Happy Bwa Kayiman Day!

“The Politics of God and the Imperative of Black Freedom: God, Dutty Boukman, and the Bois Caiman Event”

For many Haitian and Haitianist historians, August 14 is one of the most memorable and significant events in human history and in Haiti’s national history. As many have reported, on August 14, 1791, the enslaved African population in the French colony at Saint-Domingue (known as Haiti today) met at a place called Bois Caiman, located a few miles outside of the city of Cap-Haitien (Northern Haiti) for a religious and political conference that would lead to five most important and transformative events in the Western world: 1) the abolition of slavery, 2) the end of white supremacy in the colony, 3) the end of European colonization at Saint-Domingue, 4) the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), and 5) the founding of the Republic of Haiti. To commemorate this watershed event in the history of anti-slavery movements, human rights, and universal emancipation, in June 2011, I published a major article on the subject matter; you can access the article for free online (PDF version) by clicking on the link below:

“The Rhetoric of Prayer: Dutty Boukman, The Discourse of “Freedom from Below,” and the Politics of God,” Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion 2:9 (June 2011):1-33.

Click to access Joseph%202%209.pdf

Do let me know what you think!