- From Nicholls, 1979, p. 160 ff.
Born PaP 1907 of prosperous family
- Born June 4, 1907 (Cobb)
- Catholic school in Pap (Diederich)
- School in Belgium (Diederich)
- Early age to Switzerland and later France, Germany and Spain
- Returned to Haiti 1927. Plunged into resistance to Americans
- Arrested in Dec. 1928 released in Aug. 1929
- Arrested again in October, 1929
- (from Diederich, p. 329)
"Roumain also edited with Georges Petit and
Roger Cauvin "Le Petit Impartial." President Stenio Vincent arrested
all three and charged them with printing subversive literature. The
trial was sensational. It degenerated into a courtroom brawl when the
prosecuting attorney accused Roumain of springing from a family of
murderers. (The reference was to Roumains's grandfather, President
Tancrede Auguste, who had been suspected by some of blowing up the old
palace in 1911.) Roumain hit the prosecutor and then fought courtroom
attendants. President Vincent shipped him off to European exile after
his release. A decree issued on 19 November 1936 outlawed the Communist
party."
- Published several novels
Became anti-Catholic
- 1941 founded the Bureau of Ethnology.
- Became charge d'affaires of the Haitian Embassy in Mexico City in WWII.
- Died in Haiti on 18 August 1944. 38 years old.
- Wrote: Gouverneurs de la Rosee (Masters of the Dew), most famous work
- Heinl, p. 491-492. Also Heinl, p. 523. Roumain founded The Haitian Communist Party.
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Bob Corbett
corbetre@webster.edu