Colonial Gaps in Understanding the Haitian Revolution
When embarking on this project, I was curious about women’s roles in the Haitian Revolution, particularly in the overlap between their lives and the representation of honored female deities. Upon diving into my research, it became apparent that I would end up with far more questions than conclusive support for this topic. Instead, a different narrative has emerged, one that emphasizes the impact of colonialism on the retelling of Black and Indigenous history. In keeping within the context of gender, this piece will also discuss the differences between Afrocentric and Eurocentric perspectives on gender, and how trying to learn about women specifically in the Haitian Revolution might be a misguided Westernized approach to understand a non-Western culture. Rather than seek historical information in text form, as many of the revolutionaries relied on oral traditions or were denied access to literacy skills[1], it appears that we might have to turn instead to religious traditions, language clues, and cultural knowledge from Central and West Africa in order to put the pieces together from the Haitian revolutionaries’ perspective.
“When the anthropologist arrives, the gods depart”, so a Haitian proverb goes.[2] This felt all too accurate while trying to conduct my research. I discovered that the key to beginning to understand the Haitian revolutionaries was to break apart my own perceptions and conditioning around how human beings organize themselves. It seems that in order to understand Haitian culture, and Voudon therein, one must be receptive to existence beyond the rigid boundaries of duality, and willing to locate the truth among what has not been said. The Haitian Voudon that was practiced at the time of the Haitian Revolution was a blended faith, comprised of various African cultures, Taino influence, and old and new world concepts. It encompassed Indigenous Haitian believes, African Voudon beliefs, and Catholicism. A less conventional but widely considered theory is that this blending was not necessarily due to colonization’s attempts at erasure, but rather these African traditions’ philosophies on inclusivity and adaptability.[3] Due to the unique nature of this practice, it is very challenging to provide direct translations from Haitian Creole to words and concepts we understand in Eurocentric cultures. This can easily contribute to misinterpretations of what happened during the revolution, which creates the challenge of trying to present evidence from a pool of contradictory sources. This research paper is my best attempt at presenting what we think we know, based on the shortage of texts written by the victors and our faith in the preservation of oral traditions passed down through ritual and music, with the awareness that it could all be more or less incomplete.
Similar to the French and American revolutions[4], Haiti also had a female patron saint, or lwa in the Voudon tradition, who symbolized the spirit of their resistance. Erzulie Dantor (also spelled Ezili Dantor; Ezili Danto; Erzulie Ge-Rouge) is considered one aspect of a larger all-encompassing spirit known as Erzulie. Though not completely translatable, Erzulie could be most compared to the concept of the triple goddess in European pagan traditions. In such European traditions, a triple goddess is generally understood as maiden, mother and crone—the three major life cycles of a woman’s life. However, known as a Goddess of Love and Desire, Erzulie’s three main aspects were less about life phases and more about the complexity of her spirit and responses to the world around her. She ranged from playful and flirtatious, to deeply grieving, to righteous rage. Erzulie Dantor is conventionally considered to be the warrior form of this lwa[5]. However, this oversimplified designation does no justice to the vast depths she represented to the Haitian people during the revolution.
Erzulie’s origins are challenging to locate with much confidence. Some sources believe she was a fighter in the revolution, while others believe she was an old-world archetype. Author and artist Maya Deren was taught by Haitian Voudon practitioners in the mid-twentieth century that Erzulie was a spirit brought over from Africa, but that her form as Erzulie Dantor was created out of the suffering of the slaves in Haiti. Historian Joan Dayan writes that Erzulie Dantor was manifested in Haiti and “dramatizes a specific historiography of women's experience in Haiti and throughout the Caribbean” (Dayan, 6). Dayan draws the clear link between this cultural icon and the experiences of enslaved women, indicating that she is the embodiment of the memory of slavery, and the desires for intimacy and revenge therein. While Erzulie was a deity of love and luxury in the African tradition, Erzulie Dantor emerged in Haiti as a more vengeful spirit who was jealous and possessive[6]. Dayan emphasizes that Erzulie exists beyond the dualities of Western religion- she is bisexual, caring, lustful, rageful, spiteful, childish, a virgin, a mother, a warrior, and is honored by both men and women. Even in her Erzulie Dantor aspect, she is as fierce as she is compassionate. Erzulie Dantor would be classified as a Petro lwa, a cult of lwa influenced by the rage of the Indigenous tribes that runaway slaves met while hiding in the hills. Prior to the Petro, Haitian Voudon primarily served the Rada spirits brought over from Africa, drawn mainly from Dahomey tradition. Rather than good versus evil, as is often assumed, the Petro were a more amplified, angrier version of the Rada spirits, who were born from traditions of order and the protection of harmony.[7] The Petro were a response to disorder and dishonor, a new type of spirit that had the mission of seeking justice.
The Western world’s oversimplification of Erzulie in both her Petro and Rada aspects is largely due to its obsession with duality. Her complexity and power during the revolution were threatening ideas to the Church. White slaveholders used this duality as a tool for domination. Dayan draws attention to this in her essay in reference to the slandering of Black women in order to elevate white women: “An ideal woman, pure of stain, fixed on her pedestal, is only possible in the male imaginary because of the invention of a dark, debased sister. (Dayan, 8)” Erzulie Dantor was threatening to the European oppressors for several reasons: she represented the multifaceted strengths of Black women, helped to spread the belief that women could have power and fighting skills that surpass men, and she was part of a religious faith that the Church needed to define as evil in order to assert themselves as pure and good.
The question remains—was Erzulie Dantor an actual slave and fighter in the revolution who has simply become mythologized? Or was she always a spirit who represented the collective consciousness of Haitians? Perhaps it was both to some degree. Cecile Fatiman, an enslaved woman and Voudon mambo (priestess), was famous for organizing the Bois Caiman ceremony alongside Houngan (priest) Dutty Boukman. This ceremony was essentially the first congress of Haiti[8], considered to be the event that officially initiated the revolution. In Voudon, possession by the spirits is a central component of ritual.[9] During the ceremony, Cecile was said to have been possessed by Erzulie Dantor, who ordered the enslaved people to seek revenge and fight for their freedom.[10] In allegiance to her, the ceremony’s participants swore themselves to secrecy and moved to fulfill these commands, beginning with lighting the plantations on fire. This does not quite answer the question of whether Erzulie Dantor was an actual spirit, or if it was Cecile as an inspired, furious revolutionary woman channeling the collective consciousness, later filtered into history under this spirit’s name. In the Voudon tradition, it is common that ancestors who carry a similar essence to a particular lwa will be served as said lwa rather than as an individual.[11] What is interesting here is that for something that seems so significant, I was more likely to turn up sources who either credited Boukman only or referred to Cecile as an anonymous mambo. Why is it that Cecile’s existence and influence are so uncertain, despite her massive significance when she is discussed, but Boukman is a consistent key figure when referencing Bois Caiman? Though it is not unusual that recounts of history can vary depending on the author, this uncovered a notable pattern that it is common to leave women out of the retelling of the Haitian Revolution.
I searched for more names of women who were leaders during the revolution, which resulted in a similar frustration to what I experienced while researching Cecile. Adbaraya Toya, aka Victoria Montou, was a healer and soldier in the Dahomey kingdom before being kidnapped and sold into slavery in Haiti. There she worked on a plantation with Jean Jacque Dessalines, and is said to have helped raise him and train him how to fight[12]. Considered the “Mother of Haiti” (quite a significant title), I once again came up short for reliable information about her. Is this pattern the result of a patriarchal culture, or our reliance on textual evidence for historical understanding? Laurent Dubois suggests that in order to get a clearer picture on the revolution’s participants, we should look to their homes of origin in Africa[13]. Toya’s backstory proved to be a valuable clue.
Whether she was one woman, or composite of many, Toya is commonly believed to have been a soldier in present-day Benin for N’Nonmiton (“our mothers”), an elite force of women who were tasked with protecting the king on and off the battlefield in the Kingdom of Dahomey. Europeans observed them as the Dahomey Amazons, likened to the Amazonian women of Greek mythology.[14] They were believed to be “superior to male soldiers in effectiveness and bravery (Grall 2016)”, and were a way for women to rise to positions of leadership, participate in politics, and live independently. The Yoruba, a large ethnic group in modern Nigeria, Benin and Togo dating back over a thousand years[15], are theorized to have had an egalitarian culture that did not prioritize gender in the way they organized their social hierarchies[16]. Instead, according to scholar Oyeronke Oyewumi, they were more likely to rank status according to age. She attributes the assumption of gender division forced by Europeans to their primary use of the visual in order to categorize and dominate other humans. She looks to language as evidence, noting that there is no mark of gender in the Yoruba language, but that there is a mark for age difference. In his critical analysis of Oyewumi’s book, Bakare-Yusuf points out that mention of the traditionally patriarchal Yoruba culture is missing from her theories. Just when we thought we were getting somewhere, it is time to reroute and dig further.
Rather than solely focusing on which scholars and sources are “right”, it is important to also look at why this segment of history is so unclear. There are several reasons why retrieving accurate information about Haitian history around the time of the revolution is challenging. Going back to Dubois, one of these reasons is that we need to look beyond textual evidence to understand cultures that rely on oral traditions. Most of the enslaved people were illiterate, and would not leave behind written texts of their experiences. Music and ritual were important forms for passing down information, but due to Voudon’s decentralized nature, different lineages and new generations would create their own versions of what happened.[17] At the same time, there is a great lack, or distortion, in many history classrooms in the United States on this important segment of history. It is either not taught, limited to very few key, male figures, or is glossed over as an offshoot of the French Revolution.[18]
By asking whether or not Erzulie Dantor represented the enslaved women of Haiti, I have had to consider that her influence in the Haitian Revolution exists so far beyond the gender binary we understand in our Eurocentric societies that the question itself is responsible for the lack of resolve. It is possible that Erzulie’s gender as a woman is merely secondary to her larger representation of dreaming and desiring all that could be, sprung very loosely from fertility associations.[19] She could possess both men and women in ritual. This ability to dream and desire, or be enraged by the oppression that blocks the ability to live well, was accessible to all who served her. In her Petro form, while her rage and her development out of the pain of slavery were very human, I am curious if her gender was more of an abstract assignment than a direct representation of Haitian women, meant to be more ethos than literal.[20] As much as I would like to understand women’s roles in the revolution, if I insist on framing it this way, religion might not easily give me the answers I seek.
In her mythology, Erzulie Dantor’s tongue was cut out so that if she was captured by the French, she would not spill the secrets of the revolutionaries. In her iconography she is pictured holding a child, sometimes her son, sometimes her daughter. This child served as her voice and translator. Much like the research itself, we have to go through several layers to get to this Petro lwa—with no way to speak for herself, she relies on her child to properly represent her, who in turn relies on the priest or priestess she possesses to accurately communicated with the people. The story of the revolution relies on many indirect sources to be told, whether the analysis of art and song, generations that pass down oral traditions and songs, or the colonizers who wrote down their interpretations of what happened. Far more research is required in order to make sense of this highly complex body of information and evidence. In the meantime, Erzulie will continue to elude contemporary scholars, mocking us with her song:
Ezili o! pa Ezili sa!
(Erzulie, oh! that's not Erzulie!)
A traditional song of Erzulie. [21]
Bibliography
Bakare-Yusuf, Bibi. 2003. "“YORUBA’S DON’T DO GENDER”: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF OYERONKE OYEWUMI’s The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses." CODESRIA. https://codesria.org/IMG/pdf/BAKERE_YUSUF.pdf.
Campbell, Joseph. 1953. "Editor's Forward." In Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti, by Maya Deren, xiii - xvii. London: Thames & Hudson.
Dayan, Joan. 1994. "Erzulie: A Women's History of Haiti." Research in African Literatures 5-31.
Deren, Maya. 1953. Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti. London: Thames & Hudson.
Dubois, Laurent. 2016. "Atlantic Freedoms." Aeon. November 7. https://aeon.co/essays/why-haiti-should-be-at-the-centre-of-the-age-of-revolution.
Johnson, Elizabeth Ofosuah. 2019. "Meet the warrior woman from Dahomey who trained Haitian revolutionary hero Dessalines." Face 2 Face Africa. March 12. https://face2faceafrica.com/article/meet-the-warrior-woman-from-dahomey-who-trained-haitian-revolutionary-hero-dessalines.
Merrill, John. 1996. "VODOU AND POLITICAL REFORM IN HAITI: SOME LESSONS FOR THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY." The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 31-52.
Moghadam, Valentine H. 2005. "Gender and Revolutions." In Theorizing Revolutions, by John Foran, 140. Routledge.
Mohamud, Abdul. 2020. "Lesson 4 Bois Caiman Ceremony." YouTube. April. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQslvkhJfpc.
Raitano, Megan. 2013. Powerful Priestesses: A Look at Equality in Leadership in Vodou. University of Florida. Accessed 2021. http://cecilefatimanrca.blogspot.com/.
Woodson, Ashley, Tadashi Dozono, and Lagarett King. 2020. "Framing Race Talk in World History Classrooms: A Case Study of the Haitian Revolution." Educational Foundations.
ZamaMdoda. 2019. "WHM: Dahomey Amazons Were Bad-Ass African Warriors." Afropunk. March. https://afropunk.com/2019/03/dahomey-amazons-african-warriors/.
[1] (Dubois 2016)
[2] (Campbell 1953)
[3] (Deren 1953)
[4] (Moghadam 2005, 140)
[5] (Dayan 1994)
[6] (Merrill 1996)
[7] (Deren 1953)
[8] (Mohamud 2020)
[9] (Deren 1953)
[10] (Raitano 2013)
[11] (Deren 1953)
[12] (Johnson 2019)
[13] (Dubois 2016)
[14] (ZamaMdoda 2019)
[15] Invalid source specified.
[16] (Bakare-Yusuf 2003)
[17] (Deren 1953)
[18] (Woodson, Dozono and King 2020)
[19] (Deren 1953)
[20] Ibid
[21] (Dayan 1994)
