Just as dance forms originating from Saint-Domingue made their way into southern culture, religion also left its indelible marks. It is well documented that the Vodou religion in New Orleans began to blossom around 1800 with Sanite Dede, a free woman of color who arrived from Saint-Domingue. The Saint-Domingan Vodou priestess was replaced in 1820 by New Orleans's native Marie Laveau, who became legendary. Haitians were for the most part Catholic; their presence in the various U.S. cities where they settled gave rise to the establishment of a number of biracial congregations. In Baltimore, in 1829, four colored Saint-Domingan women--Elizabeth Lange, Marie Magdelene Baas, Marie Rose Boegue, and Marie Therese Duchemin--established the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the world's first Black religious community, and founded the School for Colored Girls.
Examines experience of Caribbean migrants and immigrants in urban regions in Spain, France, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and the US; 7 articles, 2 in Spanish, 1 in French, and 4 in English. Based on an international conference entitled Les migrations caraïbéennes vers les métropoles: identité, citoyenneté, modèles d'intégration, held on June 20-22, 2002 in Paris. Contents: La racialización en los migrantes coloniales del Caribe en los centros metropolitanos: una introducción a la historia de las diversas colonialidades en cada imperio, by Ramón Grosfoguel; Incorporation and transnationalism among Dominican immigrants, by José Itzigsohn; Caribbean kinship in a global setting, by Mary Chamberlain; The Janus face of transnational citizenship: Surinamese experiences, by Ruben Gowricharn; Gender issues in the study of circulation between the Caribbean and the French Metropole, by Stephanie Condon; Racisme colonial, ethnicité et citoyenneté: les leçons des expériences migratoires antillaises et guyanaises, by Michel Giraud; Identidad, ciudadanía e integración de los dominicanos en España: un estudio exploratorio, by Carlos Dore Cabral, Laura Faxas.
Pierre Toussaint, considered the first American Black saint, is also of Saint-Domingan origin. He was born in 1778 of Haitian slaves in Saint-Domingue, and was owned by a well-educated French family, the Bérards, who brought him to New York with them in 1797 when they fled the slave uprising. While living with the family as a domestic slave, Toussaint learned to read and write and also learned how to be a hairstylist. It is said that he developed a devoted clientele among the city's social elite and was allowed to keep his earnings. Mrs. Bérard freed Toussaint before she died in 1807. Upon Mrs. Bérard's death, Toussaint married a woman from Haiti and, since they had no children of their own, they took in orphans, refugees, and other unfortunate people. In fact, he co-founded with Elizabeth Seton one of the first orphanages in New York City, and helped with fundraising for the city's first cathedral.
