A Plan of investigation - To what degree is the Bois Caiman incident in Haiti at 14th of August 1791 a legend and what are facts?

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A Plan of investigation

To what degree is the Bois Caiman incident in Haiti at 14th of August 1791 a legend and what are facts?

This investigation seeks to evaluate the nature around the Bois Caiman ceremony and whether or not it affected the Haitian revolution 1791-1804, or actually occurred at all. In the evening of August 21 1791 the first great slave rebellion in Haiti occurred and it’s believed that this rebellion was organised on a secret slave meeting at August 14 in the Bois Caiman woods on Haiti. Some say at this day Haiti gave itself to the devil, others say slave rebellion leaders arranged the meeting, some historians even claim that the meeting never occurred, or that it was organised by the French governor to show the rich white people on Haiti that they needed French support and therefore should remain a French colony. Gathering information about the topic proved to be more difficult than assumed. Sources have mainly been internet web pages, and interviews with historians through mail and chat. There are remarkably few books written about the subject as well, so the information gathered in this essay comes from quite a variety of sources.

B Summary of evidence

In a report read at the Harriet Tubman seminar in November 1999, Robin Law at the university of Scotland said the following about the Bois Caiman ceremony  “According to the received story, the ceremony was presided over by one of the prospective leaders of the rebellion, Boukman, and involved the slaughter of a black pig, and the drinking of its blood by those assembled, who then swore obedience to Boukman.”

Historian David Geggus points that there were in fact two meetings. The first one was held at 14th of August and brought together over 200 delegates at the Mezy plantation. Then there was a second meeting held a few days later, but this meeting was more secret, and harder to piece together.

Historian Bob Corbett who has organised a Haitian e-mail group on internet says the following in his review of the Haitian revolution “On the evening of August 14th Dutty Boukman, a houngan and practitioner of the Petwo Voodoo cult, held a service at Bois Caiman. A woman at the service was possessed by Ogoun, the Voodoo warrior spirit. She sacrificed a black pig, and speaking the voice of the spirit, named those who were to lead the slaves and maroons to revolt and seek a stark justice from their white oppressors.”

Haitian bishop Joel Jeune claims that back in the slave days the Catholic Church said that black was the color of Satan, and therefore black people did not have a soul. The slaves turned disappointed away from God and on August 14th Boukman arranged a meeting in the Bois Caiman woods. There the slaves turned towards their African Gods, sacrificed a black pig, drank its blood and dedicated Haiti to the devil. 

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Rachel Beauvoir-Dominique and Eddy Lubin organised an expedition to the Bois Caiman forests in 1991 to investigate the incident. 50 interviews were carried out with people living around the holy forest, and they can tell that memories of the Bois Caiman meeting were still fresh among the people in Haiti.  

The French critic Leon-Francois Hoffmann. States early on in his essay about Bois Caiman  that "research on the Bois Caiman ceremony leads to the almost certain conclusion that we are dealing here not with a historical event but with a legend, who origins can be traced to ...

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