When Buddha Smiles

 

Although I have never been a fan of Paul Whiteman, an interest in early jazz and the contemporary music of the 1920s has brought him to my attention again. The very idea of Whiteman as the "King of Jazz" is absurd, especially when one compares his music to his contemporaries of New York, New Orleans, and Chicago "hot" jazz in of the era. But, there is a sense of tight arrangements and interesting musical elements to Whiteman's music. It's also important to contextualize early jazz by looking at other popular music of the time. So, why not explore dance band music of the 20s and see to what extent Whiteman really was a key figure in the history of the genre?

Prince Saunders

The internet is a wondrous thing. While googling Prince Saunders, this enlightening interview with Alcenat, an academic who is studying him, appeared. In addition to discussion Prince Saunders as a historical figure, the interview also covers African American emigration to Haiti in the 19th century, an area of interest to this blog. Although I have looked into the subject of Prince Saunders as part of my larger interest in African American/Haiti connections, Alcenat's work promises to unveil new discoveries about Saunders. I too am interested in him, especially what kind of role did he play with the African American emigration waves of the 1820s, under Boyer. But it's also relevant to discussions of black nationalism as an ideology among African Americans and black emigrationism. 

Indian Ocean Slavery

An enjoyable lecture on the topic of slavery and slave trade in the Indian Ocean (and the tyranny of the particular). Very enlightening about the global dimensions of European slave trading and its connections with the "Atlantic World." At the moment, I am currently interested in the captives from the Indian Ocean who were brought to Saint Domingue (Haiti) on French slave ships. Learning more about the "Mozambiques," "Malagasy" and "Indiens" sold into slavery in the Mascarenes and its relationship to the larger context of the French slave trade have been very informative. 

Brief Thoughts on "Taino DNA" and Caribbean Indigeneity

While perusing old papers and documents in various Google Drive accounts, I came across an old essay on Taino revivalism in Puerto Rico. This has inspired me to revisit some of my past interests in the precolonial Caribbean, as well as the legacy of the indigenous inhabitants. Needless to say, I find a continued interest in the alleged "Taino" DNA in contemporary Puerto Ricans, which the above video contributes to. None of this is new at all. A quick perusal of travel accounts, traditions, and histories of Puerto Rico often allude to the "Indian" inheritance among the Puerto Rican population. Whether or not it was really traceable to the Taino was unknown, since Europeans imported "Amerindian" captives from other parts of the Americas to their Caribbean colonies. But, it was often alleged that the Puerto Rican jibaro possessed Indian blood, by everyone from Schoelcher to Salvador Brau. 

Of course, given the demographics of the early colonial Spanish Caribbean, it is no surprise that many of the current populations in Puerto Rico are descendants of European males, Indian women, and Africans who formed the nucleus of the colonial populations in the 16th century. Indeed, I suspect my Hispanic Caribbean roots to consist of a mixture of African, European and probable Indian ancestry through a family lineage that has been in the Caribbean for several centuries (I must confess, I lost interest in the 1700s, but they were likely established in Puerto Rico since the 1600s or 1500s). However, recent advances in analysis of pre-Columbian Puerto Rican remains do suggest there is some continuity between the earlier indigenes of Puerto Rico and populations living there today. Moreover, one should suspect many aspects of rural life in the Caribbean today resemble or inherited aspects of indigenous agricultural practices, particularly since they were the ones who likely showed Europeans and Africans the ropes in adapting to Caribbean environments. Who knows, it is even possible that some of the folklore of the region has inherited bits and pieces of our Amerindian past, although I am unsure how one could ever prove it.

So, why do groups like neo-Taino organizations endeavor to revive the indigenous past or legacy when it was so quickly incorporated into new colonial identities forged by European colonialism and enslavement of Africans? In my past ramblings on this subject, I linked it to a theory of indigeneity as performance, indigeneity and sovereignty, and re-racialization of genetic science on the part of gene fetishists. An example of the first is a National Indigenous Festival of Jayuya, in which a beauty pageant consists of contestants dressing themselves up in ways that allegedly resemble those of the indigenous population. Needless to say, contestants believed to look like the Tainos were favored, and the whole charade links Taino-ness to the performance of stereotyped traits. Neo-Taino groups have also attempted to perform indigeneity through the reinvention of rituals, clothing styles, and language to counter narratives of Taino extinction. The performance of a "Taino" identity is, through the aforementioned practices and rituals, legitimated as an expression of group identity, even if they lack any degree of historical veracity. However, if identity truly is just performance, then one can understand and even recognize indigenous performativity on the part of some Puerto Ricans as being as legitimate as the official, tri-racial discourse of Puerto Rican national identity (which, needless to say, is also problematic and creates it own demons of racial inequality).

It also comes into play as an expression of sovereignty. Indeed, since the 19th century, writers of the Spanish Caribbean have utilized the indigenous past for expressions of their own nationalism. Invoking the caciques of the past, or the brutality of the Spanish conquest, could serve the greater cause of independence and nation-making for the diverse, subjugated colonial populations of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. Attempts in the 20th and 21st century to revive outright Taino identities can also serve this purpose of sovereignty and self-rule for Puerto Ricans living under US rule on the island or in economically and racially marginalized spaces in the US mainland. Indeed, assertions of indigeneity lend weight to Puerto Rican demands for reparations, independence, and alternatives to the official historical narrative. Unsurprisingly, the historical record will always contain its errors or blank spaces, but indigenous revivalism forces society to remember the silencing of indigenous lives after European conquest, reasserting the rights of subaltern voices and their descendants. Even if some of the proponents of indigenous revivalism commit themselves to gene fetishism and reinscribing "race" to understanding DNA, they are hardly alone for using genes or "race" to determine membership or status of indigenous communities. 

To conclude the aforementioned thoughts, the question of indigenous identity and, increasingly, the use of science and DNA to justify said claims, are more interesting for the motivations rather than outright rejection or refusal. Although some of the attempted revivals and historical scholarship are inherently problematic and, in some cases, questionable or false, indigeneity remains a dynamic concept. It cannot be simply stuck in the past with the expectation of "racial" homogeneity over time and a specific place or land attached to it. Identities are too flexible and permeable to allow for such an understanding, past or present. In truth, the pre-colonial peoples of the Caribbean were too diverse and mobile to allow for such a simplistic view. Further, it clearly resonates with groups living in colonial conditions today, just as it did for 19th century independence movements. Perhaps the idea of indigeneity in Haiti is of applicable interest here. In the Haitian case, the leaders of the revolutionary army invoked indigeneity, too, calling their army an indigenous one. Later Haitian writers picked up the theme again, invoking Haitianness as "indigenous." For Dessalines and subsequent Haitians, Haiti avenged the "Amerindian" inhabitants of the island and claimed the space for themselves as a sovereign state, directly linking indigeneity with sovereignty. For the most part, Haitians do not claim direct ancestry from the Taino, but we too have a complex relationship of our own with the idea of indigeneity and anti-colonialism. Perhaps that's the best definition of indigeneity we can arrive at for the Caribbean, one that is mobile, diverse, and opposed to colonialism. 

Palenques on the Pacific (Guest Post)

 Palenques on the Pacific

            African-descended communities living along the Pacific coast of Colombia have, since the 1990s, sought to organize community councils and take advantage of state recognition of collective territorial rights. The Pacific coast, a region predominantly peopled by Afro-Colombians, was also historically shaped by the history of slavery, extractive mining, and the forms of slave resistance and manumission, including the foundation of runaway slave communities. Scholars such as Ulrich Oslender have also examined the specific spatiality of the Pacific lowlands, in particular its riverine environment and its impact on Afro-descended communities. However, Afro-Colombian social movements of the 1990s and 2000s were profoundly shaped by the history of marronage in the region. The symbolism of palenques in the region influenced the historical narratives of Afro-Colombian movements and how they conceived of themselves in relation to place, local histories, community, labor, and organization. This occurs even in the context of a region where historical runaway slave communities were less common, such as in the Pacific coast of Colombia. Here, despite the paucity of documented runaway slave communities, self-manumission and the relative autonomy of free black Colombians ensured marronage and the lived history of autonomous black communities would define Afro-Colombian movements of the contemporary era. This paper shall explore this topic first through a historical overview of Afro-Colombian resistance to slavery and the foundation of black communities in the colonial and post-emancipation period. Then, the paper shall discuss how Afro-Colombian social movements have used marronage in relation to the geography and environment of the Pacific Coast. This shall demonstrate that marronage has profoundly impacted Afro-Colombian social movements through a sense of rootedness based on the local geography and coastal environment, shaping the ways in which these communities defined themselves and their historical origins.

            The Pacific coast of Colombia is often perceived as the overwhelmingly “black” or predominantly Afro-descendant region of the nation. Unlike the Caribbean Coast, which also features a large Afro-Colombian population, Colombia’s western coast is perceived by Colombians as “blacker” and, according to anthropologist Peter Wade, less racially mixed than the Caribbean coast. Demographic factors such as the high number of African slaves imported into the region and the recent movement of mestizo and white highlanders into the region explain the region’s overwhelmingly Afro-Colombian heritage.[1] The Pacific lowlands are also a part of what anthropologist Norman Whitten described as an Afro-Hispanic cultural sphere extending along the coastline of Colombia and Ecuador, featuring a peasant-proletariat-entrepreneur adaptive mobility that can be experienced by inhabitants at various moments in their lives.[2] This coastline, a product of centuries of African enslavement, manumission, and extractive gold panning in its riverine setting, fell under Spanish colonial rule in the 16^th century, but enslaved Africans exploited to pan for gold were often able to purchase their own freedom.[3] This paved the way for a large free black population and an enslaved labor force capable of attaining emancipation without recourse to large-scale escapes which necessitated forming fortified villages independent of colonial authority. While this occurred in Colombia’s Caribbean coast most famously with the Palenque de San Basilio, historically documented maroon settlements in Colombia’s Pacific lowlands appear to have been quite rare, the notable exception being El Castigo on the Patía River.[4] However, enslaved and free blacks were able to, after earning enough to buy their freedom through panning for gold, pursue a subsistence economy combining wage labor, mining, agriculture, and fishing in order to form self-sufficient communities rooted in particular rivers and extended family kinship networks, or troncos.[5] Formed by black miners, these social organizations were modeled on cognatic groups, and used genealogy to construct narratives about the origin of the extended family.[6] These oral traditions in turn shaped cultural practices such as wakes and can be rooted back in the free black, or libre, and runaway slave claims to land, the rights passed on to their descendants.[7]

The tradition of décimas, the “creative source of collective memories, local history and aquatic epistemologies,” similarly drew on the rich oral traditions from the extended family kinship system and the spatial mobility of Pacific lowlands populations.[8] Retelling deeds and ways of life of past generations, they also allow for the community to express cultural values while simultaneously developing what Oslender designates a “hidden transcript of resistance.”[9] Like the oral traditions of the Saramaka community of Suriname in Richard Price’s First Time, décimas change local figures or symbols in history to adapt to new needs and lives of Afro-Colombian communities today. However, Afro-Colombian popular lore in the Pacific region does not recount slavery. Paradoxically, Afro-Colombians in the region refer to themselves as libre, indicating there is a sense in which they are a “free” or “freed” population, but popular tradition does not record chattel slavery. These Afro-Colombian communities, like the Saramaka maroons, recreate their past through memory, thereby adapting their traditions to satisfy new necessities and conditions.[10] Paradoxically, the comparable “first-time” of the Afro-Colombian Pacific coastal populations can be traced to the traditions of the palenque and free blacks, or libres, commemorating local actors, traditions, and relations that act as a fountainhead of identity.[11] The décima additionally acts as a “homeplace,” or social space free from colonial and national control in which communities could feel secure, comfortable, and engage in solidarity.[12] In other words, the oral tradition created a space for Afro-Colombian communities to practice local solidarity, community, and express themselves freely, like the maroon societies of the past. While Oslender highlights the importance of local rivers and environments embedded in this oral tradition, it also reflects the larger migratory patterns of Afro-Colombians displaced by paramilitary conflict, urbanization, and the search for employment opportunities abroad, allowing for some degree of continuity and knowledge to be passed on to the next generation.

These Afro-Colombian communities engaged in panning for gold, migration to work in the haciendas of the Cauca Valley, and by the end of the 19^th century, were cultivating rubber for the global market in areas such as the Chocó Department.[13] The Afro-Hispanic culture of the littoral similarly cultivated a unique form of popular Catholicism due to the weakness of the Catholic Church in the region, blending African, indigenous, and European practices for unique cultural practices, such as the velorio, or wakes for the dead and saints, featuring drums and African-influenced music.[14] In addition, the African-derived marimba instrument occupied an important status as musical recreation in the region, particularly in the currulao genre. The rejection of marimba music by dominant white tastes further reflected the cultural resistance of Afro-Colombian communities in the region against white elites and authorities.[15] Their cultural formation, based on adaptive mobility within the region and various subsistence and wage labor practices, resembled to a certain extent the maroon settlements because of their local autonomy, extended kinship structures reflecting African and European influences, and their complex interactions with  the (post)colonial state. For example, some runaway slave settlements modeled their government on colonial government titles and requested churches or chapels.[16] Collective labor practices such as the minga likewise connected peasants in their local communities while suggesting the importance of African agrarian practices, since similar cooperative labor practices can be found among peasant descendants of slaves along the Caribbean littoral, Haiti, and Jamaica. Although cooperative labor practices declined as the cash economy and the proletarianization of Afro-Colombian communities expanded in the 20^th century, such terminology entered the vocabulary of contemporary social movements, shaping the rhetoric of the Proceso de Comunidades Negras and younger generations of black organizers.[17]

Like the maroon societies of other nations, Afro-Colombians on the Pacific also faced the burden of nationally-sponsored extractive industries and development plans, which infringed on local land rights and territorial claims, pushing some to work in other regions. Afro-Colombians along the littoral were also workers in the sugar haciendas of the Cauca Valley, a department with its own large black peasant population.[18] This migration was a significant aspect of the spatial mobility of the Pacific where inhabitants were peasants, workers, and entrepreneurs along a continuum, adapting to the environment and its geography. This aforementioned pattern of peasants working for wages, such as the migration of coastal farmers to the sugar haciendas of the Cauca Valley, exemplifies this trend. Black residents of the Cauca, like those in other Pacific regions, resisted land encroachment of the haciendas and brought their own African-influenced beliefs into account for wage labor and mitigating its impact on social cohesion. Indeed, according to Taussig, the belief in magic and wage labor’s association with the devil reflected the difference between exchange value and use value among the semi-proletarianized Afro-Colombian workers, which included a large contingency of migrant workers from the coast. According to Taussig, “In the sugarcane plantations of the Cauca Valley and in the tin mines of highland Bolivia it is clear that the devil is intrinsic to the process of the proletarianization of the peasant and to the commoditization of the peasant's world. He signifies a response to the change in the fundamental meaning of society as that meaning registers in precapitalist consciousness.”[19] Moreover, this pattern of using local beliefs, which combined Catholicism with their African-influenced beliefs, to resist the dominant order’s political economy of wage labor and development resembles past maroon societies for their religious and cultural heritage and its threat to the dominant colonial state’s vision of progress, labor, and order. In this case, postemancipation black peasantries sought to resist the dominant logic of hacienda production and the growth of capitalist social relations, which hindered access to land, weakened cooperative labor practices, fueled class inequalities, and subverted local autonomy through the global market. Their “superstitious” belief in magic was thus a product of a culture where magic reflected the values of their enslaved past and the values of freed slaves, thus a direct link to the symbolism of the palenque. In the Pacific lowlands as well, the Catholic saints and their power to intervene are taken seriously by the riverine villages, including beliefs in the abilities of the saints to save villages from natural disasters, as the patron saint of the community of Salahonda supposedly did on two occasions.[20] Indeed, locals develop close ties with their own individual patron saint, a patronato, which they could be possessed by in rituals involving a maestra or sindica who connects a family or community with their saints. Although Afro-Colombians did not develop a tradition comparable to Haitian Vodou or Cuban Santeria, their African-influenced practices of saint worship clearly demonstrate continuity with the practices of the free blacks and runaway slaves of the region in the past.[21] These in turn are part of the larger spiritual and magico-religious perspective of local communities, shaping their resistance in the past and present.

By the 1990s, after land and labor movements sponsored by the Catholic Church and a race-based Afro-Colombian cultural movement which embraced the symbolism of palenques burgeoned, the Colombian state extended territorial land rights to Afro-Colombians in the Pacific with community councils to administer the new collective land titles.[22] Acting in accordance with larger shifts in Latin American state policy regarding indigenous communities and multiculturalism, Afro-Colombians living along the Pacific littoral were also granted collective land rights, like other Afro-Latin American populations, based on an ethnic view of “blackness” tied to heritage, culture, land tenure, and traditions.[23] Thus, the lens of marronage provide a useful analytic lens to explore Afro-Colombian social movements, especially the cultural, historical, and spatial implications of contemporary social movements in the region. Beginning in the 1970s with the overtly race-based Afro-Colombian organizations, such as Cimarron, the symbolic importance of marronage emerges clearly for Afro-Colombians. Cimarronismo as an ideology was promoted by black Colombian organizations in 1970s and 1980s, melded well with Black Power era, African decolonization, and used the history of palenques to assert black autonomy against the state and its mestizo ideal. Derived from the word for feral cattle, these black Colombian organizations were asserting the right for self-determination and autonomy from a racist state, drawing on the example of fugitive slave communities which carved an autonomous existence from the colonial state. To black Colombian organizations and intellectuals of the time, this also meant cultural autonomy from dominant state ideals of race and culture, which were to be defined by Afro-Colombians themselves.[24] Local self-determination or self-definition, a value cherished by palenques and freed blacks, represented again the symbolic power of marronage for black mobilization in the 1970s and 1980s.

However, grounding a movement based on racial identity in a nation where racial dynamics are more fluid than the US rule of hypodescent entailed complications for its capacity for mass mobilization. Thus, a shift toward the ethnicization of blackness and the assumption of cultural custodianship of the Pacific Coast’s biodiversity, combined with a state reading of the multicultural heritage of the black and indigenous minorities as a right to difference in the 1991 constitution, permitted the next stage in the region’s black social movements.[25] Like the historical example of maroon settlements in Colombia, Afro-Colombians were recognized by the state and their rights to their own land and worship, except this time through state-sanctioned community councils established to demarcate collective lands and administer their communities in accordance with local desires. Ley 70 and recognition of land rights imposed an indigenous model onto blacks, defining them in terms of ‘traditional’ modes of production, which ignored diversity of black mobility, labor, and traditions along the Pacific coast.[26] As a result, community councils were established and the new organizations had to confront the spatially adaptive lifestyle of the coastal black population and the ways in which the numerous rivers and the lowland geography shape local communities. Intellectuals such as Carlos Rosero and organizations like the Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN) survived the transition from pre-1991 constitutional reforms and the establishment of councils for the communal lands, but encountered difficulties because of the problematic ways in which the indigenous model for collective land rights was extended to Afro-Colombians. Unfortunately, guerrillas, paramilitaries, and narco-capitalists have, like the Colombian state’s neoliberal extractive interests, introduced violence, displacement, and environmental degradation into a region which had once been relatively free of the political violence that characterized other departments of the nation.[27] Consequently, Afro-Colombians are paradoxically expected to be custodians of the collective land granted to them by the state, while simultaneously experiencing aggression and dislocation wrought by paramilitary forces, narco-capitalists investing in unsustainable ventures such as palm oil, thereby disrupting the very ability of black communities to preserve their spatially adaptive cultures within the Pacific lowlands. Indeed, Afro-Colombians displaced by the conflicts in the region have ended up in other regional cities of Colombia, and are losing some of their ties to the communities rendered collective territorial rights by the state.[28] In addition, the state’s attempts to curb illicit coca agriculture involves a dangerous process of aerial fumigation which damages other types of crops, as well as poses a health risk for black communities while limiting their capacity for stronger subsistence and commercial agriculture.[29] Likewise, neoliberal reforms and the pursuit of export-oriented agriculture, such as the palm tree venture promoted by the Colombian government in Guapi, have reduced the Pacific’s self-sufficiency, making Afro-Colombian communities more dependent on migration to other regions of the country for employment. Due to low wages and the seasonal labor at the processing plant of the palm hearts, as well as illegal exploitation of palm trees from neighboring areas, such extractive neoliberal development schemes serve to reproduce the Pacific coast’s poverty and displacement of its population.[30] Hence, the neoliberal state’s recognition of multiculturalism has not ended the national state’s interest in development, which, as Arturo Escobar persuasively argued, culminates in displacement, in spite of the rhetoric of cultural politics. Unsurprisingly, the black communities’ interest in autonomous collectivity, inspired by the history of marronage and black resistance, was thwarted.

Modern Afro-Colombian social movements in the Pacific littoral today have inherited this legacy of challenges and contradictions of neoliberalism, racism, and the extractive state. Oslender’s ethnographic work among communities on the coast reveals their diversity and the fundamental way in which the spatial logic of the riverine environment influences their necessities, habits, and labor, creating friction for the organization of councils. According to Oslender, “black communities should therefore be regarded as a heterogeneous group whose members articulate at times different aspirations, interests, and strategies and engage in complex individual and collective negotiations within their own group, as well as with other actors, notably the state and capital.”[31] This vital role of the shape of the river and how it impacts community formation and mobility thereby shapes the form of the community councils. Additionally, the assumption that race-based politics alone will drive the movement is problematic since the spatial logic of the river means that each community will have different interests and relationships with their adjacent waterway. Extended kinship structure and land inheritance also permits movement to different riverine settlements, not to mention generational strife as the younger generation loses touch with previous traditions through migration and urbanization. Thus, these communities are heterogeneous and their spatial adaptation to their environment resembles that of the maroon settlements and free black social formations. They inherit some of the cultural traits of the previous generations but also reveal the limitations of a racially essentialist view of maroon societies. Nor are they frozen in time replicas of the fugitive slave and libre social formations, since they have experienced proletarianization, state penetration of their local economy, race-based and labor movements, and the contemporary ethnic-based politics based on a so-called “traditional” lifestyle. Ricardo Castro, for example, was born in a village in the Pacific lowlands, worked in the sugarcane plantations of the Cauca Valley, became involved in the sugarcane workers’ union, and later returned to his village on the Guajui River to become involved in local politics and contribute to the river organization established as part of the 1993 reforms. Castro’s spatial and occupational mobility prepared him for roles of leadership through labor unions, community institutions, and life experience, an aspect of the cultural life of the region which draws from its maroon heritage.[32] Furthermore, the ideal of direct representation of the members of these communities in the community councils was limited by the environment, which hindered quick transport to attend meetings. In fact, the councils were forced to provide food to locals in order to entice them to attend meetings.[33] In spite of this grim reality of the community councils, they nonetheless reflect the degree to which the heritage of marronage shaped the process of spatially adaptive mobility, which in itself can be restricted by the environment in ways unconducive to large-scale organization.

In conclusion, Afro-Colombian social movements on the Pacific littoral have been profoundly shaped by the history and symbolism of marronage. Despite the relative rarity of maroon settlements in the region because of the high rates of self-manumission, Afro-Colombian communities since the colonial era have forged autonomous spaces across the coastal lowlands. These communities inherited the discursive and religious practices of their free black forebears, adapted to the unique geographic factors in the riverine environment, and have used popular lore to recount their origins while paradoxically omitting their history of enslavement. Subsequent social movements in the Pacific coast and the Cauca Valley similarly reflect these aforementioned patterns of spatial mobility, oral tradition, African-influenced religious practices, and resistance to the extractive notions of development of the state. Contemporary social movements likewise draw on the history of cooperative labor structures, sustainable development, and the symbolic and spatial power of marronage as self-determination and “homeplace” through collective decision-making bodies and councils. Efforts to define themselves in relation to their environment and move beyond a simply race-based politics, have allowed contemporary Afro-Colombians to develop an ethnic politics built around their right to difference within the multicultural neoliberal state, while also ironically placing impediments on their ability to ensure local autonomy and sustainability. The Afro-Colombian movement consequently provides a useful example of how the history of slave resistance and identity formation can develop without formal maroon settlements, unlike the Saramaka in Suriname, yet explaining their origins through similar traditions and historical narratives.

 

Bibliography 

Arocha, Jaime. "Inclusion of Afro-Colombians: Unreachable National Goal?" Latin American Perspectives 25, no. 3 (1998): 70-89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2634167.

Culver, William, and Thomas C. Greaves. Miners and Mining in the Americas. London: Manchester University Press, 1986.

Escobar, Arturo. "Displacement, Development, and Modernity in the Colombian Pacific." International Social Science Journal 55, no. 175 (2003): 157-67. doi:10.1111/1468-2451.5501015.

Gutmann, Matthew C., Matos Rodríguez Félix V., and Lynn Stephen, eds. Perspectives on Las Américas: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2003.

Hoffmann, Odile. "Collective Memory and Ethnic Identities in the Colombian Pacific." Journal of Latin American Anthropology 7, no. 2 (2008): 118-38. doi:10.1525/jlca.2002.7.2.118.

Leal, Claudia. Landscapes of Freedom: Building a Postemancipation Society in the Rainforests of Western Colombia. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2018.

McFarlane, Anthony. "Cimarrones and Palenques: Runaways and Resistance in Colonial Colombia." Slavery & Abolition 6, no. 3 (1985): 131-51. doi:10.1080/01440398508574897.

Offen, Karl H. "The Territorial Turn: Making Black Territories in Pacific Colombia." Journal of Latin American Geography 2 (2003): 43-73.

Oslender, Ulrich. The Geographies of Social Movements: Afro-Colombian Mobilization and the Aquatic Space. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016.

Price, Richard. First-time: The Historical Vision of an Afro-American People. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.

Price, Richard. Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1973.

Price, Thomas James. Saints and Spirits: A Study of Differential Acculturation in Colombian Negro Communities. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1975.

Restrepo, Eduardo. "Ethnicization of Blackness in Colombia." Cultural Studies 18, no. 5 (2004): 698-753. doi:10.1080/0950238042000260405.

Taussig, Michael. The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010.

Wade, Peter. Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in Colombia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.

Wade, Peter. "The Cultural Politics of Blackness in Colombia." American Ethnologist 22, no. 2 (1995): 341-57. http://www.jstor.org/stable/646706.

Whitten, Norman E. Black Frontiersmen: A South American Case. Cambridge: Schenkman Pub. Co, 1974.

---

[1] Peter Wade, Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in Colombia (Baltimore: Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 87.

[2] Norman E Whitten, Black Frontiersmen: A South American Case (Cambridge: Schenkman Pub. Co, 1974), 168.

[3] Peter Wade, Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in Colombia, 87.

[4] Claudia Leal, Landscapes of Freedom: Building a Postemancipation Society in the Rainforests of Western Colombia (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2018), 46.

[5] Karl H Offen, "The Territorial Turn: Making Black Territories in Pacific Colombia," Journal of Latin American Geography 2 (2003): 57.

[6] Nina S. de Friedemann, “Troncos among black miners in Colombia,” in Miners and Mining in the Americas, eds. William Culver and Thomas C. Greaves (London: Manchester University Press, 1986), 204, 207.

[7] Ibid, 206.

[8] Ulrich Oslender, The Geographies of Social Movements: Afro-Colombian Mobilization and the Aquatic Space (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), 65.

[9] Ibid, 47.

[10] Eduardo Restrepo, "Ethnicization of Blackness in Colombia," Cultural Studies 18, no. 5 (2004): 701-703.

[11] Richard Price, First-time: The Historical Vision of an Afro-American People (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), 6.

[12] Ulrich Oslender, The Geographies of Social Movements: Afro-Colombian Mobilization and the Aquatic Space, 72.

[13] Claudia Leal, Landscapes of Freedom: Building a Postemancipation Society in the Rainforests of Western Colombia, 76.

[14] Norman E Whitten, Black Frontiersmen: A South American Case, 127.

[15] Claudia Leal, Landscapes of Freedom: Building a Postemancipation Society in the Rainforests of Western Colombia, 212.

[16] Anthony McFarlane, "Cimarrones and Palenques: Runaways and Resistance in Colonial Colombia." Slavery & Abolition 6, no. 3 (1985): 144.

[17] Odile Hoffmann, "Collective Memory and Ethnic Identities in the Colombian Pacific." Journal of Latin American Anthropology 7, no. 2 (2008): 125.

[18] Michael Taussig, The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 97.

[19] Ibid, 18.

[20] Ulrich Oslender, The Geographies of Social Movements: Afro-Colombian Mobilization and the Aquatic Space, 87.

[21] Thomas J. Price, Saints and Spirits: A Study of Differential Acculturation in Colombian Negro Communities. (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1975), 34, 150.

[22] Ulrich Oslender, The Geographies of Social Movements: Afro-Colombian Mobilization and the Aquatic Space, 14.

[23] Peter Wade, "The Cultural Politics of Blackness in Colombia," American Ethnologist 22, no. 2 (1995): 349-350.

[24] Ibid, 344.

[25] Ulrich Oslender, The Geographies of Social Movements: Afro-Colombian Mobilization and the Aquatic Space, 163.

[26] Peter Wade, "The Cultural Politics of Blackness in Colombia," American Ethnologist 22, no. 2 (1995): 350.

[27] Arturo Escobar, "Displacement, Development, and Modernity in the Colombian Pacific," International Social Science Journal 55, no. 175 (2003): 159.

[28] Ibid, 164.

[29] Ulrich Oslender, The Geographies of Social Movements: Afro-Colombian Mobilization and the Aquatic Space, 169.

[30] Ibid, 148-149.

[31] Ibid, 105.

[32] Ibid, 90-91.

[33] Ibid, 199.

Barbarian Europe

 

A very useful lecture for those interested in some of the historical context for Norse sagas, literature, and mythology. Will be revisiting this for my additional forays into Icelandic sagas and medieval literature, particularly those set in the pre-Viking past. 

Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor

An informative podcast episode about an important tale in the history of written literature. Although, sadly, it is too brief, it is not fragmentary like some of the later stories in Demotic. It also, despite its brevity, points to shipwreck, adventures at sea, and mysterious encounters with supernatural events as key themes in ancient literature. Moreover, the vast serpent met by the sailor is the self-proclaimed king of Punt, suggesting ways in which this early work of fiction can be linked to ancient depictions of East Africa (or the Horn) as a source of wonder and luxury goods. Unlike the later Setne cycle of tales, where a Nubian magician is a a source of rivalry for Egypt, the people of Punt never appear in the story. Nevertheless, both this tale of shipwreck and wonder and works like Setne II point to possible ways Egyptian fiction may have influenced the depiction of "Ethiopia" to Greek writers of ancient "novels" or romances.

Bakaridian

Malian music is always a delight for the ears. This song, "Bakaridian," is surely a reference to a heroic figure from the history of Segu, Mali. The Bambara oral traditions are rich and contain a treasury of historical and mythical feats of the forebears of Segu. Unfortunately, there is no translation in French or English of lyrics for us. 

Alibée Féry's Short Stories

Although he seems to be a key writer of fiction in Haiti between Ignace Nau in the 1830s and the later short stories and novels produced from 1890-1915, it is difficult to find much information about Alibée Féry's literary writings. As a contemporary of Nau and the 1830s romanticists, Féry's short stories, published in Essais littéraires in 1876, seem to resemble the short stories of Nau and others published in journals like L'Union. Indeed, their brevity makes one think some of them were originally published in newspapers, presumably aimed at a similar audience as the works of of Nau and other anonymous contributors to Haitian journals. Intriguingly, Féry's collected works includes a glossary of Creole terms, suggesting he might have been addressing a non-Haitian audience to some undetermined extent.

Nonetheless, Féry avoids the lodyans style and deserves the distinction of being the first Haitian writer to compose a Bouqui et Malice tale, presumably based on oral tradition. Indeed, Féry's nouvelles often have a fairy-tale structure and bareness with minimal detail, supernatural events and creatures, and miraculous events. Indeed, with the exception of the Bouqui and Malice trickster tale, which is almost more focused on the fathers of the two figures, each story involves magical events, spirits, anthropomorphized animals, curses, or monsters. In that respect, Féry seems more interested in the "superstition" and folklore of the Haitian countryside than historic tales of Ignace Nau. 

Although it is probably misguided, it is interesting to think about Féry's tales as a precursor of sorts to early works of Black speculative fiction. Indeed, the number of ouangas, zombies, simbi spirits, monsters, and magical characters populating these short stories, often fragments, really, contain a wholly speculative character where the impossible and the implausible are everyday occurrences. For instance, a "ouangataire" curses a woman who chooses another man instead of him. His curse is passed on to her child, who turns out to be a serpent that eventually devours the ouangataire. Hidden messages in dreams assist our characters, as well as a friendly simbi spirit who transforms Monrose into an eel and takes him to his wondrous underwater palace in the river. Or, in the case of the beast without equal, angels bring an enchanted sword to an unnamed hero who must slay a monster. 

While one must admit the use of magic and elements of fantasy in Nau's Isalina, the tales of Féry are completely immersed in that world of zombies, charms, angels, monsters, and aid from the supernatural. Most have a happy ending as many fairy tales do, while the trickster tale ends with Petit Malice and his father playing a joke on the buffoonish Guiannacou and Bouqui. Each tale also imparts something of the values and beliefs of the Haitian people, from a positive perspective. One wonders how Féry actually felt about Vodou and "superstition" in his political life (and what of the connection between Romanticism and the irrational), but in the fairy-tales and snippets of of the fantastic here, a moral can always be found. One wonders how the nouvelles of Brun, Marcelin, Hibbert, and others in the late 19th century and early 20th century continue or deviate from this pattern. Finally, one wonders to what extent the Bouqui and Petit Malice tale of Féry has shaped the canon of Bouqui and Malice tales in the oral and written tradition.

The Heart of the Ngoni

Although this blogger is no fan of Harold Courlander's work on Haiti, his recounting of the Segu epics (with Ousmane Sako) is rather entertaining. The Segu epics, which bring to mind an epic historical fiction novel by a renowned Caribbean writer, should be read together for a fuller appreciation and understanding of Bambara civilization from the 1600s-1900s. Indeed, the story of the origin of Segu goes back far further, to Wagadu and Soninke origins, tying the Bambara with other ethnic groups in the Western Sudan (Mandingue, Soninke, Fula, etc.). And, as non-Muslims whose kingdom led an uneasy coexistence with Muslim groups (in addition to incorporating Muslim mystics) the embellished narratives of past Segu kings or heroes give an idea of social values and ideals along the Niger River at a time when 3 forces were irrevocably transforming West Africa: Islam, the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, and colonialism. While the coming of the white man is only important in the last tale of a Soninke town, and most of the tales focus on important figures and kings at the zenith of Segu's power, before the Muslim jihadists defeated Segu, the aforementioned 3 tides are unforgettably in the background. Anyone who has read the historical epic of Conde will see it immediately in these stories, focused as they are on the great kings and warriors in a time of chivalry and honor. 

Taino Mythology

 

This short video brings to life one of the Taino creation stories reported in an account of the Indians of Hispaniola written by Fray Ramón Pané. The written account, based on his experiences on the island in the 1490s, is obviously much closer to the source material. Yet, it has its problems, too. Pané's cultural bias, disdain for Taino religion and healers, language barriers, and passion for converting what he saw as heatens produces a plethora of problems. Still, anyone who wants to reconstruct the culture, beliefs, and practices of the indigenous population of Hispaniola must use these sources in some form. His account has undoubtedly influenced the above video segment retelling the origin of the sea with beautiful artwork. 

Muslims in Saint Domingue

Despite some of the strong assertions by scholars of a prominent role played by enslaved Muslims in Saint Domingue, most sources do appear not support that narrative. Two scholars in particular, Diouf and Gomez, promote unsubstantiated or speculative claims of prominent leaders among the slave rebels being Muslim. A Haitian blogger, Salnave, has dedicated several articles to disproving the thesis, albeit adding some of his own speculations in certain cases. So, what do the sources actually reveal about the presence of Muslims among the enslaved in Saint Domingue? And of what import does it come to bear on the history of slavery and Haiti? And how has the narrative of Islamic influences in the Haitian Revolution contributed to or hindered our understanding of it?

First, the sources can be uncertain or vague, and it is wrong-headed to attribute a Muslim identity to an African based on the name or assigned "nation." Our nearly encyclopedic source of information about the colony, Moreau de Saint-Méry, mentioned that many of the enslaved West Africans coming from the regions of the Senegal River to Sierra Leone were Muslims, but they mix Islam with idolatry. These aforementioned "nations" of Africans consisted of the Senegalese, Wolof, Poulards, Bambaras, Quiambas, Mandingues, Bissagots, and Soso, groups whose islamization, in some cases, postdates Haitian independence. In addition to some Islamic influences among captives from that region of West Africa, he claimed there were some Muslims from other areas of West Africa who mixed some Islamic practices with their idolatry (these "nations" coming from the lands from Cap Apollonie to the Gold Coast and Galba). However, Moreau de Saint-Méry's proves himself somewhat unreliable because he claims one of the few ways to tell if some West Africans were Muslim is if they were circumcised. He appears to think circumcision in Africa is linked to Islam, so one must question his claims of Islamic practices and influences upon the enslaved population. But his assertions of a Muslim presence among some of these groups is supported by Charlevoix, whose history of Saint Domingue mentions some Senegal Muslims in the colony.

Moreover, he also reveals himself to be a questionable witness because he claims the "Congo" included some with Islamic practices. The presence of Islam in West Central Africa during the 18th century was likely minimal, far less influential there than West Africa. Unless some of the captives came from areas of what are now eastern Congo, the Central African Republic, or Chad, their exposure to Islam was probably non-existent. Furthermore, many of the aforementioned "nations" who may have been Muslim or exposed to Islam, were largely practicing "traditional" religions until the 19th and 20th centuries (the Bambara come to mind). It is certainly possible that some of the previously mentioned West African "nations" included Muslims, as well as the Hausa, Yoruba, and Nupe, and additional captives from southeastern Africa. Indeed, there is also a remote chance of Muslim captives arriving in the colony from the Swahili Coast, Madagascar or India, though very unlikely. However, without more sources, assuming a significant Muslim presence among the enslaved population of Saint Domingue is speculative.

Another source used by Diouf and Gomez, Colonel Malenfant, attests to the presence of some literate Muslims in the colony. During the Haitian Revolution, slave rebels sometimes wore amulets with Arabic writing, a practice that was also common among non-Muslim groups in West Africa. Malenfant also describes an encounter with a literate African, named Tamerlan, who claimed to have come from a kingdom where writing and the production of books was common. Gomez deduced that Tamerlan was likely from a Muslim kingdom in West Africa, and the example of writing he produced for Malenfant, a long prayer of twenty lines written in a script Malenfant could not recognize, may have been ajami. Nonetheless, based on Malenfant's account of Tamerlan's literacy (one in a script associated with "long-haired mulattoes," perhaps the Tuareg or another population in the Sahel), Tamerlan assured him it was not Arabic. But, if it was ajami writing, however, one would think Tamerlan could have explained that to Malenfant? 

But, other details of Tamerlan's life before captivity do suggest a possible Muslim background. In addition to his role as a priest, instructor to a prince and maker of books or manuscripts, or so he claimed, he revealed to Malenfant that his hometown possessed 300,000 inhabitants. This is probably a reference to the total population the surrounding area of the capital city, not the royal capital itself. Intriguingly, the former capital city of the Bornu kingdom was, according to Dixon Denham, 200,000, before its fall during the early 19th century. It is likely that the majority of the structures in the city were constructed with wood or straw, like other cities of West Africa. Is there a chance Tamerlan was from the Kingdom of Bornu? He also said that he had not seen whites in his city, but the aforementioned long-haired mulattoes, probably a reference to the Tuareg or Berbers. He probably would have met other "whites" from Arab populations connected to Bornu via trans-Saharan networks, so uncertainty lingers. When he was captured, it took more than 3 months for him to reach the coast, where whites loaded the captives onto slave ships. This suggests he was from deep in the interior of what was most likely West Africa. The city of his king was built in wood, mostly of single-story homes. If true, then Tamerlan came from a very large city ruled by a powerful king. It is possible Tamerlan exaggerated some of these details to give an image of greater grandeur to his African past, but he clearly longed to return. According to Malenfant, he was one of the "few" Africans who wised to return to the continent, which suggests he probably enjoyed a position of great status. In consideration of all of the above, it is possible Tamerlan was indeed a Muslim from West Africa, but Malenfant's account is shrouded in hazy memory and doubt to prove it. Either way, Malenfant's memory of Tamerlan was linked to accounts of Muslim slaves in Saint Domingue.

Our next, and perhaps best source on Muslims in Saint Domingue, may corroborate a Muslim origin of Tamerlan. Etienne Michel Descourtilz, while at the Rossignol-Desdunes habitation in the Artibonite, collected details and accounts of the various African "nations" he encountered in Saint Domingue. For most, there is no mention of Islam. "Nations" which may have contained Islamic practitioners were not mentioned as Muslim. For instance, the Mozambiques are classified as Catholic and "Vaudoux" adherents, suggesting that most of the captives from southeastern Africa were not Muslim. There could have been a few who were, either from Mozambique, Tanzania, or Madagascar, but without sources it remains speculation. If anything, Descourtilz's experiences with Africans in Artibonite and Saint Domingue attests to the limited presence of Muslims among the enslaved, as the vast majority are mentioned with any reference to Islam.

Yet, Descourtilz does provide the best direct evidence of practicing Muslims in Saint Domingue. His two groups are the Phylani (Fulani), the Islamized among the Poulard of West Africa, and the "Beurno." His account of the former compares them to the Jews, although he describes their god as being Allah. The Phylani lived a nomadic lifestyle in Africa, stressed filial piety, and referred to their priest as "alpha." The Phylani group's religious holidays, abstention from pork, and prayers clearly demonstrate Islamic practices. Their priest or alpha was also literate, like Tamerlan. Besides the Phylani Muslim community in the colony, who were probably a very tiny one, Descourtilz wrote about the "Beurno" and their kingdom in Africa with some detail. According to Descourtilz, some slaves from "Beurno" toiled on the Rossignold-Desdunes plantation, thereby giving him multiple chances to speak with and observe the customs of "Beurno" Africans. 

"Beurno" is undoubtedly a reference to Bornu, a long-established kingdom in West Africa with roots in ancient Kanem. Their kings had converted to Islam several centuries before, and many of its subjects appear to have converted to Islam long before the Fulani jihads of the 1800s. Evidence of the Islamic influence upon the "Bornu" Africans can be found in what Descourtilz described as their strict submission of women to men, and gender separation of married women and men. According to Descourtilz, the religion of the Bornu resembled that of the Phylani, and they shared in their abstention from pork (they only consumed meat blessed by their alpha, or priest). Literacy was also present among the Bornu, who can read, write, transmit the code of their divine law. Descourtilz even described their custom of writing on wooden planks, a custom still seen in parts of Muslim West Africa. The religious texts produced in Bornu were highly valued, and many were willing to pay dearly or sell their livestock to purchase said texts. In short, the "Beurno" described by Descourtilz were, in at least some cases, devout Muslims whose social practices were influenced by Islam. The description of the king of "Beurno" and the prevalence of the slave trade also confirms the Bornu identification, although the specific "Beurno" captives met by Descourtilz were the defeated in a battle with rivals of Bornu.

So, via Descourtilz, we have direct accounts of at least two Islamized groups in Saint Domingue. It is unclear what their total numbers were, but a group of the "Beurno" were working at the Rossignol-Desdunes plantation. For the Phylani Muslims, their numbers were likely small, too. Descourtilz does not offer much in terms of understanding the influence of these two groups on other slaves, and their small numbers and distinct religion may have encouraged them to look inward and try to preserve some of their customs and practices. If they were like African Muslims in other parts of the Caribbean, they may have been able to survive as a small community for a few generations. But, if evidence from Trinidad and elsewhere is relevant to Saint Domingue and Haiti, one would think most of the Muslims in Saint Domingue vanished after a few generations or merged into the general population, possibly converting to Catholicism or joining Vodou adherents. I have yet to come across any sources attesting to Muslim communities after independence, and claims of Muslim Mandingue in Balan are likely exaggerated. 

 To conclude, one must admit the idea of an Islamic contribution to the making of Haiti clearly resonates with some of the African Diaspora. To me, it seems to be a reflection of inaccurate histories of Islam in Africa, black nationalist romances of Islam as "our religion" and, in some cases, an outdated civilizationist and vindicationist discourse used by some Haitian intellectuals to elevate the status of some of our forebears. Clearly, Price-Mars and Jean Fouchard thought very highly of the famous kingdoms and empires of the medieval Western Sudan. Some, like Fouchard, attribute literacy and refinement to these people through their contact with Arabs and Islam. Thus, they can foment a counter-narrative that suggests our African ancestors were not all illiterate peoples removed from the most important aspects of civilization. Of course, one would hope proponents of the Islamic theory distance themselves from that paradigm, but there is still a remnant of it in the way some scholars describe the esteem enslaved Muslims received from their masters. Undoubtedly it lives on through the legacy of Edward Blyden and 20th century Black Muslim movements. Regardless, we are stuck at the impasse described in Reed's Mumbo Jumbo, with Islam, Vodun, and "Atenism" as competing forces. 

Ultimately, the benefit of this revisionist scholarship, for what it's worth, is that it does shed light and add nuance to our understanding of the various peoples in Saint Domingue. It helps piece together who the forced migrants were, what their values may have been, and the kinds of societies from which they sprang. Indeed, Descourtilz's essay on the African "nations" of Saint Domingue was intimately linked to a history of Africa. Malenfant recognized the great use captives like Tamerlan could have for the European exploration of the African continent. Consequently, studying the origins of the African populations of Saint Domingue is also a study of the history of Africa. But until new evidence emerges, the tale of Islam in Saint Domingue will be one of a small minority who have contributed to the mosaic of Africa that is Haiti. The blog of Salnave has already demonstrated how limited the Islamic presence was and its role in the Haitian Revolution, but there will always be room for new interpretations and conclusions about the birth of Haiti.

Bibliography 

Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier de, and Jean Baptiste Le Pers. Histoire de l'isle espagnole ou de S. Domingue: ecrite particulierement sur des memoires manuscrits du p. Jean-Baptiste le Pers, Jesuite, missionnaire à Saint Domingue, & sur les pieces originales, qui se conservent au Dépôt de la marine. Amsterdam: F. L'Honoré, 1733.

Denham, Dixon, Hugh Clapperton, and Walter Oudney. Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa: In 1822, 1823, and 1824. London: J. Murray, 1831.

Descourtilz, Michel Étienne. Voyages d'un naturaliste, et ses observations faites sur les trois regnes de la Nature, dans plusieurs ports de mer francais, en Espagne, au continent d'Amerique septentrionale, a Saint-Yago de Cuba, et a Saint Domingue, ou l'Auteur devenu le prisonnier de 40,000 Noirs revoltes, et par suite mis en liberte par une colonne de l'armee frangais, donne des details circonstancies sur l'expedition du general Leclerc, 3 vols. Paris: Dufart, 1809.

Diouf, Sylviane A. Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas. New York: New York University Press, 1998. 

Geggus, David. "The French Slave Trade: An Overview." The William and Mary Quarterly 58, no. 1 (2001): 119-38. Accessed October 3, 2020. doi:10.2307/2674421.

Gomez, Michael A. Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 

Khan, Aisha. "Islam, Vodou, and the Making of the Afro-Atlantic." NWIG: New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 86, no. 1/2 (2012): 29-54. Accessed October 5, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41850693.

Malenfant, Col. Des colonies, et particulièrement de celle de Saint-Dominique: mémoire historique et politique, ou l'on trouvera, 1o un exposé impartial des causes et un précis historique des guerres civiles qui ont rendu cette dernière colonie indépendante, 2o des considérations sur l'importance de la rattacher à la métropole et sur les moyens de le renter avec succès, d'y ramener une paix durable, d'en rétablir et accroître la prospérité.
Paris: Audibert, (C.-F. Patris), 1814.

Moreau de Saint-Méry, Méderic Louis Élie. Description topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie françoise de l'isle Saint-Domingue. 3 vols. Philadelphia:  1797.

Salnave, Rodney. "Saint Domingue's islamized were submissive". September 29, 2020 ; Updated Sept. 30, 2020. [online] URL : https://bwakayiman.blogspot.com/2020/09/Saint-Domingues-submissive-islamized.html ; Retrieved on October 1, 2020.