CRÊTE: ridge or peak
DAMBALLAH: Vodou deity associated with snakes, one of the great loa
DÉSHABILLÉ: a house dress, apt in colonial Saint Domingue to be very revealing. White Creole women were famous for their daring in this regard.
DEVOIR: duty, chore
DJAB: demon
DOKTÈ-FEY: leaf doctor, expert in herbal medicine
DOUCEMENT: colloquially, “take it easy”
DOUCEMENT ALLÉ LOIN: “The softest way goes furthest”; a famously favorite proverb of Toussaint Louverture
ÉMIGRÉ: emigrant. In the political context of the time, émigré labeled fugitives from the French Revolution, suspected of royalism and support of the ancien régime if they returned to French territory, and often subject to legal penalty. Most former slave and propertyholders who returned to Saint Domingue between 1794 and 1801 were considered to be émigrés in this sense of the word, though technically the term did not apply to all of them.
ENCEINTE: pregnant
ERZULIE: one of the great loa, a Vodou goddess roughly parallel to Aphrodite. As Erzulie-gé-Rouge she is maddened by suffering and grief.
ESPRIT: spirit; in Vodou it is, so to speak, fungible
FAIENCE: crockery
FAIT ACCOMPLI: done deal
FAROUCHE: wild, unconventional
FATRAS-BATON: thrashing stick. Toussaint bore this stable name in youth because of his skinniness.
FEMME DE CONFIANCE: a lady’s quasi-professional female companion
FEMME DE COULEUR: woman of mixed blood
FILLE DE JOIE: prostitute
FLEUR DE LYS: stylistically rendered flower and a royalist emblem in France
FLIBUSTIER: pirate evolved from the wartime practice of privateering
GENS DE COULEUR: people of color, a reasonably polite designation for persons of mixed blood in Saint Domingue
GÉRANT: plantation manager or overseer
GHEDE: one of the great loa, the principal Vodou god of the underworld and of the dead
GILET: waistcoat
GIRAUMON: medicinal herb for cough
GOMBO: medicinal herb for cough
GOMMIER: gum tree
GOVI: clay vessels which may contain the spirits of the dead
GRAND BLANC: member of Saint Domingue’s white landed gentry, who were owners of large plantations and large numbers of slaves. The grand blancs were politically conservative and apt to align with royalist counterrevolutionary movements.
GRAND BOIS: Vodou deity, aspect of Legba more closely associated with the world of the dead
GRAND’CASE: the “big house,” residence of white owners or overseers on a plantation. These houses were often rather primitive despite the grandiose title.
GRAND CHEMIN: the big road or main road. In Vodou the term refers to the pathway opened between the human world and the world of the loa.
GRANN: old woman, grandmother
GRENOUILLE: frog
GRIFFE: term for a particular combination of African and European blood. A griffe would result from the congress of a full-blood black with a mulâtresse or a marabou.
GRIFFONNE: female griffe
GRIOT: fried pork
GROS-BON-ANGE: literally, the “big good angel,” an aspect of the Vodou soul. The gros-bon-ange is “the life force that all sentient beings share; it enters the individual at conception and functions only to keep the body alive. At clinical death, it returns immediately to God and becomes part of the great reservoir of energy that supports all life.”2
GROSSESSE: pregnancy
GUÉRIT-TROP-VITE: medicinal herb used in plasters to speed healing of wounds
GUINÉE EN BAS DE L’EAU: “Africa beneath the waters,” the Vodou afterlife
HABITANT: plantation owner
HABITATION: plantation
HERBE À CORNETTE: medicinal herb used in mixtures for coughing
HERBE À PIQUE: medicinal herb against fever
HOMME DE COULEUR: man of mixed blood; see gens de couleur
HOUNSI: Vodou acolytes
HÛNFOR: Vodou temple, often arranged in open air
HÛNGAN: Vodou priest
IBO: African tribal designation. Ibo slaves were thought to be especially prone to suicide, believing that through death they would return to Africa. Some masters discouraged this practice by lopping the ears and noses of slaves who had killed themselves, since presumably the suicides would not wish to be resurrected with these signs of dishonor.
INTENDANT: the highest civil authority in colonial Saint Domingue, as opposed to the Governor, who was the highest military authority. These conflicting and competing posts were deliberately arranged by the home government to make rebellion against the authority of the metropole less likely.
ISLAND BELOW SEA: Vodou belief construes that the souls of the dead inhabit a world beneath the ocean which reflects the living world above. Passage through this realm is the slave’s route of return to Africa.
JOURNAL: newspaper
KALFOU: crossroads
L’AFFAIRE GALBAUD: armed conflict which occurred at the northern port Le Cap, in 1794, between French royalists and republicans, as a result of which the royalist party, along with the remaining large property- and slave-owners, fled the colony
LAKOU: compound of dwellings of an extended family or inter-related families, often grouped around a central ceremonial area sacred to the ancestral spirits
LAMBI: conch shell, used as a horn among maroons and rebel slaves
LA-PLACE: Vodou celebrant with specific ritual functions second to that of the hûngan
LATANA: medicinal herb against colds
LEGBA: Vodou god of crossroads and of change, vaguely analogous to Hermes of the Greek pantheon. Because Legba controls the crossroads between the material and spiritual worlds, he must be invoked at the beginning of all ceremonies.
LES INVISIBLES: members of the world of the dead, roughly synonymous with les Morts et les Mystères.
LESPRI GINEN: spirit of Ginen
LIBERTÉ DE SAVANE: freedom, for a slave, to come and go at will within the borders of a plantation or some other defined area, sometimes the privilege of senior commandeurs
LOA: general term for a Vodou deity
LOI DE QUATRE AVRIL: Decree of April Fourth from the French National Assembly, granting full political rights to people of color in Saint Domingue
LOUP-GAROU: in Vodou, a sinister supernatural entity, something like a werewolf; a shape-changing, blood-sucking supernatural entity
MACANDAL: a charm, usually worn round the neck
MACOUTE: a straw sack used to carry food or goods
MAGOUYÉ: devious person, trickster, cheat
MAIN-D’ŒUVRE: work force
MAÏS MOULIN: cornmeal mush
MAIT’ KALFOU: Vodou deity closely associated with Ghede and the dead, sometimes considered an aspect of Ghede
MAÎT’TÊTE: literally, “master of the head.” The particular loa to whom the Vodou observer is devoted and by whom he is usually possessed (although the worshipper may sometimes be possessed by other gods as well).
MAL DE MCHOIRE: lockjaw
MAL DE SIAM: yellow fever
MALFINI: chicken hawk
MALNOMMÉE: medicinal herb used in tea against diarrhea
MAMBO: Vodou priestess
MAMÉLOUQUE: woman of mixed blood. The combination of blanc and métive produces a mamélouque.
MANCHINEEL: jungle tree with an extremely toxic sap
MANDINGUE: African tribe designation. Mandingue slaves had a reputation for cruelty and for a strong character difficult to subject to servitude.
MANICOU: Carribbean possum
MAPOU: sacred tree in Vodou, considered the habitation of Damballah
MARABOU: term for a particular combination of African and European blood. A griffe would result from the congress of a full-blood black with a quarterronné.
MARAIS: swamp
MARASSA: twins, often the sacred twi
n deities of Vodou
MARCHÉ DES NÈGRES: Negro market
MARÉCHAL DE CAMP: field marshal
MARÉCHAUSSÉE: paramilitary groups organized to recapture runaway slaves
MAROON: a runaway slave. There were numerous communities of maroons in the mountains of Saint Domingue, and in some cases they won battles with whites and negotiated treaties which recognized their freedom and their territory.
MARRONAGE: the state of being a maroon; maroon culture in general
MATANT: aunt
MAUVAIS SUJET: bad guy, criminal
MÉNAGÈRE: housekeeper
MITRAILLE: grapeshot
MONCHÈ: from the French “mon cher,” literally “my dear,” a casual form of address among friends
MONDONGUE: African tribal group, held in low esteem by slave masters. The Mondongues were known for their filed teeth and suspected of cannibalism.
MONPÈ: Father—the Creole address to a Catholic priest
MORNE: mountain
LES MORTS ET LES MYSTÈRES: the aggregate of dead souls in Vodou, running the spectrum from personal ancestors to the great loa
MOUCHWA TÊT: headscarf
MOULIN DE BÊTES: mill powered by animals, as opposed to a water mill
MULATTO: person of mixed European and African blood, whether slave or free. Tables existed to define sixty-four different possible admixtures, with a specific name and social standing assigned to each.
NABOT: weighted leg iron used to restrain a runaway slave
NÈG: black person (from the French nègre)
NÉGOCIANT: businessman or broker involved in the export of plantation goods to France
NÈGRE CHASSEUR: slave trained as a huntsman
NÉGRILLON: small black child (c.f. pickaninny).
NOBLESSE DE L’ÉPÉE: French aristocracy deriving its status from the feudal military system, as opposed to newer bureaucratic orders of rank
OGÛN: one of the great loa, the Haitian god of war. Ogûn-Feraille is his most aggressive aspect.
ORDONNATEUR: accountant
OUANGA: a charm, magical talisman
PAILLASSE: a sleeping pallet, straw mattress
PARIADE: the wholesale rape of slave women by sailors on slave ships. The pariade had something of the status of a ritual. Any pregnancies that resulted were assumed to increase the value of the slave women to their eventual purchasers.
PARRAIN: godfather. In slave communities, the parrain was responsible for teaching a newly imported slave the appropriate ways of the new situation.
PATOIS: dialect
PAVÉ: paving stone
PAYSANNE: peasant woman
PETIT BLANC: member of Saint Domingue’s white artisan class, a group which lived mostly in the coastal cities, and which was not necessarily French in origin. The petit blancs sometimes owned small numbers of slaves but seldom owned land; most of them were aligned with French revolutionary politics.
PETIT MARRON: a runaway slave or maroon who intended to remain absent for only a short period—these escapees often returned to their owners of their own accord
LA PETITE VÉROLE: smallpox
PETRO: a particular set of Vodou rituals with some different deities—angry and more violent than rada
PIERRE TONNERRE: thunderstone. Believed by Vodouisants to be formed by lightning striking in the earth—in reality ancient Indian ax heads, pestles, and the like.
POMPONS BLANCS: Members of the royalist faction in post-1789 Saint Domingue; their name derives from the white cockade they wore to declare their political sentiments. The majority of grand blancs inclined in this direction.
POMPONS ROUGES: Members of the revolutionary faction in post-1789 Saint Domingue, so called for the red cockades they wore to identify themselves. Most of the colony’s petit blancs inclined in this direction.
POSSÉDÉ: believer possessed by his god
POTEAU MITAN: central post in a Vodou hûnfor, the metaphysical route of passage for the entrance of the loa into the human world
PRÊTRE SAVANE: bush priest
PWA ROUJ: red beans
PWASÔ: fish
PWEN: a focal point of spiritual energy with the power to do magical work. A pwen may be an object or even a word or a phrase.
QUARTERRONÉ: a particular combination of African and European blood: the result, for instance, of combining a full-blood white with a mamélouque
QUARTIER GÉNÉRAL: headquarters
RADA: the more pacific rite of Vodou, as opposed to petro
RADA BATTERIE: ensemble of drums for Vodou ceremony
RAMIER: wood pigeon
RAQUETTE: mesquite-sized tree sprouting cactus-like paddles in place of leaves
RATOONS: second-growth cane from plants already cut
REDINGOTE: a fashionable frock coat
REQUIN: shark
RIZ AK PWA: rice and beans
RIZIÈ: rice paddy
SACATRA: a particular combination of African and European blood: the result, for instance, of combining a full-blood black with a griffe or griffonne
SALLE DE BAINS: washroom
SANG-MÊLÉ: a particular combination of African and European blood: the result, for instance, of combining a full-blood white with a quarterroné
SANS-CULOTTE: French revolutionary freedom fighter
SERVITEUR: Vodou observer, one who serves the loa
SI DYÉ VLÉ: If God so wills
SIFFLEUR MONTAGNE: literally mountain whistler, a night-singing bird
SONNETTE: medicinal herb
SOULÈVEMENT: popular uprising, rebellion
TABAC À JACQUOT: medicinal herb
TAFIA: rum
TAMBOU: drum
THYM À MANGER: medicinal herb believed to cause miscarriage
TI-BON-ANGE: literally, the “little good angel,” an aspect of the Vodou soul. “The ti-bon-ange is that part of the soul directly associated with the individual. . . . It is one’s aura, and the source of all personality, character and willpower.”3
TREMBLEMENT DE TERRE: earthquake
VÉVÉ: diagram symbolizing and invoking a particular loa
VIVRES: life-stuff—roots and essential starchy foods
VODÛN: generic term for a god, also denotes the whole Haitian religion
YO DI: they say
ZAMAN: almond
Z’ÉTOILE: aspect of the Vodou soul. “The z’étoile is the one spiritual component that resides not in the body but in the sky. It is the individual’s star of destiny, and is viewed as a calabash that carries one’s hope and all the many ordered events for the next life of the soul.”4
ZOMBI: either the soul (zombi astrale) or the body (zombi cadavre) of a dead person enslaved to a Vodou magician
ZORAY: ears
CHRONOLOGY OF HISTORICAL EVENTS
1789
JANUARY: In the political context of the unfolding French Revolution, les gens de couleur, the mulatto people of the colony, petition for full rights in Saint Domingue.
JULY 7: The French Assembly votes admission of six deputies from Saint Domingue. The colonial deputies begin to sense that it will no longer be possible to keep Saint Domingue out of the Revolution, as the conservatives had always designed.
JULY 14: Bastille Day. When news of the storming of the Bastille reaches Saint Domingue, conflict breaks out between the petit blancs (lower-class whites of colonial society) and the land- and slave-owning grand blancs. The former ally themselves with the Revolution, the latter with the French monarchy.
AUGUST 26: The Declaration of the Rights of Man causes utter panic among all colonists in France.
OCTOBER 5: The Paris mob brings King and Assembly to Paris from Versailles. The power of the radical minority becomes more apparent.
OCTOBER 14: A royal officer at Fort Dauphin in Saint Domingue reports unrest among the slaves in his district, who are responding to news of the Revolution leaking in. There follows an increase in nocturnal slave gatherings and in the activity of the slave-policing ma
réchaussée.
OCTOBER 22: Les Amis des Noirs (a group of French sympathizers with African slaves in the colonies) collaborate with the wealthy mulatto community of Paris, organized as the society of Colons Américains. Mulattoes claim Rights of Man before the French Assembly. Abbé Grégoire and others support them. Deputies from French commercial towns trading with the colony oppose them.
DECEMBER 3: The French National Assembly rejects the demands of mulattoes presented on October 22.
1790
OCTOBER 28: The mulatto leader Ogé, who has reached Saint Domingue from Paris by way of England, aided by the British abolitionist society, raises a rebellion in the northern mountains near the border, with a force of three hundred men, assisted by another mulatto, Chavannes. Several days later an expedition from Le Cap defeats him, and he is taken prisoner along with other leaders inside Spanish territory. This rising is answered by parallel insurgencies in the west which are quickly put down. The ease of putting down the rebellion convinces the colonists that it is safe to pursue their internal dissensions. . . . Ogé and Chavannes are tortured to death in a public square at Le Cap.
1791
APRIL: News of Ogé’s execution turns French national sentiments against the colonists. Ogé is made a hero in the theater, a martyr to liberty. Planters living in Paris are endangered, often attacked on the streets.
MAY 11: A passionate debate begins on the colonial question in the French Assembly.
MAY 15: The French Assembly grants full political rights to mulattoes born of free parents, in an amendment accepted as a compromise by the exhausted legislators.
MAY 16: Outraged over the May 15 decree, colonial deputies withdraw from the National Assembly.
JUNE 30: News of the May 15 decree reaches Le Cap. Although only four hundred mulattoes meet the description set forth in this legislation, the symbolism of the decree is inflammatory. Furthermore the documentation of the decree causes the colonists to fear that the mother country may not maintain slavery.
JULY 3: Blanchelande, governor of Saint Domingue. writes to warn the Minister of Marine that he has no power to enforce the May 15 decree. His letter tells of the presence of an English fleet and hints that factions of the colony may seek English intervention. The general colonial mood has swung completely toward secession at this point.
Throughout the north and the west, unrest among the slaves is observed. News of the French Revolution in some form or other is being circulated through the Vodou congregations. Small armed rebellions pop up in the west and are put down by the maréchaussée.
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