1. Jean-Baptiste Point DuSable, Haitian founder of the city of Chicago. He is venerated by the Haitian and African-American communities of Chicago. Indeed, my favorite Chicago museum is named after him.
2. Pierre Toussaint, currently under consideration for sainthood in the Catholic Church. Born in Saint Domingue, he came to New York with his white French owners. After attaining freedom, he married a woman from Haiti and started one of the first orphanages in NYC, helped with fundraising for the first cathedral, and contributed money for the first Catholic school for blacks on Canal Street.
3. Saint Dominguan refugees, including whites, people of color (gens de couleur) and enslaved blacks going to New Orleans in the 1790s and in 1809 had a tremendous impact on Lousiana culture. Sanite Dede, a free woman of color from Saint Domingue, was a prominent Vodou priestess. In addition, the calindas and bamboula dances of New Orleans in addition to Vodou are likely due to Saint Dominguan influences.
4. Les Citoyens de Couleur de Philadelphie, a political organization initiated by Saint Dominguans, fought for the advancement of African Americans as part of the Saint Dominguan refugee population in the Northeast.
5. In Louisiana in 1795, Jean Etienne Bore revolutionized the sugar industry by designing new methods for its manufacture. In 1803, he became the first mayor of the city o New Orleans. Did I mention he was a man of color?
6. James Pitot, a former refugee from Saint Domingue, succeeded Bore as the city's second mayor.
7. In Baltimore, four colored Saint Dominguan 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. After its founding it 1829, the school became a national institution.
8. John James Audubon, ornithologist, was born in Saint Domingue to a French and Creole woman. He moved to Pennsylvania as a result of the Haitian Revolution and the death of his momther.
9. Homer Plessy, the "octoroon" who sat in a white section of the train, was partially descended from Saint Dominguan refugees in Lousiana.
10. W.E.B. DuBois is a descendant of Haitians through his father, who immigrated in the mid-19th century. One of the leading activists and scholars of African America is a product of the Haitian Revolution. Thank you, Haiti!
There's a problem with calling people like Audubon, Point DuSable, etc. Haitians. Haiti came into being after the place was cleared out of these people. If they were Haitians, then the slavery that existed was Haitian and the Haitian revolution would have been about what exactly? Calling the inhabitants of St-Domingue Haitians is inaccurate and lazy.
ReplyDeleteYes, that's why I called them "Haitian-Americans" in quotation marks, since many if not a majority of these people didn't identify with the Haitian state or its independence. Most academics refer to them as "Saint-Dominguan" rather than Haitian, which is more accurate. I label them as "Haitian" since some of them are referred to by Haitians as "Haitian," such as W.E.B. Du Bois or DuSable. Regardless of what we call these people, they reveal the importance of transcolonial and transnational movement and interconnections between people of African descent in the Americas. Also, Sara Johnson's interesting though problematic book, Fear of French Negroes, gives some instances of these Saint-Dominguan exiles and refugees who stayed in touch with relatives and people who would stay in what would become Haiti.
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