On
In his essay, “Coming, coming home, Barbadian novelist
George Lamming supports Trinidadian
historian C.L.R. James’ description of Haiti’s thirteen year war of
independence which saw them defeating the armies of Napoleon’s France, Spain
and England, the three main European powers of that time, as, “…the only
successful revolt against slavery in all recorded history” and continues,
“…the odds it had to overcome are
evidence of the magnitude of the interests that were involved. The transformation of slaves, trembling in
hundreds before a single white man, into a people able to organize themselves
and to defeat the most powerful European nations of the day is one of the
greatest epics of revolutionary struggle and achievement.”
George Lamming goes on to remind us that;
“There was no socialist bloc in
1804, no non-aligned movement, no Organization of African Unity. The Haitians stood alone, in complete charge and
masters in their own land, in charge but utterly alone against the wounded
pride of
Sadly the neo-colonial education policy has systematically
erased knowledge of our achievements as triumphant freedom makers reducing
It would perhaps surprise many Jamaicans to know that
among the many evidences of the close, familial relations that have existed
among wide sections of the Jamaican and Haitian peoples for well over two
hundred years is the widely held fact that the Maroon chief and Vodou High Priest who was the signalman/leader who
initiated the revolt in August 1791 came from Jamaica. He initiated Toussaint L’Overture,
Dessalines, Jean Francois, Biassou
and other members of the general staff of the uprising. He led and gave the sermon at the historic
Bois Cayman Ceremony in the forests of north
Mixing fact and legend, Haitian historian Pauleus Sannon wrote the
following account of the Bois Cayman ceremony where Boukman
Dutty a Vodou priest, made
the sacred pact of the general slave revolt. The ceremony remains a seminal
event in the minds of many Haitians. In
the version taught to most Haitian schoolchildren, Sannon
writing in 1920, describes Boukman as a leader who
“exercised over all the slaves i.e., enslaved Africans] who came before him an
inexplicable influence. In order to wash
away all hesitation and to secure absolute devotion he brought together on the
night of
Sannon goes on to describe in dramatic
detail how an old Mambo, a Vodou priestess sacrificed
a black pig and in a ritual which Barry Chevannes in his
work, “Rastafari and other Afro-Caribbean
World-views”, describes as similar
to the Myal ritual which was used by Taki to initiate the Maroon revolt in St. Mary Jamaica in
1761. Sannon
continues,
“In seconds a torrential rain
floods the soil while under repeated assaults by a furious wind the forest
trees twist and weep and their largest branches violently ripped off, fall
noisily away. In the centre of this
impressive setting those present, transfixed, see an old dark woman arise. Her body quivers in lengthy spasms; she sings
pirouettes and brandishes a large cutlass overhead. An even greater immobility…the burning eyes
fixed on the black woman indicates that the spectators are spellbound. The black pig is brought forward its squeals
lost in the raging of the storm. With a
swift stroke the priestess plunges the cutlass…”
The speech of Boukman which
followed was described by Peter Espuet in his column
in the Daily Gleaner of August 16th, 1999, on the 208th
anniversary of the Bois Cayman Ceremony as the “most important speech ever made
by a Jamaican”. Critical to arriving at
an overview of Boukman’s place in world history, is
this account by James of the beginning of the slave revolt.
“The slaves worked on the land and
like revolutionary peasants everywhere they aimed at the extermination of their
oppressors…working and living in gangs of hundreds, on the huge sugar factories
that covered the North Plain (there were twelve thousand slaves in Le
Cap). They were closer to a proletariat
than any group of workers at the time and the rising was therefore a thoroughly
prepared and organized movement.
In and around Le Cap in the early months of 1791, Vodoo was the medium of the extensive revolutionary
conspiracy that was unfolding. By James’
account slaves traveled miles to sing dance practice their magical rites, talk
and make their plans, which were conceived on a grand scale and aimed at
exterminating the whites and taking the slave colony for themselves.
According to Theodore “Lolo” Beaubrun
co-founder of the Boukman Experyans,
a contemporary Haitian popular Vodou music group, Boukman had criticized the tactical course of Maroon chief Makandal, Boukman’s predecessor
who had maintained a policy of constant terror attacks centered on an elaborate
poisoning scheme. This did not impress Boukman overmuch.
High Priest “Zamba” as he was called was more
concerned with ending the attacking once and for all. He proposed a spiritual revolution as a
prerequisite for successful social revolution.
Instead of Makandal’s small tied bags of
poison, Boukman engaged in open-hearted oratory that
constantly affirmed the omnipotence of the one, black, original, Supreme
Creator.
The magic of his invocation, or prayer, or simply his
oratory, seems to have rested in the power of his sincerity and truth. Following is the translation of the final
moments of his Earth changing prayer;
“The God who created the sun which
gives us light, who rouses the waves and rules this storm, though hidden in the
clouds, he watches us. He sees all that
the white man does. The god of the white
man inspires him to crime, but our God who is good to us calls upon us to do
good works. Our God who is good to us
tells us to revenge our wrongs. He will
direct our arms and aid us.”
Then according to C.L.R. James Boukman
points to the crucifix bearing the European image of dead Jesus and says;
“Throw away the image of the God of the whites who thirsts for our tears
and listen to the voice of liberty that speaks within our One Heart”
In Boukman’s kweyol;
“Coute la libete li pale nan coeur
nous tous”. Boukman’s Vodou oratory still reverberates with contemporary
relevance and continues to shape and reshape the
Boukman, in my view personifies a nexus between
streams of African-Caribbean revolutionary spirituality that have for long been
ill-defined as peculiar to this or that nation.
Such varied expressions of the traditional triumphant and celebratory
elements of the Victorious African Presence in the west as Vodou
and Rastafari are singularly represented in the life
work contribution of Boukman Dutty. He unquestionably epitomizes an unconquerable
integrity, dignity, morality and ethic after which the principal players in
today’s world system vainly pursue but seem incapable of attaining.
Jamaicans join with the people of
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