Arna Bontemps, a respected African-American poet, librarian, and collaborator of Langston Hughes, wrote a fascinating novel of the Haitian Revolution. Unlike the works of other black writers on Haiti, the Bontemps centers his narrative on French whites, Creoles and European, living in Saint Domingue during August 1791. Toussaint is the most prominent black character in the novel, and he is certainly depicted as a natural leader and heroic figure, but is mostly in the background.
The plot concerns the outset of the August slave revolt in the north of Saint Domingue, occurring during a fête hosted at the Bréda plantation for the planter elite and some other whites. While sitting on a literal power keg because of the French Revolution and unrest among the free people of color, the whites party, feast, and enjoy a cockfight despite ominous signs of a coming slave revolt (these ominous signs include a mass suicide of newly arrived slaves the day of the party, as well as an increase in the frequency of nocturnal 'voodoo' drumming and slave meetings. As the beginning of the slave revolt unravels, the whites are forced to flee, choose sides, and prepare for an uncertain future many only begin to understand as a serious dilemma by the novel's conclusion. Elements of romance, intrigue, and competition between races and classes add nuance to the tale for an uncertain conclusion for the white protagonists of the novel.
Diron Desautels, who one might consider the 'protagonist' of the novel, is a local white of aristocratic origins. Diron is a sympathizer of the French abolitionist society, Les Amis des Noirs, and supports the slave revolutionaries (even attending one of their evening gatherings, where he meets face to face with Boukman and Baissou, who was really Biassou if we want to be historically accurate). Nonetheless, his principles as a Jacobin and abolitionist are complicated by his race and class privilege, as well as his budding love for Céleste, a young Creole white woman from the lower classes, whose safety is compromised during the initial slave uprising. The novel switches back and forth as the third person narration explores how the various characters represent differing moral and political factions, as well as how their reactions to the beginning of the Haitian Revolution shape each other.
As a reader, I must admit I was a little confused. Bontemps has a gift in metaphorical and descriptive prose, but some aspects of the plot are never fully explored. For instance, it is never explained how Diron successfully kidnaps and takes Paulette (a white Creole whose romances and political alliances with powerful men are opposed to Jacobinism and emancipation) from her own quarters without any resistance. In addition, it is left unclear who kills her (Arsenne?), as well as who was Paulette working with against Diron. Furthermore, the novel could have been superior by including more voices of enslaved people, allowing us to truly understand the motives, interests, and agency of the rebel slaves directly. One could easily question the noble portrait the narrator depicts of M. de Libertas, the overseer at the Bréda, who, along with his wife, are praised as 'humane' overseers who also question the ethical basis of slavery. This is perhaps an attempt to add nuance to the degrees to which various whites, including those profitting directly from slavery, can still abhor the institution, matching the contradictory ways many historical actors responded to the Haitian Revolution. Yet, personally, I found it to be taken as a given, much like the assumed leadership role Toussaint Louverture is predicted to occupy.
These aforementioned inconsistencies or problems aside, Bontemps novel is certainly radical for its praise or moral defense of the Haitian Revolution. All the excess and violence of colonial society is on full display, and as the narrator explains, all of the horrific violence committed by the slaves is in response to the violence and degradation of slavery, although one could do without the constant label of savage being applied to the actions of the slaves. Indeed, the narrator even calls Boukman and Baissou "stupid" and lacking true leadership to carry forth the revolution beyond the giddy early days. Despite the less than flattering language used here, Bontemps's sympathies are unquestionably favorable to the slave insurgents and Diron Desautels, whose own role shifts. Instead of being led by white saviors or sparked by Les Amis des Noirs, the revolution is certainly an example of black agency, and not uniquely violent or savage considering the excessive brutality and cruelty of colonial society against slaves and free people of color.
As the exceedingly useful introduction by Michael P. Bibler and Jessica Adams elucidates, the novel was written in the 1930s, during a context of Jim Crow, the recent end of US Occupation of Haiti (but the US retained control of Haitian customs well into the 1940s), the rise of fascism in Europe, and exchanges between progressives and black writers across the globe. Reflecting the above, Drums at Dusk proposes a positive story in the Haitian Revolution that upholds the righteousness of resistance to unjust authority, examining the various ideological underpinnings of the era (Enlightenment, African, ancien régime). Unfortunately, as the rebellious slaves and people of color are mainly in the background, their experiences are not foregrounded and we lack anything beyond the superficial analysis of 'voodoo,' with the Bois Caïman ceremony entirely erased. Slavery and mixed-race people certainly appear, such as the modiste mulatto and her numerous sisters, who represent an alternative to the stereotypes of mixed-race women as prostitutes or mistresses of whites, and the noble Toussaint or Mars likewise illustrate older, mature slaves poised to lead the black masses into a disciplined force.
Reading the novel's conclusion, one wonders if Bontemps ever contemplated writing a sequel. The prophetic narrator alludes to Toussaint and the future course of the Haitian Revolution, including cross-racial alliances, with tne narrative conduvice to a sequel on a perhaps interracial pro-emancipation army in Port-au-Prince (with Diron) and Toussaint in the North. Moreover, several characters, when finally realizing the full extent of the troubles facing Saint Domingue, decide to leave the island, many head to New Orleans, which could also be significant to Bontemps because of his possible origins in Saint Domingue. The potential for a sequel is overwhelming but, lamentably, Bontemps never completed one.
Favorite Quotes
"Sometimes fearful and repellent, sometimes enticing, the Haitian thicket was never dull." (33)
"Every class translated the fall of the Bastille into an opportunity for itself."
"Yes, admittedly, one could steal the black man from the jungle, but one couldn't steal the jungle from the black man." (37)
"The trouble with the ruling class, the Creoles born in the island, was that they simply didn't care what happened to Saint Domingue so long as they made enough money to return to Paris in splendor and live out their days in that city." (46)
"Mars always thought of the coachman somewhat as he might think of a man with eyes living in a country of blind beings." (77)
"Slavery had not failed to leave its mark; the slaves had come to distrust all whites." (163)
"The slaves were beyond mercy or compassion. A leaping, screaming circle of them, intoxicated with their desperately won freedom, driven wild by the imaginings of their own hearts and the examples of cruelty they had learned from their masters, made a frightful circle in the carriage road." (205)
No comments:
Post a Comment