haitiintheamericas

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Writing, Painting, and Making Freedom in the African Diaspora

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​Vintage Poster: The Queen of Hayti, 1895

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Original Caption: “Railway to Leogane" Haiti. Year: 1921. Image Courtesy of: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. 

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Original Caption: “An open-air market, Haiti.” Year: 1910. Part of Sir Harry H. Johnston’s The Negro in the New world. Image Courtesy of: the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. 

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Gathered by Erin Zavitz, University of Florida:

Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti : Excerpts that relate to the history of Vodou

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Image source: Kaiama Glover and Maja Horn

ISPANYOLA TRANSNASYONAL III:

TEYORI AN PRATIK

PÒTOPRENS, AYITI. OKTÒB 2015

Call for papers

Krèyòl

English

Español

The official languages of the conference are Kreyòl, Spanish, and English. Please send your submission by January 31, 2015 to transnationalhispaniola@gmail.com. Questions can be directed to Kiran Jayaram at the above e-mail address.

Kiran Jayaram, Ph. D. Postdoctoral Fellow, Faculté d'Ethnologie (Université d'Etat d'Haïti) Lecturer, Haitian Studies (University of Kansas)

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The Birds of Haiti and the Dominican Republic features 58 bird species and subspecies that are unique, or endemic, to the island of Hispaniola, the birthplace of John James Audubon.

http://audubonhaiti.org

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As these and other scholars have shown, male travelers to Africa and the Americas contributed to a European discourse on black womanhood. Femaleness evoked a certain element of desire, but travelers depicted black women as simultaneously un-womanly and marked by a reproductive value dependent on their sex. Writers’ recognition of black femaleness and their inability to allow black women to embody “proper” female space composed a focus for representations of racial difference. During the course of his journey, [15th century English planter Richard] Ligon came to another view of black women. As he saw it, their breasts “hang down below their Navels, so that when they stoop at their common work of weeding, they hang almost to the ground, that at a distance you would think they had six legs.” For Ligon, their monstrous bodies symbolized their sole utility – their ability to produce both crops and other laborers.

Jennifer L. Morgan, “‘Some Could Suckle Over Their Shoulder’: Male Travelers, Female Bodies, and the Gendering of Racial Ideology”, p. 168 (via antiblacknessisatheory)

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CFP

Over the last 500 years a vehement critique of colonialism and imperialism has emerged from marginalized groups all across the Americas... 

In this conference we hope to share reflections on how we each tackle this complex system of colonial/modern inequality both in how we do our work and in the topics and subjects we seek to study. 

Deadline February 8, 2015

Conference April 25, 2015

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"Haiti, 150 Years of Independence"- The Courier, 1954

Read .pdf

Link via Esmat

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If we must die / Si n blije mouri

If we must die

By Claude McKay

If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursèd lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Si n blije mouri

Si n blije mouri, ann pa fout mouri kou bèt Trake epi kwense nan yon koridò pwennfèpa Pandan tout alantou nou djòl bouldòg yo ap fè dlo Dan yo griyen sou nou, yon bann lach k aksepte sò yo Si pou n mouri, ann mouri tankou fanm ak gason vanyan Pou menm lè san n ap koule San manman yo ap blije wete chapo devan lonè ak kouray nou Frè ak sè m yo, ann gonfle fòs pou n mache kontre lennmi an Menm si yo pi plis pase nou, ann leve kanpe doubout, ann goumen Pou chak rafal mitrayèt yo, ann lache yon kokenn kout poud ki fè yo tranble Menm lè n ap gade lanmò fasafas Ann kale je n nan je atoufè lach yo Ann sèmante pou n mouri nan batay olye n kontinye viv ajenou

Claude McKay, “If we must die,” first published in The Liberator (1919).

Kreyol translation by Dahoud Andre (2000) [via Ezílí Dantó].

Image: Photograph of Claude McKay speaking in the Throne Room at the Kremlin, ca. 1923. Claude McKay collection, 1853-1990, Yale University.

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From Douglass to Duvalier: U.S. African Americans, Haiti, and Pan Americanism, 1870-1964 by Millery Polyné. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010. 

"Millery Polyné charts an ambitious scholarly path in this work, and explores it well. His title invokes memories of the late scholar David Nicholls’ work in From Dessalines to Duvalier: Race, Colour, and National Independence (1979 and subsequent editions). Nicholls’ last edition (1996) began with the fall of former President Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier in 1986 and Polyné’s begins with the departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. Nicholls acknowledged that Haiti’s revolution became a [End Page 425] symbol of triumph to other Caribbean nations, but he focused on providing an insular look at the island. Conversely, Polyné uses this very historical memory of Haiti as a sign of black freedom and shifts the study of the nation outwards to the larger Americas. He demonstrates convincingly how this historical memory guided transnational interactions between elite Haitians and U.S. African Americans from the late nineteenth through the present century (p. 7). Polyné’s well-researched and critical examination of these exchanges has produced a text that widens our understanding of the Americas for the discipline of American Studies and paves the way for new and stimulating discussions in the fields of history and African American and Haitian studies.” — Yveline Alexis

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Caribbean Crossing: African Americans and the Haitian Emigration Movement by Sara Fanning

Shortly after winning its independence in 1804, Haiti’s leaders realized that if their nation was to survive, it needed to build strong diplomatic bonds with other nations. Haiti’s first leaders looked especially hard at the United States, which had a sizeable free black population that included vocal champions of black emigration and colonization. In the 1820s, President Jean-Pierre Boyer helped facilitate a migration of thousands of black Americans to Haiti with promises of ample land, rich commercial prospects, and most importantly, a black state. His ideas struck a chord with both blacks and whites in America. Journalists and black community leaders advertised emigration to Haiti as a way for African Americans to resist discrimination and show the world that the black race could be an equal on the world stage, while antislavery whites sought to support a nation founded by liberated slaves. Black and white businessmen were excited by trade potential, and racist whites viewed Haiti has a way to export the race problem that plagued America.

By the end of the decade, black Americans migration to Haiti began to ebb as emigrants realized that the Caribbean republic wasn’t the black Eden they’d anticipated. Caribbean Crossing documents the rise and fall of the campaign for black emigration to Haiti, drawing on a variety of archival sources to share the rich voices of the emigrants themselves. Using letters, diary accounts, travelers’ reports, newspaper articles, and American, British, and French consulate records, Sara Fanning profiles the emigrants and analyzes the diverse motivations that fueled this unique early moment in both American and Haitian history.

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An official map and guide to Art Spaces in the Caribbean region

This freely accessible, interactive online map of the Caribbean clearly delineates the existing spaces for the arts in the region, from the nineteenth century up to the present time. This map addresses the lack of available information about Caribbean arts at the formal, informal and educational levels.

This map will not only be a pivotal information hub and educational tool, but a place to form new bonds and to make connections among practitioners in the Caribbean and worldwide.

If you have a suggestion for a space to be included in this mapping project, email freshmilkbarbados@gmail.com with the following information:

- The nature of the space (galleries, cultural institutions, education, festivals, informal spaces, museums, virtual spaces or publications) – The full address; – A mission statement or profile; – Website/Facebook link; – 1-6 images representative of the space or its activities.

Read more @ Fresh Milk

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Jean-François Brière ou le grand barde de l'indigénisme haïtien: http://t.co/PLHrwyNrKG #Haiti

— The Public Archive (@public_archive) December 2, 2014

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University of Florida Library Travel Grants: Due Feb. 16, 2015

The University of Florida Center for Latin American Studies, through these grants, seeks to enable faculty researchers from other U.S. colleges and universities to use the extensive resources of the Latin American and Caribbean Collection in the University of Florida Libraries, thereby enhancing its value as a national resource.

Seven or more travel grants of up to $1000 each will be made to cover travel and lodging expenses. Grantees are expected to remain in Gainesville for at least one week. Following their stay grantees submit a brief (2–3 pp.) report on how their work at UF Libraries enriched their research project and offer suggestions for possible improvements of the Latin American Collection.

Applicants must be US citizens or permanent residents.

Apply here