Liberating Narratives

Last week I wrote about the causes of the Haitian Revolution and got lots of great feedback. Thanks 🙏

I also had a couple of sources I left out and wanted to share. The night before the enslaved Africans on Haiti launched their revolt, they held a ceremony at Bois-Caïman. There are lots of paintings of this ceremony that was central to the revolution. The ceremony was one more example of how the enslaved Africans weren’t inspired by the Enlightenment. Here’s a painting by Ernst Prophete.

In 1793 or 1794, Antoine Dalmas, the surgeon at the nearby Gallifet plantation, wrote this account of the ceremony:

They celebrated a kind of feast or sacrifice in the middle of an uncultivated wooded plot on the Choiseul plantation, called le Caïman, where a very large number of slaves gathered. A black pig, surrounded by spirit objects, each loaded with offerings more bizarre than the next, was the offering made to the all powerful spirit of the black race. The religious ceremonies that the slaves practiced in slaughtering it, their greed to drink its blood, their eagerness to have some of its bristles as a kind of talisman that, according to them, would make them invulnerable, are all characteristics of the African.

In 1818, Antoine Metral, a Haitian historian, wrote this account. He borrowed from Dalmas, but he also added the priestess who appears in most images of the ceremony:

They celebrated a kind of feast or sacrifice in the middle of an uncultivated wooded plot on the Choiseul plantation, called le Caïman, where a very large number of slaves gathered. A black pig, surrounded by spirit objects, each loaded with offerings more bizarre than the next, was the offering made to the all powerful spirit of the black race. The religious ceremonies that the slaves practiced in slaughtering it, their greed to drink its blood, their eagerness to have some of its bristles as a kind of talisman that, according to them, would make them invulnerable, are all characteristics of the African.

During the summer, a friend told me that more people should read my writing. It was a flattering compliment, and I appreciate it. I realized I could make it happen. When I started Liberating Narratives, I set up the newsletter and website on Ghost. I value the way Ghost works as an open source project. They don’t sell my data or my users’ data. The one drawback is that Ghost doesn’t do as much to promote writers on the platform. Many writers use Substack and Medium to reach broader audiences. I know because I’m reading some excellent writing on both sites. I don’t want to move away from Ghost, but I do want to tap into a broader audience of world history enthusiasts. Starting September 10, I’ll publish a short essay on Substack and Medium every other week. These essays will be less targeted to educators and more to people interested in world history. These essays will also appear as public posts on the website so everyone can access them. I hope that more people start reading and supporting Liberating Narratives. Thank you for support.

✊🏽✊🏿✊🏼✊️✊🏾

You may be reading this post on the new Liberating Narratives microblog. These posts will be short updates about the site and what I’m working on. These posts will never be sent to subscribers, but you can easily find them on the website. I will also share these posts on social media.