"I say that I'm Haitian first, and then we go from there," said Patrick Marcelin, the U.S.-born son of Haitian immigrants who raps in Creole and English as "Mecca a.k.a. Grimo." "I just happened to be born in America, but really I'm a Haitian brother. And Haiti is the direct daughter of Africa." The Black History Months he remembers studying never mentioned Haiti's history, even though Haiti was a destination for Black Americans searching for their cultural roots. Marcelin now also teaches in the Haitian Heritage Museum's school outreach program, exposing students to the American history he never learned. For example, when talking about writers from the Harlem Renaissance, Marcelin points out that [Zora Neale Hurston] wrote her novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God" in Haiti in the 1930s, and the poet [Langston Hughes] wrote admiringly of the Haitian peasants who walked down mountain roads barefoot, balancing baskets on their heads, to sell their wares. "They should have been teaching this in school, that soldiers from Haiti came to fight in the American Revolution," Marcelin said. "I read about [Frederick Douglass] in the history books but I don't remember anything about him being the ambassador to Haiti. Or that the founder of Chicago was a Haitian brother."
Explanations of the Abolitionist movement's success in Brazil (1888) have, since the 1960s and 1970s, emphasized the movement's material context, its class nature, and the agency of the captives. These analyzzes have misunderstood and gradually ignored the movement's formal political history. Even the central role of urban political mobilisation is generally neglected; when it is addressed, it is crippled by lack of informed analysis of its articulation with formal politics and political history. It is time to recover the relationship between Afro-Brazilian agency and the politics of the elite. In this article this is illustrated by analysing two conjunctures critical to the Abolitionist movement: the rise and fall of the reformist Dantas cabinet in 1884-85, and the relationship between the reactionary Cotegipe cabinet (1885-88), the radicalisation of the movement, and the desperate reformism that led to the Golden Law of 13 May 1888.
With the new law instituted, the face of the population of the Caribbean evolved and whites eventually became a minority although they continued to hold their superior social status. According to a book called "Caribbean Islands - The Sugar Revolutions and Slavery," by the early 19th century, less than 5 percent of the population in Grenada, Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Jamaica, Tobago were white. They accounted for less than 10 percent of the population of Anguilla, Montserrat, St. Kitts, St. Lucia and the Virgin Islands. Only in the Bahamas, Barbados and Trinidad were more than 10 percent of the population white.
August 14, 1991, will mark the Bicentennial of the "Bios-Caiman" ceremony which led to the general insurrection of the slaves of St. Dominique on the night of the 22nd and dawn of the 23 of August 1791. That gave us: the first triumphant anti-slavery movement. After 121⁄2 years of fierce fighting independence was obtained in Haiti on January 1, 1804. History perceived the ceremony of August 14, 1791, in a confused manner. They will also have space available for Vendors at the encouraging price of $25.00. Inquire now for spaces are limited. Planned Events 14th of August 1991: Conference at Toussaint Louverture Elementary School. Guests: Anthropologist, Ernest Mirville, Wolley Enriquez Ethnology, Claude Charles, Professor, Jean-Claude Exullien.
In "Conceiving Freedom," Camillia Cowling examines how gender shaped urban routes to freedom for the enslaved during the slow process of emancipation in Cuba and Brazil. Slavery in those countries ended only after the rest of Latin America had abolished the "peculiar institution" and even after the American Civil War.
Vesey knew the horrors of slavery first hand. Since he had lived in St. Dominique as a youth, he followed the events there with particular interest. Men from the area and surrounding plantations would attack the city, take control of the guardhouse and block the bridges and roads, killing every white person in sight.
In this issue, we'll see why [Frederick Douglass] believed Haiti not only worried but scared slave-holding Americans. We'll also discuss why he believed Haiti is a country of "firsts" and his answers to critics that the country is doomed due to its roots in voodo. His actual words will be in italics. While slavery existed amongst us, Haiti's example was a sharp thorn in our side and a source of alarm and terror.
Denying Haiti credit where credit is due is an established tradition. In 1893, at the end of the century that started with Haitian Independence and the Slave Trade Act, the orator, statesman and emancipated slave Frederick Douglass told an audience at the Chicago World's Fair how Haiti "taught the world the danger of slavery and the value of liberty." He pointed out that: The world had a chance to recognize Haiti three years ago, during the celebration of Haiti's bicentennial. But once again, Haiti was penalized. On the big day, January 1, 2004, Thabo Mbeki, President of the most powerful African nation, South Africa, came to celebrate. But the former slaveholding nations, led by the United States, boycotted the events, and forced the less powerful countries of Africa and the Caribbean to stay away. Instead of sending congratulations to the Haitian people's elected representatives, the United States sent guns and money to those trying to overthrow the government. When the international spotlight came to Haiti in 2004, it was to witness the return to dictatorship rather than to celebrate freedom from slavery.
Commemorating the Bi-Centenary of the abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the exhibition called "Lest We Forget: The Triumph over Slavery" serves as a historic canvas portraying the horrific experience of the enslaved Africans during the 'triangular' slave trade between Europe, Africa and the U.S. during the 15th through 19th centuries. The exhibition, which opened to a packed room, included speeches by His Excellency Ambassador Philip Sealy, Permanent Representative of Trinidad & Tobago to the UN who serves as chair of the CARICOM Caucus; His Excellency, Ambassador Joe Robert Pemagbi, Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone to the UN, and chairman of the African Group of States; and Ambassador Nirupam Sen, Permanent Representative of India to the UN.
Although the program has a long, academic-sounding formal tide, "Sugar, Slavery and Imperialism: How Sugar Drove the Forced Migration of Africans to the Caribbean and the Impact of the Haitian Revolution," it is an informal presentation aimed at general audiences. This is a rare opportunity to learn more about Haiti's former status, as the richest, rather than the poorest, country in the hemisphere; about Haitian participation in the American Revolutionary War and aid to other independence struggles; about the brilliant diplomatic and military leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture, Dessalines, Petion and others, who defeated the forces of Napoleon, Britain and Spain together; about how the Haitian victory caused Napoleon to sell the vast Louisiana territory to the United States, and about the great heroism of ordinary Haitians that was required for victory to be won. (The Louisiana Purchase, which will be commemorated on specially minted nickel coins in 2004, also opened the way for an expanded domestic "slave trade" within the United States, which was even larger than the former Atlantic trade).
