a1063: Haiti and the Pact with Satan - Another View (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Karioka9@cs.com

With all the recent talk about Bois Caiman and the "Pact with Satan," it is
worth mentioning that there is another school of thought out there, which
denies that the Bois Caiman ceremony ever took place.  The French critic
Leon-Francois Hoffmann most recently called attention to that "myth," at a
1991 conference on the state of Haiti … two hundred years after Bois Caiman.

Hoffmann, or rather Doctor Hoffmann, is no slouch.  His book, "The Romantic
Nigger," debunked a whole lot of prejudices and stereotypes in 18th and 19th
century French literature.  His presentation, presumably at the end of the
conference came like a rock in a quiet pond.  A malevolent Frenchman, he
explained, had concocted the Bois Caiman myth, and Haitian historians too
lazy to do their homework have erected that myth as the Fount of the Nation.
Haitian participants at the conference bristled at the mocking tone of the
presentation, but the learned Doctor stood by his research and made light of
their imprecations.

The Haitian historical profession has been remarkably slow in picking up the
gauntlet against the trespassing French scholar, who even hinted of a larger
work on the subject.  (To echo an earlier criticism voiced in a different
context, where are those damn Haitian historians and PhD's when you really
need them?)  Some research has been done since on Dahomean blood rites, oaths
and secret societies.  But it was left to the non-Haitian historian, David
Geggus, to point out that there were actually two separate slave gatherings
in August 1791.

The first meeting, where the uprising was decided, brought together 200
delegates to the Normand de Mezy plantation on Sunday, Aug. 14.  This is the
meeting that several prisoners revealed under torture, according to the
malevolent Frenchman, Antoine Dalmas, who took part as a medical examiner in
some of the interrogations.  The second meeting, of a more religious nature,
took place a week later in the secluded Caiman woods. What transpired there
is understandably more difficult to piece together, given its secret nature.

According to Haitian historian Celigny Ardouin who spoke to a participant and
personal friend of Toussaint Louverture around 1840, the latter was the chief
organizer of the meeting on the Mezy plantation, but he chose his closest
associates, Jean-Francois Papillon, Georges Biassou and Boukman Dutty to lead
the first phase of the insurrection.  General Paul Aly, the participant in
question, makes no mention of Toussaint at the Bois Caiman ceremony.
According to Geggus, it was Boukman who called the Bois Caiman meeting to
jumpstart the uprising, before the plot could be uncovered.

Aly's testimony corroborates the malevolent Frenchman's report.  But Geggus
cites yet another source: Etienne Charlier's "Apercu sur la formation
historique de la nation haitienne" (1954), which identifies President
Pierrot's wife, Cecile Fatiman, as the officiating Vodou priestess at Bois
Caiman.  (Unfortunately, I'm unable to verify the spelling of Madame
Pierrot's maiden name, since a friend borrowed my copy of the Charlier book
Haitian-style, i.e. unbeknownst to me.)

The veracity of the malevolent Frenchman's tale (I mean Dalmas of course, not
Hoffmann) could best be left to the Evangelists to ferret out, if not for
another intriguing claim related to the first.  There is ample evidence to
suggest (at this point, the Ginou-ists should put on their seat belts and
swallow their sezisman pills) that Toussaint organized the insurrection at
the instigation of the French governor, Blanchelande, who needed some
leverage against the powerful Colonial Assembly, which had threatened to
break away from France, like the American settlers did just a decade ago.

Geggus denies credence to that story, but some of his sources for the Bois
Caiman story also incriminate Toussaint.  Celigny Ardouin thus writes:
"Sonthonax's widow, who knew Toussaint when he was still a slave, told one of
our friends that Toussaint had used the surname Louverture before the
uprising, because it was a nickname given to him on the Breda plantation on
account that he was missing several front teeth. If that was the case, why
did Toussaint sign his name as Toussaint Breda, while he was in the ranks of
the insurgents? We looked for the reasons for this name change. We asked one
of Toussaint's companions, one of his friends, the esteemed Paul Aly, now
colonel of the 31st Regiment and commander-in-charge in Santo Domingo.  This
veteran told us that Toussaint took the name Louverture to signify that he
was the first who was chosen to lead the rebellion in the North; and that if
he delayed using that name, it was because he could not get back the passport
(sauf-conduit) that was given to him and which he had entrusted to his friend
and comrade Biassou, until the latter crossed Jean-Francois who had his camp
occupied and searched for papers that would incriminate him as a traitor."

The passport in question had been issued by Blanchelande.  Ardouin adds that
it gave Toussaint unrestricted access to all the plantations in the Plaine du
Nord, and shielded him from future criminal charges. Incidentally, the Mezy
meeting had not been a secret or illegal gathering.  The nationalist
historian Gerard Laurent accepts Ardouin's interpretation without qualm, and
quotes Sonthonax to the effect that Toussaint had organized the uprising and
the settlers' massacre under compulsion from the monarchist émigrés that
surrounded him.  Laurent, however, commands Toussaint for his intelligence
and cunning, and praised him as a supreme tactician.

The connection between the two claims is alarming, because if you take away
Bois Caiman and Boukman's denunciation of the white oppressors' God, and then
pin the monarchist conspiracy on Toussaint, the Fount of the Nation is,
pedantically-speaking, forever tarnished.  Personally I find both stories
plausible, but I don't mind leaving Papa Toussaint fend for himself.  As for
Bois Caiman, it may well be that both God and the Devil have let Haiti
down,
and that it's time to let humanity conduct its own affairs. (Frankly, I don't
mind giving my place in paradise to somebody else.)

Daniel Simidor