a957: Re: Re: a912: More Questions on Bois Caiman (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: LeGrace Benson <legrace@twcny.rr.com>

>From LeGrace Benson re Islam in Haiti.  In brief, the first captives brought
into St. Domingue were from Islamicised sections of West Africa, and many
were apparently practitioners of Islam.  However the presence of Islam in
St. Domingue would have been subject to the edicts of both Church(Vatican)
and State --the Kings of France and Spain-- which sought sytematically to
obliterate Islam from the face of the earth. Remember that the Expulsion of
" Infidel" Muslims and Jews from Spain took place in 1492  just before
Colombus set sail for the Americas. Some Muslims and  some Jews took refuge
in the Americas, especially in Brazil and in certain sections of the east
coast of North America. Muslims coming to Haiti would have been captives
from e.g. Malinke, Bambara, etc..
A second motivation for suppressing Islam would have been that because they
all (including women) were supposed to learn to  read the Qur'an, to be able
to write  and recite, they would have been literate and therefore
"dangerous." There are other features of Islam that would have seemed highly
undesirable to have present in an enslaved population.
There is however a thin filament of Islamic ideas, phrases and graphic
images still to be found in Haiti.  There is evan an Islamic community in
the North, apparently founded by Senegalese fleeing French oppression to the
new hope and promise of the First Black Republic. They came sometime after
1804 and their decendants still practice an attenuated form of Islam.
Haitian scholar Clerisme' has documented some of their ceremony.
Haitian historian, the late Jean Fouchard has many interesting observations
about Islam presence in Haiti, especially in Les Marrons du Syllabaire.
One should keep an eye and ear out for the survivances.