The cry of Vertières : liberation, memory, and the beginning of Haiti /
This book tells the story of the Battle of Vertières, fought in 1803 between indigenous Haitian forces under the leadership of Jean-Jacques Dessalines and a French expeditionary army commanded by Napoleon. The battle marked the culmination of a thirteen-year revolutionary struggle to end slavery and...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Montreal ; Kingston :
McGill-Queen's University Press,
[2020]
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| Series: | McGill-Queen's French Atlantic worlds series ;
5. |
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| Summary: | This book tells the story of the Battle of Vertières, fought in 1803 between indigenous Haitian forces under the leadership of Jean-Jacques Dessalines and a French expeditionary army commanded by Napoleon. The battle marked the culmination of a thirteen-year revolutionary struggle to end slavery and the dawn of an independent Haiti. Yet despite its pivotal importance to the history of Haiti, France and the Americas, the Battle of Vertières has been lost to history. The Cry of Vertières is the first book-length study of the battle, drawing from an array of sources including military correspondence, Haitian literature, art and popular music. The event itself is recounted in vivid detail. It is a dramatic story of a volunteer army of former slaves, seeking the promises of freedom and citizenship held out by the revolution, defeating a colonial power determined to reenslave them. The book also examines why the history of the battle has been suppressed in France, an act of erasure of a humiliating defeat, and why it remains fragile even in Haiti. Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec explains that today Vertières is both a key lieu de mémoire that embodies reconciliation, pride and strength for the Haitian people, and a figure of speech exploited by politicians to reinforce their power. Describing a decisive yet largely forgotten moment in the revolutionary history of the Americas, The Cry of Vertières makes an essential contribution to the complex subjects of race, memory, colonialism and cultural nationalism in present-day France and Haiti. |
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| Item Description: | Translation of: L'armée indigène: la défaite de Napoléon en Haïti. |
| Physical Description: | xx, 216 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 0228001404 9780228001409 |