Notes on French Culture in Haiti

Although not exactly the type of Haitian ethnological studies we usually read, we devoured J.B. Romain's Notes sur la culture française en Haiti. A short study based on a conference talk by the author in 1973, Romain outlines the areas of French cultural influence in Haiti. This, of course, is most evident in intellectual and literary culture, since Haiti, according to Romain's estimate, only had 200,000 Francophones. However, evidence of French influence is unsurprisingly ubiquitous in a former French colony whose official language includes French and a Creole with a French lexifier. Nonetheless, French influence in folk medicine, popular beliefs, song, politics, and other areas of Haitian life are evident. Haitian literary and intellectual currents undoubtedly evince this, since French literary models were an influence on Haitian arts and letters since the colonial period. How, exactly, to bring together the Francophone Haitian town and the Creole countryside of peasants, however, is not addressed here. Still, an interesting exploration of the French factor from J.B. Romain.