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The Influences and Roles of Vodou and Marronage in the Haitian Revolution and Early Independent Haiti

Haigis, Stephanie Suzanne
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Abstract
This thesis investigates the influences and roles of Vodou and marronage in the Haitian Revolution and early independent Haiti. The first chapter explores the prevalence of Vodou and marronage in the motivational Bois Caïman ceremony and the 1791 slave insurrection that sparked the beginning of the Haitian Revolution. The second chapter highlights the influence of African military techniques and organization in addition to maroon band tactics and organization on insurgent bands in the 1791 slave insurrection and afterward as the Revolution progressed. It also depicts how Vodou rites and rituals continued to be used by insurgents to motivate them before a battle and intimidate their enemies. The third chapter emphasizes the ongoing importance of Vodou and marronage as means of mass resistance to the new plantation labor regimes established on the island after 1793. Once Hati gained its independence, the maroon-like independent farming lifestyle for self-sustenance merged into the rural egalitarian agricultural society known as the lakou, through which former slaves expressed their maroon and African ancestral ties. The lakou became the way the Haitian peasantry was able to become small-scale independent landowners focused on self-sustenance farming within a communal setting. Over the course of the Haitian Revolution and beyond, Vodou and marronage were used by slaves and then insurgents and laborers, to resist slavery, reoccurring plantation labor systems, and to reconstruct their desired maroon-like and African-influenced lifestyle in the lakou system.
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Thesis (B.A. in History, Minor in Humanistic Studies and Classical Studies)--John Cabot University, Spring 2022.
Date
2022
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Keywords
Vodou, Religion and politics, Politics and government
Citation
Haigis, Stephanie Suzanne. " The Influences and Roles of Vodou and Marronage in the Haitian Revolution and Early Independent Haiti". BA Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2022.
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