Master of the Crossroads (95 page)

MAIT’ KALFOU: Vodou deity closely associated with Ghede and the dead, sometimes considered an aspect of Ghede

MAÎT’TÊTE: literally, “master of the head.” The particular
loa
to whom the Vodou observer is devoted and by whom he is usually possessed (although the worshipper may sometimes be possessed by other gods as well).

MAL DE MÂCHOIRE: lockjaw

MAL DE SIAM: yellow fever

MALFINI: chicken hawk

MALNOMMÉE: medicinal herb used in tea against diarrhea

MAMBO: Vodou priestess

MAMÉLOUQUE: woman of mixed blood. The combination of
blanc
and
métive
produces a
mamélouque.

MANCHINEEL: jungle tree with an extremely toxic sap

MANDINGUE: African tribe designation. Mandingue slaves had a reputation for cruelty and for a strong character difficult to subject to servitude.

MANICOU: Carribbean possum

MAPOU: sacred tree in Vodou, considered the habitation of Damballah

MARABOU: term for a particular combination of African and European blood. A
griffe
would result from the congress of a full-blood black with a
quarterronné.

MARAIS: swamp

MARASSA: twins, often the sacred twin deities of Vodou

MARCHÉ DES NÈGRES: Negro market

MARÉCHAL DE CAMP: field marshal

MARÉCHAUSSÉE: paramilitary groups organized to recapture runaway slaves

MAROON: a runaway slave. There were numerous communities of maroons in the mountains of Saint Domingue, and in some cases they won battles with whites and negotiated treaties which recognized their freedom and their territory.

MARRONAGE: the state of being a maroon; maroon culture in general

MATANT: aunt

MAUVAIS SUJET: bad guy, criminal

MÉNAGÈRE: housekeeper

MITRAILLE: grapeshot

MONCHÈ: from the French “mon cher,” literally “my dear,” a casual form of address among friends

MONDONGUE: African tribal group, held in low esteem by slave masters. The Mondongues were known for their filed teeth and suspected of cannibalism.

MONPÈ: Father—the Creole address to a Catholic priest

MORNE: mountain

LES MORTS ET LES MYSTÈRES: the aggregate of dead souls in Vodou, running the spectrum from personal ancestors to the great
loa

MOUCHWA TÊT: headscarf

MOULIN DE BÊTES: mill powered by animals, as opposed to a water mill

MULATTO: person of mixed European and African blood, whether slave or free. Tables existed to define sixty-four different possible admixtures, with a specific name and social standing assigned to each.

NABOT: weighted leg iron used to restrain a runaway slave

NÈG: black person (from the French
nègre
)

NÉGOCIANT: businessman or broker involved in the export of plantation goods to France

NÈGRE CHASSEUR: slave trained as a huntsman

NÉGRILLON: small black child (c.f. pickaninny).

NOBLESSE DE L’ÉPÉE: French aristocracy deriving its status from the feudal military system, as opposed to newer bureaucratic orders of rank

OGÛN: one of the great loa, the Haitian god of war. Ogûn-Feraille is his most aggressive aspect.

ORDONNATEUR: accountant

OUANGA: a charm, magical talisman

PAILLASSE: a sleeping pallet, straw mattress

PARIADE: the wholesale rape of slave women by sailors on slave ships. The
pariade
had something of the status of a ritual. Any pregnancies that resulted were assumed to increase the value of the slave women to their eventual purchasers.

PARRAIN: godfather. In slave communities, the parrain was responsible for teaching a newly imported slave the appropriate ways of the new situation.

PATOIS: dialect

PAVÉ: paving stone

PAYSANNE: peasant woman

PETIT BLANC: member of Saint Domingue’s white artisan class, a group which lived mostly in the coastal cities, and which was not necessarily French in origin. The
petit blancs
sometimes owned small numbers of slaves but seldom owned land; most of them were aligned with French revolutionary politics.

PETIT MARRON: a runaway slave or maroon who intended to remain absent for only a short period—these escapees often returned to their owners of their own accord

LA PETITE VÉROLE: smallpox

PETRO: a particular set of Vodou rituals with some different deities—angry and more violent than
rada

PIERRE TONNERRE: thunderstone. Believed by Vodouisants to be formed by lightning striking in the earth—in reality ancient Indian ax heads, pestles, and the like.

POMPONS BLANCS: Members of the royalist faction in post-1789 Saint Domingue; their name derives from the white cockade they wore to declare their political sentiments. The majority of
grand blancs
inclined in this direction.

POMPONS ROUGES: Members of the revolutionary faction in post-1789 Saint Domingue, so called for the red cockades they wore to identify themselves. Most of the colony’s
petit blancs
inclined in this direction.

POSSÉDÉ: believer possessed by his god

POTEAU MITAN: central post in a Vodou
hûnfor,
the metaphysical route of passage for the entrance of the
loa
into the human world

PRÊTRE SAVANE: bush priest

PWA ROUJ: red beans

PWASÔ: fish

PWEN: a focal point of spiritual energy with the power to do magical work. A
pwen
may be an object or even a word or a phrase.

QUARTERRONÉ: a particular combination of African and European blood: the result, for instance, of combining a full-blood white with a
mamélouque

QUARTIER GÉNÉRAL: headquarters

RADA: the more pacific rite of Vodou, as opposed to petro

RADA BATTERIE: ensemble of drums for Vodou ceremony

RAMIER: wood pigeon

RAQUETTE: mesquite-sized tree sprouting cactus-like paddles in place of leaves

RATOONS: second-growth cane from plants already cut

REDINGOTE: a fashionable frock coat

REQUIN: shark

RIZ AK PWA: rice and beans

RIZIÈ: rice paddy

SACATRA: a particular combination of African and European blood: the result, for instance, of combining a full-blood black with a
griffe
or
griffonne

SALLE DE BAINS: washroom

SANG-MÊLÉ: a particular combination of African and European blood: the result, for instance, of combining a full-blood white with a
quarterroné

SANS-CULOTTE: French revolutionary freedom fighter

SERVITEUR: Vodou observer, one who serves the
loa

SI DYÉ VLÉ: If God so wills

SIFFLEUR MONTAGNE: literally mountain whistler, a night-singing bird

SONNETTE: medicinal herb

SOULÈVEMENT: popular uprising, rebellion

TABAC À JACQUOT: medicinal herb

TAFIA: rum

TAMBOU: drum

THYM À MANGER: medicinal herb believed to cause miscarriage

TI-BON-ANGE: literally, the “little good angel,” an aspect of the Vodou soul. “The
ti-bon-ange
is that part of the soul directly associated with the individual. . . . It is one’s aura, and the source of all personality, character and willpower.”
³

TREMBLEMENT DE TERRE: earthquake

VÉVÉ: diagram symbolizing and invoking a particular loa

VIVRES: life-stuff—roots and essential starchy foods

VODÛN: generic term for a god, also denotes the whole Haitian religion

YO DI: they say

ZAMAN: almond

Z’ÉTOILE: aspect of the Vodou soul. “The z’étoile is the one spiritual component that resides not in the body but in the sky. It is the individual’s star of destiny, and is viewed as a calabash that carries one’s hope and all the many ordered events for the next life of the soul.”
⁴

ZOMBI: either the soul
(zombi astrale)
or the body
(zombi cadavre)
of a dead person enslaved to a Vodou magician

ZORAY: ears

CHRONOLOGY OF HISTORICAL EVENTS

1789

JANUARY: In the political context of the unfolding French Revolution,
les
gens de couleur,
the mulatto people of the colony, petition for full rights in Saint Domingue.

JULY 7: The French Assembly votes admission of six deputies from Saint Domingue. The colonial deputies begin to sense that it will no longer be possible to keep Saint Domingue out of the Revolution, as the conservatives had always designed.

JULY 14: Bastille Day. When news of the storming of the Bastille reaches Saint Domingue, conflict breaks out between the
petit blancs
(lower-class whites of colonial society) and the land- and slave-owning
grand
blancs.
The former ally themselves with the Revolution, the latter with the French monarchy.

AUGUST 26: The Declaration of the Rights of Man causes utter panic among all colonists in France.

OCTOBER 5: The Paris mob brings King and Assembly to Paris from Versailles. The power of the radical minority becomes more apparent.

OCTOBER 14: A royal officer at Fort Dauphin in Saint Domingue reports unrest among the slaves in his district, who are responding to news of the Revolution leaking in. There follows an increase in nocturnal slave gatherings and in the activity of the slave-policing
maréchaussée.

OCTOBER 22: Les Amis des Noirs (a group of French sympathizers with African slaves in the colonies) collaborate with the wealthy mulatto community of Paris, organized as the society of Colons Américains. Mulattoes claim Rights of Man before the French Assembly. Abbé Grégoire and others support them. Deputies from French commercial towns trading with the colony oppose them.

DECEMBER 3: The French National Assembly rejects the demands of mulattoes presented on October 22.

1790

OCTOBER 28: The mulatto leader Ogé, who has reached Saint Domingue from Paris by way of England, aided by the British abolitionist society, raises a rebellion in the northern mountains near the border, with a force of three hundred men, assisted by another mulatto, Chavannes. Several days later an expedition from Le Cap defeats him, and he is taken prisoner along with other leaders inside Spanish territory. This rising is answered by parallel insurgencies in the west which are quickly put down. The ease of putting down the rebellion convinces the colonists that it is safe to pursue their internal dissensions. . . . Ogé and Chavannes are tortured to death in a public square at Le Cap.

1791

APRIL: News of Ogé’s execution turns French national sentiments against the colonists. Ogé is made a hero in the theater, a martyr to liberty. Planters living in Paris are endangered, often attacked on the streets.

MAY 11: A passionate debate begins on the colonial question in the French Assembly.

MAY 15: The French Assembly grants full political rights to mulattoes born of free parents, in an amendment accepted as a compromise by the exhausted legislators.

MAY 16: Outraged over the May 15 decree, colonial deputies withdraw from the National Assembly.

JUNE 30: News of the May 15 decree reaches Le Cap. Although only four hundred mulattoes meet the description set forth in this legislation, the symbolism of the decree is inflammatory. Furthermore the documentation of the decree causes the colonists to fear that the mother country may not maintain slavery.

JULY 3: Blanchelande, governor of Saint Domingue. writes to warn the Minister of Marine that he has no power to enforce the May 15 decree. His letter tells of the presence of an English fleet and hints that factions of the colony may seek English intervention. The general colonial mood has swung completely toward secession at this point.

Throughout the north and the west, unrest among the slaves is observed. News of the French Revolution in some form or other is being circulated through the Vodou congregations. Small armed rebellions pop up in the west and are put down by the
maréchaussée.

AUGUST 11: A slave rising at Limbé is put down by the maréchaussée.

AUGUST 14: A large meeting of slaves occurs at the Lenormand Plantaton at Morne Rouge on the edge of the Bois Cayman forest. A plan for a colony-wide insurrection is laid. The
hûngan
Boukman emerges as the major slave leader at this point. The meeting at Bois Cayman is a delegates convention attended by slaves from each plantation at Limbé, Port-Margot, Acul, Petite Anse, Limonade, Plaine du Nord, Quartier Morin, Morne Rouge and others. The presence of Toussaint Bréda is asserted by some accounts and denied by others.

In the following days, black prisoners taken after the Limbé uprising give news of the meeting at Bois Cayman, but will not reveal the name of any delegate even under torture.

AUGUST 22: The great slave rising in the north begins, led by Boukman and Jeannot. Whites are killed with all sorts of rape and atrocity; the standard of an infant impaled on a bayonet is raised. The entire Plaine du Nord is set on fire. By the account of the Englishman Edwards, the ruins were still smoking by September 26. The mulattoes of the plain also rise, under the leadership of Candy.

There follows a war of extermination with unconscionable cruelties on both sides. Le Cap is covered with scaffolds on which captured blacks are tortured. There are many executions on the wheel. During the first two months of the revolt, two thousand whites are killed, one hundred eighty sugar plantations, and nine hundred smaller operations (coffee, indigo, cotton) are burnt, with twelve hundred families dispossessed. Ten thousand rebel slaves are supposed to have been killed.

During the initial six weeks of the slave revolt, Toussaint remains at Bréda, keeping order among the slaves there and showing no sign of any connection to the slave revolt.

In mid-August, news of the general rebellion in Saint Domingue reaches France. Atrocities against whites produce a backlash of sympathy for the colonial conservatives, and the colonial faction begins to lobby for the repeal of the May 15 decree.

SEPTEMBER 24: The National Assembly in France reverses itself again and passes the Decree of September 24, which revokes mulatto rights and once again hands the question of the “status of persons” over to colonial assemblies. This decree is declared “an unalterable article of the French Constitution.”

Late in the month, the Englishman Edwards arrives in Le Cap with emergency supplies from Jamaica, and is received as a savior with cries of
“Vivent les Anglais.”
Edwards hears much of the colonists’ hopes that England will take over the government of the colony.

OCTOBER: By this time, expeditions are beginning to set out from Le Cap against the blacks, but illness kills as many as the enemy, so the rebel slaves gain ground. The hill country is dotted with both white and black camps, surrounded by hanged men, or skulls on palings. The countryside is constantly under dispute, with the rebels increasingly in the ascendancy.

In France this month, radicals in the French Assembly suggest that the slave insurrection is a trick organized by
émigrés
to create a royalist haven in Saint Domingue. The arrival of refugees from Saint Domingue in France over the next few months does little to change this position.

NOVEMBER: Early in the month, news of the decree of September 24 (repealing mulatto rights) arrives in Saint Domingue, confirming the suspicions of the mulattoes.

Toussaint arranges the departure of the family of Bayon de Libertat from Bréda, then rides to join the rebels, at Biassou’s camp on Grande Rivière. For the next few months he functions as the “general doctor” to the rebel slaves, carrying no other military rank, although he does organize special fortifications at Grand Boucan and La Tannerie. Jeannot, Jean-François and Biassou emerge as the principal leaders of the rebel slaves on the northern plain—all established in adjacent camps in the same area.

NOVEMBER 21: A massacre of mulattoes by petit blancs in Port-au-Prince begins over a referendum about the September 4 decree. Polling ends in a riot, followed by a battle. The mulatto troops are driven out, and part of the city is burned.

For the remainder of the fall, the mulattoes range around the western countryside, outdoing the slaves of the north in atrocity. They make white cockades from the ears of the slain, rip open pregnant women and force the husbands to eat the embryos, and throw infants to the hogs. In Port-au-Prince, the
petit blancs
are meanwhile conducting a version of the French Terror. The city remains under siege by the mulatto forces through December. As at Le Cap, the occupants answer the atrocities of the besiegers with their own, with the mob frequently breaking into the jails to murder mulatto prisoners.

In the south, a mulatto rising drives the whites into Les Cayes, but the whites of the Grande Anse are able to hold the peninsula, expel the mulattoes, arm their slaves and lead them against the mulattoes.

NOVEMBER 29: The first Civil Commission, consisting of Mirbeck, Roume, and Saint Léger, arrives at Le Cap to represent the French revolutionary government.

DECEMBER 10: Negotiations are opened with Jean-François and Biassou, principal slave leaders in the north, who write to the Commission a letter hoping for peace. The rebel leaders’ proposal only asks liberty for themselves and a couple of hundred followers, in exchange for which they promise to return the other rebels to slavery.

DECEMBER 21: An interview between the commissioners and Jean-François takes place at Saint Michel Plantation, on the plain a short distance from Le Cap.

Toussaint appears as an adviser of Jean-François during these negotiations, and represents the black leaders in subsequent unsuccessful meetings at Le Cap, following the release of white prisoners. But although the commissioners are delighted with the peace proposition, the colonists want to hold out for total submission. Invoking the September 14 decree, the colonists undercut the authority of the Commission with the rebels and negotiations are broken off.

1792

MARCH 30: Mirbeck, despairing of the situation in Le Cap and fearing assassination, embarks for France, his fellow-commissioner Roume agreeing to follow three days later. But Roume gets news of a royalist counterrevolution brewing in Le Cap and decides to remain, hoping he can keep Blanchelande loyal to the Republic.

APRIL 4: In France occurs the signature of a new decree by the National Assembly which gives full rights of citizenship to mulattoes and free blacks, calls for new elections on that basis, and establishes a new three-man Commission to enforce the decree, with dictatorial powers and an army to back them.

APRIL 9: With the Department of the West reduced to anarchy again, Saint Léger escapes on a warship sailing to France.

MAY: War is declared between French and Spanish Saint Domingue.

MAY 11: News of the April 4 decree arrives in Saint Domingue. Given the nastiness of the race war and the atrocities committed against whites by mulatto leaders like Candy in the north and others in the south and west, this decree is considered an outrage by the whites. By this time, the whites (except on the Grande Anse) have all been crammed into the ports and have given up the interior of the country, for all practical purposes. The Colonial Assembly accepts the decree, having little choice for the moment, and no ability to resist the promised army. The mulattoes are delighted, and so is Roume.

AUGUST 10: Storming of the Tuileries by Jacobin-led mob, virtual deposition of the King, call for a Convention in France.

SEPTEMBER 18: Three new commissioners arrive at Le Cap to enforce the April 4 decree. Sonthonax, Polverel and Ailhaud are all Jacobins. Colonists immediately suspect a plan to emancipate the slaves (which may or may not have been a part of Sonthonax’s original program). The commissioners are accompanied by two thousand troops of the line and four thousand National Guards, under the command of General Desparbés. But the commissioners distrust the general and get on poorly with him because of their tendency to trespass on his authority. Soon the commissioners deport Blanchelande to France.

OCTOBER: In the aftermath of a conflict between his troops and the
petit
blanc
Jacobins of Le Cap, General Desparbés is deported by the commissioners to France as a prisoner, along with many other royalist officers. This event virtually destroys the northern royalist faction.

OCTOBER 24: The Commission led by Sonthonax begins to fill official posts with mulattoes, now commonly called “citizens of April 4.” By this tendency Sonthonax begins alienating the
petit blancs
Jacobins of Le Cap by creating a bureaucracy of mulattoes at their expense. In the end, Sonthonax closes the Jacobin club and deports its leaders.

The Regiment Le Cap’s remaining officers refuse to accept the mulattoes Sonthonax has appointed to fill vacancies left by royalists who have either been arrested or had resigned.

DECEMBER: Young Colonel Etienne Laveaux mounts an attack on the rebel slaves at Grande Rivière. By this time, Toussaint has his own body of troops under his direct command, and has been using the skills of white prisoners and deserters to train them. He also has gathered some of the black officers who will be significant later in the slave revolution, including Dessalines, Moyse and Charles Belair.