Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 83-88)

Cette thèse porte sur la transformation des communautés coloniales dans le Nouveau Monde, d’émanation de la société européenne à acteurs du continent américain. Le cœur de cette étude sera le processus d’« américanisation », entendu comme une métamorphose, sur le sol américain, des éléments issus d’autres parties du monde. Pour étudier ce phénomène historique, on a pris comme exemple le cas de la population de la colonie française de Saint-Domingue (aujourd’hui Haïti), et en particulier les « flibustiers dominguois ».Le terme « flibuste », dans la correspondance des administrateurs français, fait référence à un élément des communautés coloniales considéré comme crucial pour la consolidation des colonies américaines. Le processus d’« américanisation » de la flibuste, en relation avec les espaces américains et les établissements coloniaux européens est finalement l’objet principal de cette thèse .En utilisant une approche de la historico-culturel, on a contextualisé le phénomène des « flibustiers » parmi les premières communautés européennes qui se sont installés en Amérique . L’évolution de la relation entre les « flibustiers » de Saint- Domingue et les « espaces » - économique, militaire, diplomatique, social, humain – de la Mer des Caraïbes et sur le continent américain est un indicateur de la transformation des « flibustiers » en un phénomène « américanisé ».Grâce à la lecture des documents d’archives, des mémoires et des publications contemporaines des années entre 1684 et 1727, on a reconstruit la dynamique de la relation entre ce groupe et le contexte américain, afin de prouver que sa métamorphose, bien que inachevée, fut l’un des premiers exemples d’américanisation. / This thesis focuses on the evolution from emanation of European society to actors of the American continent of colonial communities in the New World. The main focus of this study will be the process of “americanization”, understood as a metamorphosis, on American soil, of the elements come from other parts of the world. To study this historical phenomenon, it is taken as an example the case of the population of the French colony of Saint-Domingue (today Haiti), and in particular the “freebooters”.The term “freebooter”, in the correspondence of the French administrators, refers to an element of the colonial communities considered crucial for American settlements. The process of “americanization” of the freebooters, in relation with American spaces and European colonies, is the focus of this thesis.Using a culture-historical approach, we have contextualized the phenomenon of “freebooters” among the first European communities who settled in America. The evolution of the relationship between the “freebooters” of Saint-Domingue and the “spaces” – economic, military, diplomatic, social, human – of the Caribbean Sea and the American hemisphere is an indicator of the transformation of the “freebooters” in a “americanized” phenomenon.Through the reading of archival records, memoirs and coeval publications of the years between 1684 and 1727, we have reconstructed the dynamics of the relationship between this group and the American context, in order to prove that its metamorphosis, although unfinished, was one of the first examples of early modern americanization. / Questa tesi si concentra sulla trasformazione delle comunità coloniali del Nuovo Mondo da emanazione della società europea a soggetto proprio del continente americano. Al centro dello studio sarà posto il processo di “americanizzazione”, inteso come la metamorfosi, sul suolo americano, degli elementi giunti dalle altre parti del mondo. Per studiare questo fenomeno storico, si è preso come esempio il caso della popolazione della colonia francese di Saint-Domingue (oggi Haiti), ed in particolare la “filibusta”. Il termine “filibusta”, nelle corrispondenze dei governatori francesi, fa riferimento ad un elemento delle comunità coloniali considerato fondamentale per gli insediamenti americani. Il processo di “americanizzazione” della filibusta, in relazione con gli spazi americani e con gli insediamenti coloniali europei, è la tematica principale di questa tesi. Utilizzando un approccio storico-culturale, si è contestualizzato il fenomeno della “filibusta” nelle prime comunità europee insediatesi in America. L’evoluzione dei rapporti tra i “filibustieri” della colonia francese di Saint-Domingue e gli “spazi” – economico, militare, diplomatico, sociale, umano – del Mar dei Caraibi e dell’emisfero americano è un indicatore della trasformazione della “filibusta” in un fenomeno “americanizzato”.Attraverso la lettura della documentazione d’archivio, della memorialistica e della pubblicistica degli anni compresi tra il 1684 e il 1727, si sono ricostruite le dinamiche delle relazioni esistenti tra questo gruppo e l’ambito americano, al fine di dimostrare che la sua metamorfosi, sebbene incompiuta, fu uno dei primi esempi di americanizzazione.

<p>In my dissertation, "The Kongolese Atlantic: Central African Slavery & Culture from Mayombe to Haiti," I investigate the cultural history of West Central African slavery at the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the late eighteenth century. My research focuses on the Loango Coast, a region that has received little scholarly attention despite the fact that it was responsible for roughly half of slave exports from West Central Africa at the time. The goal of my dissertation is to understand how enslaved Kongolese men and women used cultural practices to mediate the experience of slavery on both sides of the Atlantic world. To do so, I follow captives from their point of origin in West Central Africa to the Loango Coast and finally to the French colony of Saint Domingue in order to examine these areas as part of a larger "Kongolese Atlantic" world. </p><p>My dissertation begins by exploring the social and political history of the slave trade in the Loango Coast kingdoms, charting the structural changes that took place as a result of Atlantic trade. Next, I use historical linguistics to investigate the origins of captives sold on the Loango Coast. I find that the majority of captives came broadly from the Kongo zone, specifically from the Mayombe rainforest and Loango Coast kingdoms north of the River Congo. I then use a sociolinguistic methodology to reconstruct the cultural history of those groups in the near-absence of written documents. In the last chapter of the dissertation, I follow enslaved Central Africans from the Loango Coast to Saint Domingue, examining how they used specific and identifiable north coast cultural practices in the context of slavery. I find enslaved Central Africans used north coast spiritual tools such as divination, possession, trance, and power objects to address the material problems of plantation life. Finally, I argue the persistence of these spiritual practices demonstrates a remarkable durability of Kongolese ontology on both sides of the Kongolese Atlantic world.</p><p>My research produces new information about the history of the Loango Coast as well as the colony of Saint Domingue. The north coast origin of captives which I establish using historical linguistics contradicts earlier arguments that slaves traded on the Loango Coast originated from Kingdom of Kongo or from the inland Malebo Pool or Upper River Congo trade. I show inhabitants of the coastal kingdoms and Mayombe rainforest were not mere middlemen in the interior slave trade as previously thought, but were the victims of new mechanisms of enslavement created as a result of the erosion of traditional political institutions due to the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The north coast origin of Loango Coast captives has repercussions for the cultural history of the Americas. It means that captives were not "Atlantic Creoles" with prior knowledge of European culture and religion. I argue historians can only understand the meaning of the cultural practices of Africans in the Americas by understanding where Africans came from and what cultural and linguistic tools they brought with them. The use and transmission of Kongolese ritual knowledge and spiritual technologies in Saint Domingue challenges historians of slavery to move beyond the false dichotomy that culture originated in either Africa or on the plantation and forces a fundamental reassessment of the concept of creolization.</p> / Dissertation

L’île de Saint-Domingue a gravé pour toujours dans la mémoire collective le souvenir de l’esclavage des noirs. Mais l’histoire de cette île ne se résume pas au malheureux sort des milliers d’Africains transportés dans cette colonie où ils furent réduits à n’être que des instruments de travail. Elle est aussi et avant tout l’histoire de ces nombreux Européens, avides de richesses, qui s’y ruèrent dans le but, soit d’acquérir une fortune qu’ils avaient du mal à se faire en métropole, soit d’accroître un potentiel déjà acquis. Les Galliffet dont nous nous proposons d’étudier l’expérience à travers cette recherche font partie de la seconde catégorie.Vers la fin du XVIIe siècle, ils acquéraient à Saint-Domingue par le biais Joseph de Galliffet (Gouverneur de Saint-Domingue de 1700 à 1703), leur premier bien situé à la Petite Anse dans la Plaine du Nord. Un siècle plus tard, ils étaient propriétaires de plusieurs milliers de carreaux de terres et de cinq habitations prospères, comptant un millier d’esclaves et dont les revenus les hissèrent au sommet d’une des plus grandes fortunes coloniales de l’île, mais aussi de France. L’histoire des Galliffet, si elle ne diffère pas trop de celle de bien d’autres planteurs, dont certains ont déjà fait l’objet de travaux (les Cottineau, les Noé, les Laborde, les Beauharnais), fascine en de nombreux points qui nous interpellent. Ainsi nous nous intéresserons à leur mode d’accession aux habitations, à l’organisation du travail sous la houlette du gérant, Nicolas Odelucq, de même qu’à sa façon de mener ‘’le cheptel humain’’ chargé des travaux. Nous nous pencherons également sur le rendement des plantations après leur rachat par les Galliffet. Par ailleurs, il courait à Saint-Domingue l’expression suivante : « heureux comme les esclaves à Galliffet ». Un bref rappel des conditions de vie des esclaves ne sera donc pas exclu, même si la question a, semble-t-il, déjà été évoquée dans une étude plus générale sur les habitations de la Plaine du nord par Karen Bourdier dans sa thèse soutenue en 2005 ou encore par Elyette Benjamin-Labarthe et Éric Dubesset dans un ouvrage commun. Le travail dans son ensemble sera basé sur des documents d’archives contenant des livres de comptes, des actes notariés de vente ou de conclusion de partenariat entre les Galliffet et leurs associés. On y étudiera aussi la correspondance personnelle des Galliffet avec leur gérant, dont nous attendons de précieux renseignements; notamment sur la vie quotidienne des habitations. Une série d’inventaires réalisés sur celles-ci dans les années 1770, 1780 et 1790, nous informeront sur les maladies des esclaves, leur taux de natalité et de mortalité, la division des tâches quotidiennes sur les différentes habitations. Enfin, il sera aussi question de voir les effets des révolutions (française et haïtienne) sur l'avenir des habitations Galliffet. / L'auteur n'a pas fourni de résumé en anglais

The Haitian Revolution was the first successful slave revolt in history. And even though Haiti declared independence from France in 1804, most French civilization textbooks do not include this important event. From an economic standpoint, France depended on its imports from Saint-Domingue (Haiti's pre-revolutionary name); and from a philosophical standpoint, the slave revolt in Saint-Domingue originated from ideas that came from French philosophers preaching the Rights of Man. Studying the Haitian Revolution within the context of the French Revolution provides a perspective that highlights the complex relationship between France and its colonies as well as religion's displaced role after 1789. While France tried to rid the country of anything religious, its rebirth still had references to its Christian past. Two French works, Victor Hugo's Bug-Jargal and Alphonse de Lamartine's play, Toussaint Louverture, can provide great insight into these two sides of France-the religious and the secular. Both take place in Saint-Domingue during its Revolution, and both not only include a different perspective on the French and Haitian Revolutions, but also expose events that French history books routinely omit. In Hugo's Bug-Jargal, one main character and hero of the book is the eponymous slave. He is represented as a Christ-like figure: a slave of royal birth that sacrifices himself to save others on many occasions. The French hero, d'Auverney comes to realize that he shares more values with this slave than with the French people around him. Corrupt French officials, rebel leaders, and heroic slaves surround d'Auverney and the he must choose which set of beliefs and values best align with his own. His friendship with Bug-Jargal surprises him, and teaches him the importance of loyalty to a personal code of honor rather than to a country or society. The characters in the novella reflect a number of ways of thinking following the Revolution. The novella features nostalgia for the past and also confusion about France's new identity. In Lamartine's Toussaint Louverture, Toussaint relies on religion as he looks to God and past prophets for inspiration and motivation. He believes in sacrificing everything for his country. The contrasting characters symbolize the New France and follow a new god, Napoleon, and focus on reading, writing, and money. All the characters must pick a side: France or Haiti. Lamartine's narrative articulates the rupture between a secular France and a Catholic one.

Au cours de sa vie de 1767 à 1842, Henri de Ste Gême un émigré de la Révolution française immigrera à Saint-Domingue où il combattra pour les armées britanniques et républicaines tour à tour. Immigrant à Cuba et à La Nouvelle-Orléans par la suite, il participera à la bataille de La Nouvelle-Orléans où il recevra les éloges du général Jackson. Ste Gême retournera en France en 1818 où il laisse le soin de ses affaires louisianaises à ses amis, dont Jean Boze qui écrira de véritables chroniques sur tout ce qui se passe à La Nouvelle-Orléans. Les correspondances de Boze témoignent de l’évolution de La Nouvelle-Orléans au cours des années 1830 à une période où les francophones passent d’une population majoritaire à minoritaire. Cette américanisation et cette diversification de la population sont décrites par Boze, un réfugié de Saint-Domingue, qui porte une attention particulière à cette catégorie de la population ainsi qu’aux liens qu’ils entretiennent avec les autres francophones. De plus, les correspondances de Boze sont révélatrices de l’importance qu’occupe la France dans la Louisiane américaine au cours de la décennie 1830 spécialement, où La Nouvelle-Orléans représente une enclave du monde atlantique français et où les habitants francophones développent une identité hybride. / During his lifetime from 1767 to 1842, Henri de Ste-Gême, an émigré of the French Revolution migrated to the French colony of Saint-Domingue where he fought for both the British and the Republican armies. Afterwards he migrated to Cuba and to New Orleans where he fought under the command of General Andrew Jackson during the Battle of New Orleans and was praised for his service. Henri de Ste-Gême returned to France in 1818 and imparted the Louisiana business to his friends. Notably, it was Jean Boze who would later write chronicles about what was going on in New Orleans. This correspondence serves as a witness to the evolution of New Orleans during the 1830s at a moment where the Francophones went from being a majority to a minority. Further, this Americanization and diversification of the population is described by Boze, a Saint-Domingue refugee, who devotes special attention to this part of the population and to their relationship with other francophones during that time period. Furthermore, Boze’s correspondence reveals France’s importance in American Louisiana particularly in the 1830s, when New Orleans formed an enclave in the French Atlantic world and when the French-speaking population developed a hybrid identity.

Jusqu'à la dernière décennie du XVIIIe siècle, Saint-Domingue était la colonie de plantation la plus prospère du continent américain. Ce fut précisément dans le nord de ce territoire insulaire que se produisit en 1791 la rébellion d'esclaves qui marqua peut-être le plus l'histoire du Nouveau Monde. Cet événement a été suivi par des conflits civils et militaires qui, ultérieurement, ont conduit à l'Indépendance d'Haïti en 1804. Dès le début de ce processus de nature sociale et politique, la situation des Blancs s'en trouva affectée, notamment dans les sociétés esclavagistes voisines qui craignaient pour leur propre paix intérieure et s'alarmèrent de la violence d'une insurrection qui déboucha sur une République indépendante dirigée exclusivement par des Noirs et des mulâtres. De cette crainte collective on trouve des manifestations presque dans toute la Grande Caraïbe, aussi bien de manifestations d'angoisse, de peur que de panique, ainsi dans le discours tenu sur ce point par les Blancs. Elles continuèrent de se manifester tout au long du XIXe siècle, jusqu'à ce que l'esclavage fût aboli dans chaque territoire, et parfois même au-delà. Ces manifestations mettent en évidence l'existence d'un traumatisme de portée supranationale lié aux événements survenus dans la « Perle des Antilles », et à la réception de ces derniers jusqu'à constituer un « syndrome collectif ». Notre travail s'attache par conséquent à déterminer la véritable extension et les conséquences de ce phénomène, en analysant dans le détail et dans diverses aires culturelles du Monde Atlantique (anglophone et hispanophone) chacune de ses manifestations, voire de ses enjeux sur le plan politique, à travers des outils analytiques inspirés notamment des sciences cognitives.

Anne-Louis Girodet Trioson's Portrait of C.[itizen] Jean-Baptiste Belley, ex-representative of the Colonies, is evidence of the changing ideological situation during the French Revolution. Girodet was one of the most learned and accomplished students of Jacques-Louis David who strove to surpass his teacher in two ways: 1) by painting David's Neoclassical style so well that his handling surpasses that of his master, and 2) by choosing subject matter never before explored by David. Girodet accomplishes both within this work. The Neoclassical handling of the image has been achieved with amazing clarity, and the central figure of an identified black man had never been displayed in the Salon previously. The work was without precedent and without progeny. It successfully transcends the boundaries of portraiture into the highest tier of the Academic hierarchy: History Painting. Lacking in the existing scholarship of this portrait as history painting is that the work is successful in fulfilling a didactic and moralizing function, bearing significance to the general public. Scholars have hitherto ignored the striking visual similarities between this and Grand Tour portraits of Englishmen earlier in the century. This portrait of Belley calls into question accepted post-colonial readings by not adhering to a strict Orientalist interpretation. His hybrid nature nullifies readings that he is merely a black man posed as a French one. Belley cannot be seen as simply African, nor Haitian, nor French, nor military man, nor politician; each of these aspects of his being add up to his individual identity. It was because of Belley's race that he was chosen for this portrait; his complex nature creates a dramatic painting relevant to varied members of the general public, his status as a black man allows for a politically relevant subject worthy of history painting, and the choice of Girodet's model of Grand Tour portraiture with its connotations of education, travel and social status—when applied to a black man—make this a revolutionary painting unparalleled in history.