Le Devenir du Métissage Racial en Haïti

Le Devenir du Métissage Racial en Haïti, a brief essay on racial mixing in Haiti, is too short to be of much substance. However, as an early work of Haitian historian Henock Trouillot, it is interesting for providing insight into how Trouillot viewed race, Haitian culture, and the fate of the nation in 1948. Viewing race broadly as types of human beings not solely defined by pigmentation, the mainly African and French (the Indian mostly disappeared or left little genetic presence in Haiti, although Trouillot cites Jacob to reference the possible survival of pockets of Indians in different parts of Haiti) components in the making of the Haitian people are portrayed as the fundamental racial mixing in Haiti. While most Haitians were and are not "mulattoes" like some of the other Caribbean populations, this broader conception of "race" means that Haitians, the product of so many different types of African and French populations, are a highly mixed population. Indeed, this diversity is even praised as one of the benefits of not having a genetically isolated population. Furthermore, Trouillot's thoughts on Vodou and Creole present a mix of progressive and derogatory views. Creole, in Trouillot's mind, should be used to make the Haitian masses literate and, by extension, elevate the intellectual, social, and economic conditions of Haiti. Vodou, however, is seen as part of the primitive mentality of mysticism. This brings to mind Trouillot's later work on Vodou and the need to modernize Haiti by elevating the Haitian masses culturally. Overall, Trouillot's brief essay is more enlightening for demonstrating how Haitian intellectuals of the 1940s defined race and conceived the Haitian ethnie (though Trouillot adopts a historico-cultural model rather than a strictly bioanthropological methodology). One also sees in Trouillot how some Haitian historians and ethnologists, infused with a nationalist spirit and racial pride, sought to use education and the creation of a national mystique propagated by education and the state, to build a stronger state. One sees the influence of the Griots and Price-Mars here, albeit from a historical perspective.