THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MARRONAGE AND SLAVE

REVOLTS AND REVOLUTION IN ST. DOMINGUE-HAITI

Leslie F. Manigat
Institute of International Relations
The University of the West Indies
St. Augustine, Trinidad, West Indies

Marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti constitutes one of the most popular chap-

ters of the history of the colonial period, particularly because of the subsequent
and successful slave revolution of 1791-1793.1 It has recently become a fashion-
able subject for scholarly research, essays, novels, and even poetry and politico-
journalistic panegyrics. Actually, the study of marronage dates as far back as
the period of colonial slavery when, during the eighteenth century, many
“memoirs,” “surveys” and “papers” on the maroons2 were prepared, which
attests that the phenomenon was a matter of interest and concern to the colonists
and the French colonial administration.3 Marronage-or at least some portion of
it-is still to be scientifically researched, since the primary archival sources (public
and private) have not yet been combed of all the substantial and relevant data,
and many questions about its interpretation still remain subjects for serious
debate. Nevertheless the subject of marronage also seems to be part of the new
“vogue” that regularly seizes upon a historical topic of current interest and
combines it with a genuine interest in social conflict, romantic curiosity about
the life of “primitive rebels,” the ideological quest for the relevance of guerilla
warfare, and even a Freudian attraction for all forms of “deviance” susceptible
to psychoanalytic explanation.
Moreover, as already mentioned, St. Domingue-Haiti has been the theatre
not only of slave resistance, contests and revolts, as elsewhere, but also of an
authentic revolution that achieved (1) personal freedom for all the slaves by
means of mass violence; (2) expropriation of the colonists’ land; and finally,
( 3 ) political independence by means of an armed struggle for national liberation.
Therefore, this revolutionary background serves as the actual context of mar-
ronage in Haiti, places it in its true historical perspective, and consequently
changes the position of the problem itself when compared with marronage
elsewhere. It raises the question of the connection-if any-between marronage,
and (1) the revolution for liberation from slavery, ( 2 ) the revolution for the
access to land from the broken plantation system, and (3) the revolution for
national liberation from checkmated metropolitan France. Thus the unique-
ness of the Haitian case creates a particular “problematic” in the study of
marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti: the search for the existence of the link and
the nature of the relationship between marronage and these three basic achieve-
ments of the Haitian revolution.
This theoretical perspective unavoidably affects the choice of elements for a
definition, the rating of variables for an explanation, and the classification of
criteria for a typology of marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti.
This perspective serves also as a framework to assess critically the two schools
of interpretation of marronage, the first represented by scholars like Gabriel
Debien and Yvan Debbash,’-6 who tend to “banalize” it by denying it any
420
 Manigat: Marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti 42 1

revolutionary content or potential, and second, exemplified by men of letters

like Jean Fouchard and Edner Brutus,7-9 who tend to ennoble it by directly
attributing t o it the emergence, the dynamism and the successful outcome
of the Haitian revolution and by classifying the insurgent slaves of 1791 as
maroons as if this last assertion was so obvious that it needs n o evidence.
This perspective necessitates combining micro-level analysis of the maroons
as a contingent band of discontented individuals and macro-level analysis of mar-
ronage as a cumulative total social phenomenon. It dominates the way in which
the evolution of marronage is studied dynamically, raising the question of a
possible “direction,” “significance” and “finality” of this evolution, which can
help us t o discover whether marronage has been “the andante of the revolution-
ary allegro.”
Finally, the perspective elicits the question of whether the events of 1789-
179 1, in their local as well as international contexts, have not combined conditions
t o produce a critical threshold beyond which was engineered a kind of mutation
of marronage, when the following factors became operationally productive: (1) the
existence of a network of more intensive communications between slaves of dif-
ferent plantations and ethnic origins through “creolization” and easier physical
mobility, ( 2 ) the creation of a revolutionary consciousness of the slaves through
voodoo and political propaganda, and (3) the “contagiousness” of the maroons’
guerilla activities.
If, after testing as an hypothesis, thisinterpretationis t o be correct, then mar-
ronage would have caused its own dissolution in the successive waves of the rising
tide of the black revolution. This “death,resurrection and victory”,process in the
evolution of the struggle would have, in this way, put an end t o the marginal role
of the maroons, endowing marronage with a fundamental and even axial role, ex-
tending from the general uprisings of the slaves led by Boukman ( 1791) through
the era of Toussaint L’Ouverture (1 793-1 802) to the achievement of full inde-
pendence under Dessalines (1803), when the praxis of the revolution recuperates,
reactivates and incorporates the maroons’ tradition, reaching the triple objective of
emancipating all the slaves, shifting land ownership, and fathering a new nation.
It would appear then that marronage trudged along through the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries until it realized, at the critical stage from 1789-1791,
a chrysalid type of metamorphosis and took off, like a butterfly from its pupa,
as the new ascending reality of the Haitian revolution.

MARRONAGE IN COLONIAL ST. DOMINGUE

AS LIVED AND PERCEIVED
The starting point for this study must be an attempt t o define marronage in
St. Domingue and t o review the perceptions of marronage held by observers and
students who have tried t o assess it.

DEFINITION O F THE MAROON

As portrayed in the official documents of t h e colonial administration, the
private papers of the planters of St. Domingue, and in the works of various
authors, the maroon may be defined as the fugitive slave who has broken with
the social order of the plantation t o live, actually free, but as an outlaw, in
areas (generally in the woods or in the mountains) where he could escape the
control of the colonial power and the plantocratic establishment.
The first element in this definition is the existence of a social organization
422 Annals New York Academy of Sciences

(the plantation system) with a structure and laws, within which the servile condi-
tion is set down, and with which the maroon breaks b y fleeing. This means that
the threshold of acceptability has been crossed. It is the logical sequence: mis-
fortune-threshold of tolerance-unhappiness-rupture. It is the rejection (momen-
ary, lasting, or even final) of the institutional orthodoxy and of the cultural
norms of the existing social order, which reflects the etymology of the Spanish
word cimarron, which means “savage.” The maroon has taken it upon himself
t o run away from the “order” of the civilized world which for him is “disorder,”
contrary t o nature.I0 To the master, he is an absconder. The maroon, as a fugi-
tive, is a vagrant. He has achieved the mobility that was forbidden him under the
condition of slavery.
The second element is the possibility of taking refuge in a space not actually
controlled by the ruling authorities and their repressive forces, so that he can
escape from the hold of the center by putting himself on the periphery, in a
marginal but independent situation. This means that as an unsubmissive person
he has put physical distance between the system and where he chooses to
live secretly. He locates himself “out of reach” beyond the moving “frontier”
of the plantation system, but his condition as a fugitive prevents the “frontier
man” that he is from becoming a pioneer. He finds a space of refuge, a hiding
place” ; he goes underground.
The third element is the insecurity of his new life. He must accept and face
the risks of his condition: pursuit by the specialized repressive forces of the
“mardchauss&” (the “rangers” of that time), primitive life in the woods, inclem-
encies of weather, uncertainty of finding food, hazards of health. It is a
material, psychological and political insecurity. To resist and survive means a
psychology of risk-taking and a determination t o brave adversity and face
danger. After a certain time, many fugitives gave up and returned t o servile
conditions that were inhuman but secure. But the one who does not give u p
becomes hardened. Here lies the passage from insubordination t o rebellion. He is
a “primitive rebel.”
The fourth element comes from the necessity t o survive by his own means.
The three main problems of survival are food, shelter and defense. For all these
three needs, the maroon has t o encounter the hostility of the plantocratic estab-
lishment, against which he therefore must act. First, his flight alone is already an
act against this master, willing or not, since he deprives the latter of his chattel,
the slave being only property. Therefore the mere act of escape injures the mat-
erial interest of the colonist, not t o mention the bad example that undermines
the discipline of the plantation. The maroon is an anomaly. T o survive, the
maroon is often compelled to steal food and clothes before fleeing, and t o raid
the plantations (of foodstuffs, poultry and even cattle) after fleeing. Then,
by finding a shelter that allows him to free himself from possessive domina-
tion, he becomes ips0 fucto a challenge t o the propertied class. Finally, since
the “police” of the plantation or of the local administration will hem him
in, he has t o defend himself, to hit and run. He is engaged in hostile action
against his enemy-the planter. What was a flight becomes a fight. And if, before
fleeing, he has stolen a gun or kept his cutlass, and if, after fleeing, he has
fashioned his own defense, he becomes an armed freedom fighter and therefore
a threat. This evolution makes him a bandit.

“PETIT” AND “GRAND” MARRONAGE

These foregoing elements of the definition of the maroon are not necessarily
found at all times. The strict definition of marronage becomes a problem, for
 Manigat: Marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti 423

generally all runaway slaves have come t o be called “maroons.” According t o

certain authors, “partir maroon” ( t o run for freedom) is just t o leave the planta-
tion without permission! This misuse of the term has serious implications because
it dilutes the concept of marronage in interpreting the wide variety of slave
behaviors used to escape the discipline of the plantation. Obsessed by the
possibility of rnarronage on their plantations, the masters were ready t o see a
maroon in any absentee and t o suspect any slave out of his plantation without a
permit of being a maroon. It is n o reason for historians to d o the same.
Personally, I d o not think that all running away is marronage. To be faithful
t o the etymology, the word “maroon” implies the intention, at least t o attempt,
to live another life outside of the social order of the plantation as a “savage.”
Therefore, the slave who leaves the plantation clandestinely only to visit a girl
on another plantation and then comes back is not a true maroon. Very often
what Gabriel Debien, following the example of the planters, calls “le petit marron-
age” (“little” marronage) does not seem t o me t o be marronage at all but just
“short-lived absenteeism”.12 T o go for a run, t o g o on the loose, t o play truant, t o
feign, t o go on a spree, that is not really “partir maroon,” t o run for freedom. The
slave may hope that his absence will not be noticed o r he may be ready to take
the risk of a lashing-all the more since the pardon of the master is not impos-
sible for a short absence-to go for a stroll. If the word maroon must have con-
tent, it must mean something else, something better related t o the etymologic
sense of “savage,” conveying the wild life in the woods and the idea of running
wild. Without the decision t o run wild, there is no marronage at all. Therefore
any distinction between petit rnarronage and grand marronage has t o be made
on other grounds, such as the intensity of the determination implicit in a be-
havior, the period of marronage, the individual o r collective choice (in isolation
o r in bands), the vicinity o r remoteness (or the accessibility o r inaccessibility)
of the hiding place, and the tactics used t o survive.
Grand marronage in the situation in which the fugitive slave runs wild
with the cold determination to go far, t o run t o unreachable spots, t o stay
as long as possible, if not definitely, at least to the limit of human resistance.
As much as possible he joins with his fellow maroons t o constitute or strengthen
the band and to adopt a hit-and-run tactic in a guerilla war against the plantation
order.
Petit marronage, by contrast, is when the fugitive slave runs wild spon-
taneously. He does not stay away for more than a few days because, unwilling
to go too far or to inaccessible spots, he always leaves open the possibility
of a quick return at the most propitious moment, asking to be forgiven and
reinstated in his servile condition.
This distinction, which is useful when the time comes t o find the explanation
for marronage and t o build a typology, does not preclude the existence of
borderline cases and the possibility of a shift from one to the other. Unexpected
difficulties o r a flagging of the will may transform a case of grand marronage
into one of petit marronage in a first attempt. On the contrary, unexpectedly
propitious conditions or the radicalization of a will may transform a case of
petit marronage into one of grand marronage.

CONCEPTIONS O F MARRONAGE
The vocabulary used to describe the maroon and marronage is the best test
t o determine the conceptions of rnarronage held by various authors, and it is
quite revealing t o juxtapose contrasting views of the phenomenon.
For French colonists and ethnocentric authors, who d o not use available
424 Annals New York Academy of Sciences

documents critically enough, the maroon is a lazy and delinquent fugitive.

For Jean Fouchard, who is hypercritical of this documentation and writes in
the vein of the Haitian patriotic school, the maroon is a freedom fighter, dedi-
cated to the ideal and goal of liberty.
For the local contemporary colonial authorities and the French authors con-
cerned with the security of properties and persons, marronage is a form of
banditry. For Edner Brutus, not quite forgetful of his original flirtation with
Marxism, marronage is an expression of the class struggle in a slave-master
society. For a historian like Gabriel Debien, meticulously scrutinizing planta-
tion archives, of which he is the best connoisseur, it is not certain that marron-
age has always represented “vengeance of the oppressed slave”; he felt that
it was certainly not “a true form of resistance,” but mostly the fact of hungry
men. Given Debien’s expertise, this gives some food for thought. For the Haitian
classical school, B. Ardouin, for example, and some lucid contemporary ob-
servers, including colonial administrators, the maroon was the angry “avenger
of his enslaved race” and marronage was the pivot of the resistance against
oppression before the revolution. It was even the doctrine of the French Ministry
of Colonies to classify marronage as revolt.13
The French scholar, Yvan Debbash, who has recently published an impor-
tant scientific analysis of marronage, subtitles his study “Essay on the desertion
of the antillean slave.” The choice of this word “desertion” is not indifferent.
It implicitly suggests (1) the logic and utility, if not the necessity and justifica-
tion, of an existing “discipline” (the maroon is seen as “undisciplined”); (2)
the individual and marginal character of marronage (which was an anomaly
and an exception); and (3) perhaps unconsciously, the reprobative and negative
nuance that the military origin of the word confers on it. A deserter is a delin-
quent guilty of having shirked duty. On the contrary, for the most recent Haitian
interpretation, and the most popular one (which reconciles, at least on this
point, partisans and exiled foes of Duvalier), the maroon is the “maquisard”
(guerilla) of the Haitian protonational and then national resistance through the
continuous and indomitable battles by which the revolution for liberty and
independence finally succeeded. Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, now has its
moving and beautiful “Monument au Marron Inconnu” (Monument to the
Unknown Maroon) on the Square of the Heroes of Independence, just as Paris has
its Monument to the Unknown Soldier at the-Arc de Triomphe.
To decide between these two opposing schools of thought-the one, dominantly
French, which tends to dismiss marronage as a trivial occurrence in the life of
the plantation, and the other, not exclusively Haitian, which tends to elevate
marronage as a sociopolitical conflict-it is imperative to observe that each not
only has adopted different perspectives, but also has put itself by priority at a
level of analysis that is different from the other’s. And this problem of different
levels of analysis seems to me as decisive as the different ideological perspectives
of each school. In any case, it may even be that the choice of the level of analysis
is unconsciously suggested by the differences in ideological perspectives.
The first school, which encompasses the French ethnocentric view, studies
the maroons as individuals, describes the cases one by one, analyzes the subjects,
and finds that each case is an “accident” in the normal daily life of the planta-
tion. It is interesting to observe that this was also the approach of the planters.
Empirical studies, which remain close to the archival sources, measure the small-
ness of intensity of the phenomenon, its dispersion, and its disparate character
through the singularity and subjectivity of individual maroons. At this level,
the temptation is to remain descriptive, because when explanation is attempted
 Manigat: Marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti 42 5

it must correlate with empirical referents according to the sources. The concern
is t o have an accurate and undistorted image of marronage through the objective
portrayal of real maroons. In the same way, even when trying t o generalize, this
school maintains itself at the micro-level of the study and analysis of the maroons.
The end product is the dismissal of marronage as a serious phenomenon. When
these authors consider the problems raised by the existence of bands of maroons,
they apply their individuality-oriented focus t o the larger unit and perceive the
atomized composition of the bands, and so marronage is still seen as a contin-
gent set-up of discontented individuals.
The second school studies marronage as a social reality, and looks for the
validity of explanation in drawing the general characteristics of the phenomenon
and in analyzing the patterns and schemes of behavior among the maroons.
While the first school offers an image with richer detail, the second offers a more
coherent view of marronage in St. Domingue. It finds that marronage is a per-
manent attitude jeopardizing the very order of the plantation system. It is inter-
esting t o observe that for the colonial administration, too, marronage was a
“ferment of dissolution [which] was threatening the colonial society in its
raison d’etre and was shaking its very foundations.” This school measures the
scale and the evolution of marronage as a total phenomenon within the slave
society and ascribes the collective personality of the maroons t o objective
structural conditions of slavery that set in motion natural human types of
reactions and patterns of behavior. Even when referring t o specific cases t o
illustrate the model, this school maintains itself a t the macro-level of the study
and analysis of marronage. The end-product is the elevation of the stature of
marronage. When these authors have to consider individual maroons, their collec-
t i v i t y a i e n t e d focus is applied t o the smaller unit, and through the typological
approach of individual maroons, marronage is still seen as a cumulative total
social process.

THE IDEOLOGICAL SPECTRUM O F

THE HAITIAN SCHOOL
For obvious reasons the Haitian historians of marronage belong predominantly
to the second school. Their patriotism is not the sole factor responsible, since
they share the conceptual and methodological choice of their privileged macro-
level of analysis of marronage and their politically oriented focus with the
Martiniquan, Aimd Cesaire,I4 the Cuban historian. Jose Lucian0 Franco, lS and
the French scholar, Charles Andre Julien, Professor at the Sorbonne.I6 One
could add the names of Trinidadian historians, C. L. R. James17 and Eric Wil-
liams,]* since the one short reference t o the maroons in their respective books
defines marronage as a “movement of resistance and protest,” as a “fight for”
and a “road to liberty.” With the exception of Jean Fouchard, they have n o t
conducted direct personal and systematic empirical research in the archival
sources on this specific topic, but they extensively employ the findings of empirical
investigations; and the accusation that their imagination supplies the deficiency
in their documentation is not always justified, in any case certainly not for all of
them.
While they all agree t o asserr emphatically t h e existence of the link between
marronage and the Haitian revolution, their individual analysis bears the mark of
the influence of different ideologies.
A first ideological trend can be defined as “ethnonationalist.” It is the tradi-
tional classical position of Haitian historians o n marronage. It goes from Beau-
426 Annals New York Academy of Sciences

brun Ardouin (1 850)19 to Jean Fouchard (1 970), who has most significantly en-
titled his welldocumented book The Maroons of Liberty. It also draws on
documents as to the human nature of the Negro in spite of the degrading state
of slavery. Marronage is an indication and a sign that the slaves did not really
accept slavery ( a b uno disce omnes). It was a natural human reaction to domina-
tion and dependence and to exploitation and suffering, representing the normal
aspiration to freedom.
A second ideological trend is represented by the Haitian Marxist school,
which insists on the action of the masses as the slave working class of the society
and on the role of violence. Marronage, in this perspective, is the illustration of
both. This trend extends from the work of Etienne Charlier to that of the
young neo-Marxist historians of today.20 The maroons were the revolutionary
historical vanguard of the revolution of the masses.
A third ideological trend is represented by the Haitian “noiristic” (black
power) school, which insists on race and color as the driving forces of the revolu-
tion. This trend goes from the moderate Price Mars21’22 to the radical Franqois
Duvalier and Lorrimer Denis. By pointing up the decisive role of the African
masses, this interpretation has an anti-mulatto flavor and denies to the mulatto
leadership the role attributed to it by mulatto historians. The maroons repre-
sented black consciousness and African-rooted culture (voodoo). Their radical
and racial opposition to the world of the masters made the maroons the spear-
heads of the black revolution and the class-race authors of Haitian independence.
Finally, a fourth ideological trend is a blend of Marxism and “noirisme.”
This trend, formed in the confluence of the Marxist and black power ideologies,
is best represented by Edner Brutus. In combining the spirit of the three previous
schools, Brutus emphasizes “the immense role” of the maroons by (1) “their
permanent war against slavery”, which “made possible the general uprisings”;
( 2 ) “their insurrectionary movement ,” which remains the first expression of the
class-struggle in St. Domingue”; and (3) “their martial refusal” as “transplanted
Africans” to accept the colonial system.23
One does not wonder then why the supreme expression of these conceptions
of marronage has culminated recently in the “Monument to the Unknown
Maroon.”

EXPLANATION, TYPOLOGY AND EVOLUTION OF

MARRONAGE IN ST. DOMINGUE-HAITI
The special case of St. Domingue-Haiti links the explanation, the typology,
and the evolution of marronage in order to understand the complexity of the
relationship between marronage and the Haitian revolution and, at the same time,
to discover the dynamics of this relationship by not dissociating the synchronic
and the diachronic approach in the attempt to render a total account of mar-
ronage as a lived reality. On the one hand, it is likely that the conditions and
causes of marronage have changed through time, and that the variety of types
of maroons has been affected by this evolution. On the other hand, the associa-
tion of evolution and typology with explanation helps to avoid the exclusivist
conceptions of the motivations of the maroons, which tend to prevail. I shall
take two examples. A classical debate exists between those who explain mar-
ronage as the refusal of the maroon to perform hard physical labor or even
work in general and those who claim that marronage represented the aspiration
of the maroon to freedom, ignoring the fact that in the context of colonial
 Manigat: Marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti 427

class patterns and occupational status to be free is not to work (or at least not
to be compelled t o manual labor). In the same vein, the explanation of mar-
ronage by hunger is traditionally presented as contradicting or weakening
the explanation of marronage by resistance, revolt and revolution. This second
classical debate, between those who ascribe marronage t o lack of food, as
attested t o in the documents of the time, and those who ascribe marronage
t o revolutionary protest, ignores historical precedents in the revolutionary annals
of mankind. Hunger may be and historically has been a fermenting agent of
revolution, a trigger for political awareness: hunger and freedom are not exclu-
sive-on the contrary, hunger has a mobilizing capacity. One must not under-
estimate the psychological fact that the desire for freedom may be expressed in
a variety of unexpected ways. Therefore, in trying to combine explanation,
typology and evolution, we hope to avoid any reductionism of these types
which unduly obscure the terms and conditions t o meet the requirements of our
research perspective.

Propitious Conditions f o r the

Development of Marronage
First, certain conditions were o r evolved into those propitious t o marronage
(or adverse t o it, making it harder and therefore requiring a greater determina-
tion t o run wild in spite of them) and its survival or extension.
The geography of St. Domingue, the western, French, portion of an island
(which is four-fifths mountainous), includes bushy savannahs, wooded hills,
karst topography, with sinkholes, underground caverns or caves, and tropical-
creeper vegetation in remote areas. The zones of greater-maroon activity have
traditionally been the mountainous areas, as seen by the sites chosen by the
famous maroons of Les Platons in the southern range, or of Les Matheux in the
central range, of Plaisance and Limbe in the northern range.
Demography has also played its role. The densely populated plantation
lands in the richer sugar-cane plains, have also been areas of marronage. The
number of slaves facilitated such marronage and aided in the complicity t o
“partir maroon” since the slave: master ratio was so high (300 or 400 slaves t o 4
or 5 masters on the plantations and 17 slaves for 1 master in the entire colony
around 1789) that it was very difficult t o control the slaves. They very concen-
tration of the masses increased the possibility of running wild. It is not surprising
that the rich plains of Cap (in the north), Cul de Sac (in the east) and Les Cayes
(in the south) have been areas of marronage since they lie at the foot of moun-
tainous massives (which combines the geographic and demographic variables).
Another geographic factor was the border between St. Domingue and the
Spanish part of the island. The border area, offering the possibility of “crossing
over t o the Spanish” (“passer a l’dspagnol”), was a traditional zone of marronage
since the fugitive slave in the east found asylum, and even welcome, in the Spanish
territory. The matter became a subject of controversy, tension and negotiations
between the two neighboring colonial authorities.
When the geographic and the demographic variables are added t o the proximity
t o Spanish territory, then conditions become highly favorable for maRonage,
as they were for the maroons of Maribaroux and Vallieres in the northeast
(a well-known and refractory “hotbed” of marronage) or the maroons of Ba-
haruco at the eastern central border (site of a famous camp with which the white
establishment was obliged t o negotiate and compromise).
As the eighteenth century progressed, new variables arose in relation t o the
428 Annals New York Academy of Sciences

internal situation and the international environment and these also contributed
t o the propitious conditions: ( 1 ) dissension within the colonial establishment
due t o the sedition of the colonists and their armed fight f o r autonomy against
the royal colonial authorities (military and administrative) (the “divided house”
spoken of in the Bible); (2) the difficulty of limiting the audience of the “new
French ideas” t o white ears and the white intelligentsia only, particularly when
some slaves could read and writem (a few were educated25 and a small number
had been in France26); (3) the development of Creole, a common language
derived from French vocabulary, but built o n African syntactic ordering, which
made communication easier between slaves of different ethnic origins; (4) the
development of a religion, voodoo, peculiar t o the slaves, derived from their
African background and constituted through the creolization of ancestral beliefs
and rites and joined in adaptive syncretism with the religion of the masters;
voodoo was rooted in the difference between the gods of the white and the gods
of the black. Since the well-known works of Karl Deutsch have appeared o n the
subjects of political awareness and mass communication and o n nationalism and
social communication,27 these last t w o conditions cannot be underestimated any
longer.
And so, progressively, a set of conditions arose that were propitious t o
marronage.

The Problem of Causal Explanation and

Typology Building
It is hard, by means of documents coming only from the white masters and
by means of behaviors which may have had complex motivations, t o determine
the causes of marronage. Any attempt at structuring causal explanation must
admit the existence of cases that are outside of the model, unclassifiable in their
singularity: special individuals like Zabeth (maroon from childhood, maroon
adult, maroon after each recapture, maroon after mutilation, maroon to death);
specific groups, such as certain ethnic ones, who reject social plantation life
and the master-slave relation. For them, marronage is the state of nature. Such
independent natures or bohemian characters d o exist, so why not even more so
among the slaves, for whom slavery certainly provides a reason?
So, a tentative structure of causal explanation correlated with a typology
of maroons distinguishes (not including specific unclassifiable cases) t w o ap-
proaches-one for maroons as individuals and one for maroons as groups (wander-
ing bands, communities, organized camps). But all explanation is related in one
way o r the other t o the existence in St. Domingue of two classes: white masters,
black slaves.

Motivations of the Maroons as Individuals

Individual marronage may be explained both by objective reasons and by
subjective motivations. Both are t o be found in t h e working and living condi-
tions of the slaves.
The negative reaction of a slave against the conditions of work (location,
duration and type of work, organization of labor, the painfulness, degrading
nature and status of work) may take many forms: laziness, withdrawal of
enthusiasm, “sickouts,” apathy as passive resistance, sit-down strikes. Marronage
is the extreme form of reacting negatively against the conditions of work-it is
a stopping dead of work, a point-blank refusal to work and running away. Here
 Manigat: Marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti 4 29

we have the marronage-strike.28 In this case, the maroon protests against a

particular condition that he deems unbearable o r the general conditions, which
he finds unacceptable. Marronage is the expression of a trade dispute. But even
at this stage of a mere marronage-strike, a primary consciousness of antagonisms
of interest may emerge, with large consequences for future developments. Mar-
ronage may be a negative reaction of the slave t o the conditions of life in the
plantation-the standard of living and as both quantitative (mainly socio-
economic) and qualitative (predominantly sociocultural) aspects of life.
Reaction against Standard of Living. Since by definition, the slave is not
entitled t o a salary, his basic needs-housing, health, clothes, food-must be met
by the plantation system. When his basic needs were neglected, the slave might
try t o leave an “inhospitable” master. Of these primary needs, it is, of course,
food that is the most vital. And n o doubt a great deal of narronage was associa-
ted with lack of food,29 showing the connection: marronage-want o f f o o d .
Those who preach unconditional obeisance t o empirical data find the lack of
food to be the most frequent cause of marronage. The problem of food supply
is given the force of a determinant of marronage. First, hunger is not t o be
disassociated from many other forms of deprivation, of which the structured
combination constitutes the servile condition. Hunger is but one element in the
package and therefore cannot be taken in isolation as the structure giving the
significant general explanation. Second, as seen before, hunger has the power t o
mobilize discontent and social unrest. Many revolts have started as hunger riots.
Hunger, penury and other deprivations may compel the slave t o steal and run
away. The connection between marronage and robbery is one of the most
popular in the archival documents. This is marronage-delinquency, and here
again, those who uncritically accept the empirical data always claim that marron-
age is associated with robbery or some other misdemeanor and therefore that the
maroon is the guilty slave who runs away t o avoid penalty. In any event the
testimony of the master is categorical. Delinquency (particularly robbery) and
the escape of punishment became a favorite explanation for marronage.30
Charles Andre Julien and Etienne D. Charlier were among the first t o reverse this
type of explanation, stating that very often the slave did not run wild because
he had stolen, but that he stole in order t o run Indeed, when we analyze
what was stolen we find objects or food necessary for the running maroon such as
foodstuffs, clothes, poultry, a horse or a cart, some tools and drugs. The right
explanation is not marronage because of theft, but theft because of marronage,
robbery being the consequence of the decision t o flee t o the woods. Thus the
argument for delinquency as a cause of marronage is weakened.
Reaction against the Way o f Life. The slave may flee following maltreatment
(frequent use of the whip, toughness of the master, brutality of a “commander”).
It is a question of when the threshold of “bearability” is reached and the slave
makes the jump from suffering to refusing t o suffer, and flees. Here we have
marronage-suffering because of maltreatment.
Certain slaves did not and could not submit themselves t o the discipline of
plantation life and adapt themselves t o a servile life. As soon as they landed,
and/or were bought by a master and/or were brought t o the plantation, they
sought t o escape. This is marronage-inadaptation, an expression of the instinc-
tive rejection of servility and of the inborn pride of Negroes reacting against
becoming chattel. An inflated pride was often the response t o the challenge that
cultural and economic domination were damaging to black selfesteem.
Slaves ran wild because they were fed up, uprooted, homesick, “browned-off.’’
Their flight was an impuslive act. This psychological state is rooted in detri-
430 Annals New York Academy of Sciences

balization, which made them feel like fish out of water, giving rise t o nostalgia,
frustration and unhappiness or to moral lassitude and spleen. In this condition
of stress, they fled the plantation and its environment. This is marronage-state
of depression, the explanation for which lies in the profound psychology of the
oppressed, deep-seated inhibitions and suppressed desires.32
Slaves ran away during their days off or in times of leisure, looking for enter-
tainment and amusement. When deprived of or forbidden gatherings for relaxa-
tion, songs and tales that they love, music and dances that they enjoy, they
tended to furtively leave the plantation. This is marronage-relaxation.
Finally, sex may have been a motivation for marronage. Usually the masters
preferred to buy male slaves for production rather than females for reproduc-
tion, creating a sexual imbalance that was ultimately a source of sexual frustration.
“Courrir les filles” (“girl-hunting”) was a natural urge that could not always be
met within the plantation. Given the hard work and the scarcity of leisure for
the slaves, womanizing was a favorite diversion for which it was worth taking
the risk of a “fugue” to another plantation or a more serious flight. Sometimes
the slave became a maroon after a love grievance o r conflict on the plantation
with a luckier fellow-slave or even an enterprising master. A whole chapter
could be written on marronage-sexuality, the slaves running away with girls or
running away because of girl-hunting, or running away because of girls who
wanted to elope with them, or abducting girls after having fled and lived as
maroons.

Motivations of the Maroons as Groups

While the motivations of the maroons as individuals reveal only a “spon-
taneous consciousness” and, at most, a prepolitical consciousness, the maroons
as groups more often give evidence of the existence of a political consciousness,
a revolutionary consciousness, a prenational and finally a national consciousness.
Here we find dynamic causalities that cast a light on the relationship between
structures and behavior and may explain a behavior of deviance or a deter-
mination to change the existing structures. The Ministry of Colonies was not
wrong in identifying marronage with the more professional subversion of the
revolutionaries.
The maroons as groups constitute three categories for which the criteria for
ranging them is their degree of structuralization: (1) the wandering band of
maroons, having a loose structure that changes according to circumstances, a
cloud-type of gathering that is able to change form quickly, but within which
the chief may hold strong authority; (2) the more stable community of
maroons that form a geographically implanted grouping, but that must be able
t o be flexible since their location will depend on changing conditions of security;
consequently this maroon group will be structured only enough to maintain a
minimum of homogeneity, order and control; (3) the organized camp, which
has a character of permanence and represents the highest degree of structure.
A military society, the camp thrives on the principle of self-reliance, self-govern-
ment, and self-defense and is implanted like an independent enclosed micro-
state.
It is obvious that the rating of these variables cannot give an account of the
motivations of the members of these three groups, but for all three, the type of
general explanation changes from the socioeconomic-psychological, which
predominated at first, to the sociopoliticcultural, which then tended to pre-
vail.
 Manigat: Marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti 43 I

The motivations of the maroons as groups may be considered as motivations-

causes, driving forces, and aspirations.
Motivations of the Causal Type. Motivations of the causal type that explain
the constitution of bands of maroons are, more particularly, the determination
t o resist, the desire for vengeance, and the clash of conflicting cultures.
Determination t o resist oppression and exploitation soon reveals the pre-
cariousness of marronage on an individual level. Isolated, the maroon is easily
run t o ground. Resistance is possible and has meaning only when collective:
from this we see the concerted escapes. This is marronage-resistance. The maquis
where they took refuge became centers of resistance (the “foco” of the Latin
American guerilla theory of the 1960s) against the territory occupied and con-
trolled by the oppressor, the exploiter, the enemy, against whom they some-
times enjoyed complicity within the plantations themselves. Here is an em-
bryonic political consciousness. It is still negative, a defensive reaction, but it
clears the way for passage t o a positive phase: an offensive action, first inspired
by vengeance, the transitional emotional link between defensive and offensive
conduct of hostility.
Vengeance has often been the deep-seated, secret feeling of a certain number
of slaves behind their apparent resignation to or even cheerful acceptance of the
servile condition. Accumulated resentments, deep-rooted hate, sometimes ex-
pressed through criminality (particularly poisoning), find a less dangerous way
of free expression in marronage. The desire for vengeance leads the slave to flee
the disliked plantocratic world and join fellow maroons t o raid the plantations
and t o retaliate, arms in hand. Destruction of installations, arson, setting fire t o
the sugar-cane fields by the band of maroons are all the result of the passage
from latent t o overt vengeance and from individual t o collective consciousness
of the slaves: marronage-vengeance. Maroons were thus engaged in open hostility
against the planters expressed in the form of group antagonism.
But the most profound and lasting motivation for collective marronage comes
from the clash of different and potentially antagonistic cultures provoked by
the master-slave relationship. Even the partial success of assimilation u p t o
mimeticism must not delude us: Two cultures were juxtaposed: a dominating
one (the European whites) and a subordinate one (the African blacks). The
racism of the former, with its differentiating privileges, helped the latter t o
become aware of the culturally explosive content of the opposition and t o
define itself by the conflicting character of the relationship. Voodoo, by dif-
ferentiating and soon opposing the gods of the African-originated religion of
the slaves and the God and saints of the religion of the masters (in spite of
a syncretic coexistence), aggravated the cultural tension and radicalized it t o the
breaking-point. A counter-acculturation move led to collective marronage to
remove the fugitive from an alienating, oppressive culture, and it was an opening
t o true political consciousness.
Motivations-Driving Forces. Marronage is history and, as such, part of the
general process that led St. Domingue to a revolution in which class struggle took
the form of race struggle. Is it conceivable that marronage would have played no
role in this process? Revolts and revolution as forms of social conflict would
have been the product of class and race struggles, and so would not marronage,
as another form of social contest, also be part of the same struggle? Even with-
out adopting the Marxist postulate that “all history is history of class struggle,”
it seems unlikely in principle that in a country where the end-product of the
historical process of the colonial period has been revolution, that marronage,
opposing masters and slaves, would have occurred outside the context of class
and race struggles.
432 Annals New York Academy of Sciences

Documentary evidence supports the logic of historical reasoning to show that

in its highest and most militant form marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti has been
the expression of class and race struggles. In spite of their panegyric and lyrical
point of view, Jean Fouchard brings new documents into the debate and Edner
Brutus casts new light o n the question of the relationship between marronage
and the Haitian revolution. It is only fair t o modify their passionate pleas with
the excessive but salutary caution of Gabriel Debien, who mistrusts “novelists,”
does not accept assertions based on “reasoning” only, and does not find con-
clusive even the new data presented by Jean Fouchard o n the growth and accelera-
tion of marronage towards the r e v o l ~ t i o n The
. ~ ~ conclusions of the two Haitian
authors are totally irreconcilable with the “critical negativist” position of Yvan
Debbash on the matter of the political content and aspects of marronage. The
debate deserves t o be renewed.
With regard to class struggle, the conduct of the maroons reveals this refusal
t o work on the plantations of the masters and their attempts to destroy the tools
and places of work, the properties of the masters, and the masters themselves.
In 1779, for example, all the slaves who became maroons set fire ro sugar canes
ready to be rolled and poisoned the “dconome” (steward) and the “procureur-
girant” (overseer) on the plantation La Ferronaye at Grande Rivi6re du Nord.
Setting fire to the standing crop and trying to kill the masters are among normal,
if not frequent, “actions” of the maroons throughout the eighteenth century.
Predatory acts against property (as a symbol of ownership by the masters),
and covert attacks on property (as a symbol of class oppression) faithfully
accompany marronage through all its historical lifetime. It is admitted that
actions of this kind are an expression of class struggle. Doesn’t this also apply
to the maroon slave? If not, why? Is it on this same ground of refusing “ethno-
centrism” that brought even Roger Bastide t o believe that the concept of per-
sonal freedom as a profound activator of behavior was the product of the ideo-
logy of the eighteenthcentury French philosophers and therefore could not be
attributed to the slaves?” Another significant point also cited by Debien was
the habit of the maroons t o settle on plantations abandoned by the masters
after unsuccessful attempts at cultivation. So the maroons adopted the very
same places they had fled when they had t o work for the master^!'^ Some
maroon leaders accused the master of appropriating the fruit of the slaves’ work.
One theme of maroon propaganda against the masters is conserved today through
the creole proverb “Bourrique travaille choual galomne” (it is the donkey that
works, but the horse that is promoted). Moreover, within the space occupied
by the maroon bands or in the camp territory, the maroons aimed at cultivating
their own products in order t o be as self-reliant as possible. Indeed, the final
objective of some maroon leaders, from Padre Jean t o Mackandal, was t o make
the slaves instead of masters owners of the lands. What is this if not class con-
sciousness and class struggle?
With regard t o race struggle, it is omnipresent in the history of marronage in
St. Domingue: “We have in the Negroes a formidable enemy a t home.” The
maroon leader, Medor, confesses when arrested, the “secret” of the Negroes who
were preparing themselves t o fight the whites if necessary.%. The racial connota-
tion of the maroons’ struggle in St. Domingue is attested t o in every case of
grand marronage and the racial motivation is explicit in the statements of the
leaders and the accounts of the colonists o r the colonial administrators. The
maroon spirit, dynamized by voodoo as a vehicle of racial awareness and indic-
ative of cultural antagonism, was reported to spread racial tension in the
plantations, even among the elite of the slaves, as in the case of the 66 maroons
 Manigat: Marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti 433

who killed the “econome” of their plantation in 1744. They learned to distin-
guish the white man’s business (“z’affaires blancs”) and the white man’s manners
from the Negro’s business and the manners of “we kind of people.” The maroons
fought the white rules of work and discipline, the white establishment, the white
culture, the white power. Medor and Mackandal in the 1750s, Polydor in 1734,
Padre Jean in 1679, and others u p t o Boukman in 1791, spoke the language of
racial antagonism because it was the most obvious line of cleavage in the colony,
and their open goal was the elimination of the whites, class and race struggles
being associated in the same fight.
Motivations-Aspirations. The motivations of the maroons in bands were the
aspirations t o liberty, property and independence. For these goals, they ran
away and began t o fight.
The aspiration t o liberty is clearly stated by maroons like Medor: “it is in
view of obtaining freedom.” The colonists themselves recorded cases of slaves run-
ning t o become maroons “without reason,” “without subject,” “without any visible
motives.” The instructions of the Ministry of Colonies were concerned by the
necessity “to make the slave lose, if possible, the desire for freedom,” in an
effort t o avoid marronage, but they did not underestimate the strength of the
aspiration to liberty. “Slavery is a violent state counter to nature; those who are
subject t o it are continuously motivated by the desire to get free from it.” One
of the responses t o the challenge of slavery as a state contrary t o nature was
marronage. It is not only a question of maltreatment, punishment, lack of food,
or intolerable working conditions, but something stronger that overrides all
these. The confession of a colonist of St. Domingue is clear o n this point, speak-
ing of a good master o n the “happiest” plantation: “There is nowhere else
where the negroes have more food, enjoy a better life and sweeties, have easier
conditions of work and are treated with more consideration and humanity”; yet
“they are incapable of being grateful . . . ” and flee as maroon^.^' A Swiss
author corroborates this point: “Nothing is more frequent than plots of marron-
age in the best plantations.”% Gabriel Debien himself concedes that “The good
masters had sometimes more maroons than the toughest ones.”39 In the absence
of any better explanation, it is difficult not t o attribute marronage t o the aspira-
tion for liberty.
The aspiration t o property also motivated the maroons. Actually, if not
hunted down, the maroons would have been the pioneers who, by reclaiming
new lands for cultivation, would have advanced the frontier in St. Domingue.
We have already seen the care with which the maroons cultivated their lands
within their fortified camps. It was then suggested that the aspiration t o pro-
perty, lucidly perceived by the colonists and the colonial administration as a
factor contributing t o marronage, should be used t o fight marronage. In a
letter of February 2, 1767, the planter Friedmont writes that “this idea of slave
property may destroy that of marronage,” and in the same year another colonist
commented, “The negro considers himself as a kind of owner. He is attached t o
this land which is set apart for his use; therefrom not much m a r r ~ n a g e . ” ~ ~
Then, in 1784, a royal Ordinance normalized the practice of endowing slaves
with a piece of land.41
Finally, the aspiration t o national independence surfaced from time t o time
in the collective conscience of the maroons. Padre Jean, in organizing his maroons
in 1679, already professed his faith in a new state of black power.42 In 1757,
Medor revealed a similar project among the free Negroes of encouraging and
helping the slaves t o run away in order t o “destroy the colony.” In 1734,
Polydor had spread the same message. But the famous episode is the one during
434 Annals New York Academy of Sciences

which Mackandal, the super-hero of 18 years of marronage, taught his maroon

followers that it was the blacks who were going t o become the final masters of
the country. He or anized the maroons as propagandists t o incite the slaves t o
poison the whites.f3 In 1786, another maroon leader, Jerome Poteau, again
advocated independence. Thus, the evidence is that maroons arrived at a concept
of collective independence based on ethno-nationalism before the start of the
revolution.

Evolution o f Marronage after 1783 towards a Critical

Threshold of Mutation into a Revolution:
The Conjuncture of the 1780s
In February 1929, the Revue d’Histoire des Colonies published a document
about secret political and religious gatherings of the Negroes in St. Domingue in
1786 that preached independence and was accompanied by this commentary:
“There has been an underground current of preachings and schemings in this
direction that one guesses but that it would be interesting t o look for and
discover from the first maroons to the Revolution. Would Polydor and Mackandal
be the precursors of Boukman and Romaine la Prophetesse? Would there be
continuity from the one t o the other?” This commentary shows that our per-
spective is not new since the hypothesis already seemed plausible fifty years
ago.
First, as we have seen, a tradition existed during the eighteenth century
among the maroons t o fight for freedom, land and an ethno-nationality. Then,
since marronage has been a continuous flux, with advances and recessions, the
tradition has been permanently maintained and transmitted from generation t o
generation, carrying with it an aureole of myth and legend. The constant recur-
rence of marronage, reiterating these sociopolitical themes through decades
(for example, maroon activities were reported in 1702, 1704, 1705, 1708,
1709, 1712, 1715, 1717, 1719, 1720, etc.; Mackandal was a m a r o o n for almost
twenty years before being killed in 1758), is the first ingredient t o be retained.
The tradition was ongoing, constantly revived, magnified, and mythified in the
collective profound psychology of the slaves.
From the 1760s, this tradition met a fast-changing context due t o the accelera-
tion of historical events a t that time.
Externally, these events are seen in the influence of French and/or American
ideas brought back by Negroes who had been t o France or t o America, metro-
politan soldiers who had deserted and mixed with maroons in common socio-
political gatherings, and the books that certain slaves could read and comment
on with their comrades during the evening talks. These ideas were giving new
life to the “force of ideas” that marronage had brought about before.
In June 1791, less than two months before the uprisings, some printed notices
appeared about maroons “knowing [how] t o read and write, having stayed in
France for some time.” It,is not difficult to imagine the ideas this kind of maroon
injected into traditional marronage. There was also the influence of maroons from
Jamaica, sold by the British, who wanted t o get rid of them. There was, in addi-
tion, t h e contagious ideological influence of the “patriotic soldiers coming from
the metropole”@ after 1789. Marronage was then in the process of being ideolo-
gized by modern political ideas, the Abbe Raynal n o t being the only “philosopher”
whose ideas reached the slaves.
Internally, conditions were also rapidly changing. Communication between
the slaves became more intense and more politically oriented, Creole reached
 Manigat: Marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti 43 5

maturity as a unifying language between different maroons, and voodoo witnessed

a process of radicalization and politicalization, as attested t o b y the Mackandal
and Jerome Poteau episodes. Various documents of the 1770s and 1780s attest
to a new state of affairs in the plantation system and, at the same time, less
tight control of the contacts between the slaves of different plantations, despite
official interdiction (the masters “shut their eyes”).
The conquest of the hills by the coffee planters, who tended t o arrogate these
favorite maroon places, paradoxically compelled the maroons t o rely more and
more on the plantations by complicity with the slaves who remained or by
plunder. The extension of the “Negroes’ gardens,” which tended t o remove
one of the motivations for running away, kept slaves on the plantations who had
had other motivations t o flee, but who were restrained from doing so only by
possibility of getting a piece of land. These other motivations remained inter-
nalized, however. So t o some extent we may regard the revolution within
the plantation as a materialization of the “spirit of marronage” turned inward
and finding another expression. The spirit of marronage as a revolt trickled
down into the consciousness of the plantation slave; this is an explanation of
why all the slaves of an entire plantation fled and became maroons, an unpre-
cedented event. Other similar cases occurred from 1767 onwards.
Soon the maroons obtained some modern arms and for the first time-an
unparalleled event-attacked the “mardchaussee” (who specialized in the fight
against the maroons) with gunfire in 1 767.45 This occurred despite the interdiction
against the freed men (particularly the free blacks) t o help the maroons, even
forbidding the free men t o buy arms for fear that these were intended for the
maroons. The geographical extension of marronage was such that “the planter
was always afraid t o lose his slave by the way of marronage.”M The Establish-
ment of St. Domingue witnessed a great fear of the maroons: their number was
magnified and “where there were 300 negroes one imagined 10,000 maroons,”
according t o the testimony of M i l ~ c e n t . ~ ’
Moreover, the revolts of the the role of St. Domingue in the War
of American Independence, the British blockades during the wars between
France and England-extraordinary and exciting events-all created a new frame
of mind that was reflected in the minds of the slaves themselves. In March 1769,
another unparalled event occurred: all the slaves on the Bellanton plantation
at the Croix des Bouquets took the main road t o Port-au-Prince and went right
t o the Governor’s residence, the Prince of Rohan, to claim justice against a white
“manager.”
Finally, during the eighteenth century, the slave-traders had brought t o St.
Domingue new stocks of blacks, among whom were Negroes of royal blood,
educated Negroes from Africa, Muslim and Arab teachers, members of proud
tribes, “a superior quality of African,” as was said of them by Moreau de St.
Mery, Colonel Malenfant, Pamphile de Lacroix, Leclerc and Rochambeau. A
militant tradition plus exceptional human qualities of intelligence and moral
energy met exceptional circumstances (internal and external, objective and
subjective) t o produce a critical threshold in the evolution of marronage: its
mutation into revolution.
Maroon leadership, maroon bands, maroon tradition (motivation and ideo-
logical driving forces), maroon process of coming t o consciousness (utilization of
voodoo in politics), maroon tactics (guerilla), maroon sites, sanctuaries and high
places-all these distinctive marks of marronage are t o be found again in the
early stage of the revolution (1791 -1793), when Boukman, for example, organized
the general uprisings of the slaves and other revolutionary figures led groups
436 Annals New York Academy of Sciences

of slaves who had revolted. Boukman typifies the leadership during transition
from marronage t o revolution, incarnating both. It is significant that Jean
Fouchard asks whether a certain “bouquemens” who symbolized a dangerous
maroon in 1779 would not be the same Boukman who organized the slave
revolution of 1791!
The same distinctive marks of marronage are t o be found again in the actions
of the then mature stage of revolt, when Toussaint L’Ouverture prosecutes the
revolution, but later has t o defend its conquests (1793-1 802) against Bonaparte.
The same distinctive marks-all of them-will also be found in the last stage of
the revolution, when the War of Independence resumes and when, later, a t the
finish Dessalines takes command from the almost victorious guerilla leaders,
who had the control of all of the interior, with the exception of the cities.
Thus, like the phoenix, marronage has thrown itself into the flames of the
revolution t o disappear and die, since, a t each stage of the revolution, mar-
ronage lost its raison d’ktre, when all its objectives, methods, techniques, ideo-
logies and “punch” were taken over by the revolutionary ebb. But when the
flow began, marronage sprang again t o autonomous life t o re-dynamize t h e
revolution and t o help it move toward a higher stage of achievement, disappearing
and dying again, once it boosted the revolution.
The dialectical move of vanishing only to reappear in a superior form was
realized by marronage often with the full awareness and active participation a t
each stage of the revolution of the majority of the traditionally militant maroons.
But sometimes it was necessary t o act without and even against certain refractory
o r individualistic maroon leaders who were nostalgic for the time of unruled
spontaneity and unlimited authority, and who were “allergic” t o the now-needed
demands for concerted and joint action (the early historical role of Boukman in
179 1). The drive toward revolution demanded structure and management
a t the mature stage (the ascension and the era of Toussaint L‘Ouverture 1793-
1802), followed by radicalization and militarization under a unified command
for the last stage, towards complete victory (the hour of Jean-Jacques Dessalines,
1802-1804).

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. On the aspects,problems, issues and perspectives of the revolutionary abolition of slavery
in Haiti, see MANIGAT, LESLIE F. The Haitian historical experience of the abolition
of slavery. Paper given at the International Seminar organized by the University of
Puerto Rico in May 1974 on “Las Experiencias diversas del abolicionismo en El
Caribe.” A Spanish translation has been made for publication in a special issue of
La Torre, University of Puerto R i a , Rio Piedras, December 1976.
2. For example: Memoire sur les negres marrons de St. Domingue, 1772. Arch. Col.
C9B 22.
3. “L’habitant est toujours en crainte de perdre ses esclaves par le marronage.” Lettre
de Fiedmon, 2 fevrier 1767. Arch. Col. C“ 34 f 20.
4. DEBIEN, G. 1966. Le marronage aux Antilles Francaises au XVIII” siecle. Caribbean
Studies Vol. 6, No. 3 (October).
5. DEBIEN, G. Les Marrons a St. Domingue en 1764. The Jamaican Historical Review
6: 9-20.
6. DEBBASH, Y. Le marronage. Essai sur la desertion de I’esclave antillais. L‘Annee
Sociologique (1961): 1-112; (1962): 117-195.
7. FOUCHARD, J. 1953. Les marrons du syllabaire. Editions Henri Deschamps. Port-
au-Prince, Haiti.
8. FOUCHARD. J. 1972. Les Marrons de la libertb. Editions de I’Ecole. Paris.
9. BRUTUS. E. n.d. Revolution dans St. Domingue (2 vols). Les Editions du Pantheon.
Belgium.
.
10. “L’esclavage est un &at violent et contre-nature . . ;ceux qui y sont assujettis sont
continuellement occupds du ddsir de s’en ddlivrer.” (Slavery is a violent condition
 Manigat: Marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti 437

counter-to nature; those who are subject to it are continuously motivated by the
desire to get free of it.) Instructions to De Nozibres and Tascher, 30th November,
1 7 7 1 , Arch. Col. F3 371 f 164.
11. The fact that the woods, the swamps, the hills and the mountains were ideal places
for hiding did not exclude other places of refuge such as the cities or even other
plantations. The important thing was to throw off the yoke of the master when he
exerted his discretionary power on the person of the fugitive slave.
12. DEBIEN, G. 1974. Les esclaves aux Antilles francaises. :422424. Basse Terre e t Fort
de France.
13. Yvan Debbasch himself attests the existence of this doctrine when he writes: “The
analysis is constant in the Instructions given during the XVIII” century to all the
administrators; marronage, revolt, the two dangers are not separated, as if one was
inevitably breeding the other.” (Reference 6: 123).
14. CESAIRE, A., 1960. Toussaint L ’Ouverture: La Revolution francaise et le probleme
colonial. Club du Livre, Paris.
15. FRANCO, J. L. 1966. Historia de 1aRevolucibrde Haiti. lnstituto de Historia, Academia
de Ciencias. Havana, Cuba.
16. ANDRE-JULIEN, C. 1949-1950. Les Francais en Amerique 1713-1 784. c . D. u.
Paris.
17. JAMES, C. L. R . 1963. n e Black Jacobins. Toussaint L’Ouvertureand theSan Domingo
Revolution (2nd ed. revised). :20-21. Vintage Books, Random House, New York,
N.Y.
18. WILLIAMS, E. 1964. Cnpitalism and Slnvery (English ed.) :102. Andre Deutsch.
London.
19. ARDOUIN, B. Etudes sur I’Histoire d’Haiti Vol. 1: 49.
20. CHARLIER, E. 1948. Apercu sur la formation historique de la nation haitienne.
Port-au-Prince.
21 PRICE MARS, J. 1955. Ainsi parla I’Oncle :48-49. Parapsychology Foundation. New
York, N.Y.
2 2. PRICE MARS, J. 1953. La Republique d’Haiti et la Republique dominicaino: Les
divers aspects d’un problem d’Histoire. de Geographie et d’Ethnologie. Vol. 1: 17-18 .
Port-au-Prince.
23. BRUTUS, E. Revolution dans St. Domingue. Vol. I: 70. 344.
24. FOUCHARD, J . , op. cit.
25. For example, one observer was surprised to find among the slaves to be sold ‘‘a professor
of arab language.” Mackandal, the famous maroon, spoke and wrote Arab ( B R U T U S ,
E. op. cit. Vol. I: 124); Toussaint L’Ouverture had learned to read and write, as had
some other fellow slaves.
26. A t certain periods, an effort was made to prevent the Negroes who had lived in France
to return to St. Domingue.
27. DEUTSCH. K. 1966. Nationalism and Social Communication: An Inquiry into the
Foundation of Nationality. The M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, Mass.
28. I borrow the expression from Yvan Debbasch, op. cit.
29. MOREAU DE ST. MERY. Lois et Constitutions (Conseil Supdrieur du Cap, rigle-
ment du 3 mai 1706 sur les cultures vivrie‘res, Vol. I1 :70) reports that type of
explanation of marronage “fugitive for want of food.” This cause is insisted upon
recently by authors like FRANCOIS GIROD (1972. La vie quotidienne de In Sociere
Creole [Saint Domingue au XVIIP sikcle] :170. Hachette. Paris and particularly
CHARLES FROSTIN (1972. Histoire de L’autonomisme colon de la Partie Francaise
de St. Domingue aux XVll“ et XCIlr“ sidcles. :286-287. Thesis Universitd de Paris.)
30. DEBIEN, G. “The most frequent cause of these runnings away seems to be robbery.”
31. ANDRE-JULIEN, C., op. cit. and CHARLIER, E. op. cit., have made clear that rob-
bery is often the “consequence” and not the “cause” of marronage.
32. DEBBASCH, Y. (op. cit. : l o ) goes as far as writing that “the maroon is a sick man and
he is precisely maroon because he is sick.”
33. DEBIEN, G. Les esclaves aux Antilles francaises. op. cit.: 466469.
34. BASTIDE, R. 1965. Ndgres marrons et Ndgres libres. Annales (Economies, Sociktes.
Civilisations :170. Armand Colin, Paris.
35. DEBIEN, G., op. cit. :430-431.
36. Quoted in DE VAISSIERE, P. La soci&te et la vie creole souslilncien Regime (1629-
1789). ~ 2 4 7 .
37. Arch. Col. F390 f 21 3.
38. DE CHANTRANS, G. Voyage d’un Suisse en diffbrentes colonies, Neuchatel, 1785.
:161.
39. DEBIEN, G., op. cit.: 465.
438 Annals New York Academy of Sciences

40. Letter from Fiedmont, 2nd February, 1767; letter from de la Hayrie, 4th March,
1767.
41. Ordinance of the 3rd December, 1784.
42. FOUCHARD, J., Op. cit. :474-475.
43. The Makandal history is quoted by all the historians from Moreau de St. Mery and B.
Ardouin to Debien, Fouchard and Brutus.
44. GARRON COULON. Rapports sur les troubles de St. Domingue, Vol. I1 ~268.
45. PERE CAEON. Histoire d'Haiti, Vol. 5 :313.
46. Letter of Friedmont, already uoted.
47. MILSCEN, 1791. Sur les trou&es de Saint Domingue. :9-10. Paris.
48. The best analysis of these revolts is the doctoral thesis by Charles Frostin, op. cit.