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History General

The Cry of Vertières

Liberation, Memory, and the Beginning of Haiti

by (author) Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec

translated by Jonathan Kaplansky

Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
Initial publish date
May 2020
Category
General
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780228001409
    Publish Date
    May 2020
    List Price
    $40.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780228002796
    Publish Date
    May 2020
    List Price
    $34.95

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Description

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 struck from the record. 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 re-enslave 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.

About the authors

Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec, professor of history at the Université de Sherbrooke, is the co-director of the digital project Marronnage in the Atlantic World: Sources and Life Trajectories.

Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec's profile page

Jonathan Kaplansky has translated several titles by Hélène Rioux, as well as several children’s titles and adult titles. His published translations, besides those by Rioux, include work by Annie Ernaux, Hélène Dorion and Serge Patrice Thibodeau. He also translated an extensive biography on filmmaker Frank Borzage. Jonathan Kaplansky studied at Tufts University and Université de Paris III, receiving an MA in French Language and Literature from McGill and an MA in Translation from the University of Ottawa. Originally from Saint John, New Brunswick, he currently lives in Montreal.

Jonathan Kaplansky's profile page

Editorial Reviews

"The Cry of Vertières makes a major and much welcomed contribution to the expanding field of Haitian revolutionary studies. By focusing on the centrality of the decisive Battle of Vertières, both in the historical record and from the perspective of collective memory 'from below' in Haiti's war of national liberation, it reconstructs -- in a more meaningful way than any strict military account -- the definitive turning point in Haiti's transition from a French colony at the brink of being re-enslaved to an independent country governed by former slaves." Carolyn Fick, Concordia University and author of The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below

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