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Description and Holding Information
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Dalmas, History of the Revolution in Saint Domingue, 1814, 2v
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Histoire de la révolution de Saint-Domingue, depuis le commencement des troubles, jusqu’a la prise de Jérémie et du Mole S. Nicolas par les Anglais;
suivie d’un mémoire sur le rétablissement de cette colonie: by M. Dalmas, Vol. 1-2, Paris, Chez Mame Frères, 1814. (A table of contents for both
volumes starts on p. 295 of volume 2. There is no index. This history, reported by the author to have been written in 1793, but only published in 1814, was
by Antoine Dalmas, a French doctor resident in Haiti during “la catastrophe.” The account is decidedly pro-settler and hostile to the “free
coloureds”, not surprising in one who, it is claimed, acquired much of his information while attending as a medical examiner during the torture of black
revolutionists. Dalmas is the originator of the “Pact with Satan” story connected with the onset of the slave revellion. He relates that during a Voodoo
ceremony held in the Bois Caïman in the northern mountains of Saint Domingue on August 14, 1791, a group of slaves under the leadership of one Boukman,
resolved to kill all of the whites on the island and entered into a pact with the devil to ensure their success. It is unclear from Dalmas’ narration
whether the Haitian leader Toussaint Louvertour was present at this event, although subsequent elaborations of the story do place him there. Dalmas’
account has been much disputed since; most recently and authoritively by Leon-Francois Hoffmannn in his work Haitian Fiction Revisted, a 1984 book
reprinted in 284pp, by Passeggiata Press, Pueblo, CO, 2000. Kauffmann denies that there ever was such a ceremony, contending that it was a fabrication of a
Frenchman who sought to use it to denigrate the Negro insurrectionists. He then goes on to meticulously trace the development and changing of the
story in subsequent Haiti-related literature.)
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Title:
Histoire de la révolution de Saint-Domingue : depuis le commencement des troubles, jusqu'à la prise de Jérémie et du Môle S. Nicolas par les Anglais ; suivie d'un Mémoire sur le rétablissement de cette colonie / par M. Dalmas.
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OCLC Number:
680539670
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Available Volumes
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