payment was made to the sculptor shortly thereafter (Le Matin, 25 March, and Le Matin, 12–13 April), but we have little other information on the making of the monument. See Secretariat of the Presidency (information, press, and propaganda service), “Proclamation de son excellence le president de la République au peuple haïtien à l’occasion du 1er Janvier 1952,” Bilans et realisations … Quand un chef nous parle, 58–62. See Boaz Anglade, Jean-Bertrand Aristide in His Own Words: A Collection of the Haitian President’s Speeches with Illustrative Notes (Lexington: Lulu, 2010), 92. See Gérard Barthélémy and Christian Giraud, La République haïtienne. État des lieux et perspectives (Paris: Karthala, 1993), cover page. See also Mireille Nicolas, Jistis. Murs peints d’Haïti, décembre 1900–février 1991 (Paris/Montreal: Éditions Alternatives/cidhicA, 1994), 92. See “Kita Nago au Cap-Haïtien,” Le Nouvelliste, 24 January 2013. See Patrice-Manuel Lerebours, “Limonade, un patrimoine dilapidé,” Le Nouvelliste, 5 August 2009. See Wedlyne Jacques, “Haïti-Patrimoine: le monument de Vertières, vandalisé par des marchands de ferraille,” AlterPresse, 27 May 2011, www.alterpresse.org/spip.php ?article11092#.UbCYknbiQRA. See Bulletin de l’ispan, no. 25 (1 June 2011): 16. See Blanco Jean, “Cap-Haïtien: Les monuments de Vertières peints en rose et blanc!,” Le Matin, 16 November 2012.

Index

1791, night of 22–23 August, 22, 163n48 1792, 4 April, 23 1794, 4 February, 23, 25 1801, Constitution of, 27 1804, 1 January, 32, 56, 125, 194n2 1825, recognition of Haiti by France, 47 1843, Revolution of, 113 1848, law on public instruction, 113, 116 1957, constitution of, 131 Alcindor, Fernand, 127 Alexis, Jacques-Stephen, 105 Algeria, 8, 55 Anderson, Marian, 129 Annales capoises (journal), xviii, 123 Archambault, Louis-François (aka Dorvigny), 47, 174n94 Ardouin, Beaubrun, 16, 38, 113–14 Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, 3, 69, 109, 144 Association du centenaire de l’indépendance nationale, 115, 117–18

Babron (naval lieutenant), 50 Barthélémy, Élodie, 101, 103 Barthélémy, Gérard, 101 Beaudoin, Philippe, 5, 58–9 Béchaud, Jean-Pierre, 40, 44, 46 Bel-Air blockhouse, 42 Bellegarde, Dantès, 37 Bellegarde, Windsor, 18 Belley, Jean-Baptiste, 57 Bénot, Yves, 28, 39, 69 Berjaud, Frédéric, 13 Besson, Éric, 6 Biassou, Georges, 23, 25 Blancpain, François, 64 Boisrond-Tonnerre, Louis Félix, 63 Bonaparte Auguste, Claude, 74 Bonaparte Auguste, Marcel, 74 Bonaparte, Pauline, 74 Borno, Louis 119–22, 124, 131, 198–9n48 Boukman, 23 Boukman Eksperyans, 105 Bouvines, battle of, 14, 16 Boyer, Pierre, 79, 90–1, 93–4, 112 Branda, Pierre, 70, 72, 74–5 Bréda blockhouse, 38

212

Index

Brevet, Matthieu, 13, 152n7 Brierre, Jean-Fernand, 35, 99–100, 127–8, 130 Brissot, Jacques Pierre, 23 Brown, John, 114 Brunet, Gaspard-Jean-Baptiste (division general), 80, 83 Brutus, Timoléon, 103 Bug-Jargal, 63 Camille, Roussan, 144 Candeille, Julie, 46, 174n93 Cangé, Pierre, 48 Cap-Français, 48–51, 58–61, 64, 73, 79; cemeteries, 34, 86, 164n2; famine, 43, 47, 60, 64; hospitals, 45–7, 51, 176–7n119; surrender of, 114, 116; theatres, 35, 129–30 Capois, François (aka Capois, Capois-la-mort, La Mort), 13, 16, 31, 143; cheval de, 16, 49–50, 100, 131, 148 Carénage (neighbourhood, Cap-Haïtien), 136, 193n36 Carteles (magazine), 144 Casimir, Jean, 104 Castonnet des Fosses, Henri, 38 Centre international de documentation et d’information haïtienne, caribéenne et afro-canadienne (cidihcA), 130 Césaire, Aimé, 1, 21–2 Champion, Jean-Marcel, 64 Chanlatte, Juste, 95 Charles, Paul-Émile, 127 Charrier, Butte, 50, 132–3, 168n41 Chavannes, Jean-Baptiste, 23

Chevry, Arsène, 117 Christophe, Henri, 111–12, 105, 138 Claparède, Michel-Marie, 40 Clauzel, Bertrand, 40, 93, 169n48 Clervaux, Augustin, 29, 47–9, 98, 112 Club français de la figurine historique, 13 Club Massiac, 20, 159n7 Coicou, Massillon, 11, 99, 115, 197n24 Cole, Hubert, 105, 190n11 Colette, 55 Collectif paroles, 106 Committee for the 150th Anniversary, 62, 125, 144 committee for remembering slavery, 7 Corvington, Paul, 129 Crête-à-Pierrot, Battle of, 10, 58, 115 Daut, Jean-Philippe, 48, 50, 98, 143 Debray, Régis, 65 de Cauna, Jacques, 16, 160n20 Decrès, Denis, 36, 175n111 de Lacroix, Pamphile, 10, 58–9, 88, 155n29 de Poyen-Bellisle, Henry, 38, 61 Dérance, Lamour, 28 Descourtilz, Michel Étienne, 10, 58–9 Desruisseau, Rose-Marie, 101 Dessalines, Jean-Jacques, 16, 29–30, 38, 48–50, 63–4 d’Hédouville, Gabriel Marie Théodore Joseph, 27

Index

Diderot, Denis, 20, 66 Diederich, Bernard, 130, 206n115 Dominique, Jean, 106 Dorigny, Marcel, 3–4, 9–10, 56 Dorsainvil, Justin Chrysostome, 1, 18, 100 Dosse, François, 151 Douyon, Ernest, 117 Droit, Michel, 8 Du Bois, W.E.B., 99 Duby, Georges, 14, 156n6 Dugua (chief of the general staff), 81–4 Dumas, Mathieu, Count, 59–60 Dumesle, Hérard, 43 Durand, Oswald, 99 Duvalier, Jean-Claude, 106, 108, 145 Duvalier, François, 55, 131–3, 144 Édouard, Emmanuel, 116, 197n25 Family Senci, 106 Ferrand, Jean-Louis, 47, 96 Figaro Magazine, 6, 8 Fossé-Capois, 140 Fouchard, Jean, 104, 160n20 Fréminville, Christophe-Pauline de la Poix, Chevalier de, 35–6, 46, 87 French Revolution, mass drownings, 70 Gabart, Paul, 48, 143 Gainot, Bernard, 69, 155n29 Galliéni, Joseph, 53–4 Gayssot Act, 7 Geggus, David, 74

213

Ghachem, Malick, 74 Girard, Philippe, 37, 72–3, 91 Giraud, Christian, 57 Grandet, Chief of Brigade, 79, 83 “Grenadiers” (chant), 103–7, 127–30, 135, 148–9, 190n13 Grimard, Luc, 122 Guadeloupe, 5, 29, 153n21 Guerrier, Philippe, 48, 113 Guilbaud, Tertulien, 10–11, 99 Haiti: American occupation, 110–11, 118–20, 141, 169–70n53, 200n63; French ambassador, 11, 62–3, 130, 206n115; 150th anniversary, 11, 62, 111 Haiti-Journal, 124 Haut-du-Cap (Cap-Français), 15, 38, 40, 42, 58 Hérard, Charles Rivière, 113 Hérold Jr, Charles, 107–8 Hitler, 74 Hugo, Victor, 63 Hyppolite, Florvil, 115 indigenous army (aka Inca army), 29–30, 37, 48–51, 118–19, 130–1 Indochina, 54 Institute for the Protection of National Heritage (isPAn), 145 International Association of French-Speaking Parliamentarian, 11 Jamaica, 9, 25, 31, 88 Jean, Jean-Baptiste, 100–1 Jean-François, 23, 25 Jeannot, 23

214

Index

Jean-Pierre, Ulrick, 100, 102 Jenson, Deborah, 30 Jérémie, 49 Journal de la campagne du Nord, 38, 167n33 Kaspi, André, 7 Kerverseau, François-Marie Périchou de, 28, 88 Kiko Tru Rasta, 106 King Posse, 106 La belle fermière, 46 Laferrière, Dany, 100, 108 Lantenne-Vertière (FrancheComté), 177n1 La Presse (newspaper), 120 Laroche, Maximilien, 18, 104 La Ronde, poets of, 115, 196n21 Laveaux, Étienne, 27 Leclerc, Charles Victor Emmanuel, 28–30, 57–9, 63–4, 72–7, 84–90 Le dépit amoureux, 46 Le Matin (newspaper), 119–20, 122, 137, 140 Le Monde (newspaper), 62 Le National (newspaper), 143 Lentz, Thierry, 70, 72, 74–5 Le Nouveau Monde (newspaper), 108, 133 Le Nouvelliste (newspaper), 117–18, 125, 138 Le Petit Samedi Soir (newspaper), 108 Lera, Vittorio, 144 Les battus paient l’amende, 47, 174n94 Lhérisson, Justin, 18

Lhérisson, Lélia, 127 Limonade, 79, 131, 138 Louisiana, 28, 92–3, 178n12 Louverture, Toussaint, 23–7, 29, 80, 114, 160n22 Lubin, J. Dieudonné, 127 Lycée Pétion, 126, 128, 203nn90–1 Lycée Philippe-Guerrier, 122–5 Macaya, 25, 28 Macé, Mayeul, 70 Madagascar, 54, 92 Madiou, Thomas, 15–18, 37–8, 48–50, 114, 136 Magloire, Paul, 111, 124–6, 138–9, 144, 148 Magny (general), 127 Maillard, Auguste, 53 Manigat, Sabine, 15 Marcelin, Frédéric, 115 Marseillaise, La: French national anthem, 4–5, 8–12, 101, 103–4, 127–8; sung by Serge Gainsbourg, 3, 8–9 Martelly, Michel, 106–7, 145 Martin, Jean-Clément, 66 Mentor Laurent, Gérard, 130 Mercier, Louis, 122–3 Métellus, Jean, 100, 105 Mézière, Henri, 63–4 Mintz, Sidney, 26 MinustAh (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti), 3, 107, 109, 145, 193n36 Moïse, Claude, 27 Molière, 46 Moreau de Saint-Méry, M.L.E., 35, 164n2

Index

Musée du Panthéon national haïtien, 148–9 Napoleon, secret instructions, 28–9, 57 national identity, debate, 5–8, 99, 152n11 Navarres, Battalion Commander, 84, 181n6 Nemours, Auguste, 120 New York Times, 130 Nord Alexis, Pierre, 117, 170, 198n36 Obin, Philomé, 100 Obin, Sénèque, 100–1, 188n6 Offenstadt, Nicolas, 14 Ogé, Vincent, 23 Ogou Feray (loa voodoo), 110, 137 Ourblain, Nicolas, 13 Perroud, Henri-Claude-François, 37 Pétion, Alexandre, 29, 195n8 Peyre-Ferry, Joseph Élisée, 58–9 Picolet, Fort, 48, 50–1, 134–8, 146 Pierre-Michel blockhouse, 38 Pierrot, 24 pledge to the flag, 132 Polvérel, Étienne, 23–5, 160n22 Port-au-Prince (Port-Républicain), 22, 39, 48, 52, 68 Pourcheresse de Vertières, MarieFrançois-Joseph, 37, 166–7n28 Pressoir, Catts, 62 Price-Mars, Jean, 101, 105, 119, 128, 155n29 Prompt, Paul, 48, 141–2

215

Racing Club Haïtien, 107–8 Ribbe, Claude, 73–4, 183n35 Rigaud, André, 27 Robin, Énélus, 17, 114 Rochambeau, Donatien-MarieJoseph de, 36, 39–40, 63–5, 74–7, 89–96 Romain, Jacques, 48 Rosemond, Jules, 117 Roume, Philippe Rose, 27 Rouzier, Séméxant, 120, 169–70n53 Sahuguet (general), 76 Saint-Domingue expedition: genocide, 28–32, 52, 57–8, 68–70, 72–4; mass drownings, 43–4, 51, 73–4, 87, 89; use of dogs, 59, 87, 89–91, 93, 186n42 Sannon, Pauléus, 103 Sans-Souci, 28, 129 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 5–7 Schoelcher, Victor, 37 Service historique de la défense (Vincennes), 38, 46, 77 Sibert, Cyrus, 110 Sicre, Juan José, 144, 208–9n12 slavery: abolition of, 5, 22–3, 25, 27, 29–30; re-establishment, 5, 22, 29, 30, 89–93; resistance to, 21, 26, 28–30, 32, 77–8 Smartt Bell, Madison, 63 Society of the Friends of the Blacks, 23 Société des citoyens de couleur, 21 Sonthonax, Léger-Félicité, 23–5, 27 Soulouque, Faustin, 113 Spartacus, revolt of, 63

216

Index

Taubira law, 7 Tempête Football Club, 107 Théodat, Jean-Marie, 56 Thiers, Adolphe, 61 Thouvenot, Pierre, 28, 67–8, 77–8, 80–4, 89–94 Time (magazine), 130 Trouillot, Ernst, 62 Trouillot, Henock, 62 Tulard, Jean, 64, 180n41 Vernet, André, 48, 112 Vertès, Marcel, 55 Vertières: monument to the heroes, 57, 141–5; post of, 37–8, 42, 46, 59–60, 177n123 Vertou, 55 Vieux, Isnardin, 115 Vincennes, Château de, 52 Vincent, Sténio, 122–3 voodoo, 5, 44, 110, 137

War in the Vendée, 70 War of Independence: role of black women, 15, 19, 30, 34, 66 Wargny, Christophe, 69 Washington Post, 130 Werleigh, Christian, 122–3 Yaric, Marion, 37 yellow fever, 30–1, 36, 44, 58 Zéphirin, Mauclair, 62, 125, 201n75