Haiti Fights Back: The Life and Legacy of Charlemagne Péralte

Abstract

This deeply researched, thoughtfully crafted, and unapologetically argued work reveals how protest and revolution are at the core of Haitian national identity. Historian Yveline Alexis's compelling account of Haitian history and Haitian-US relations between 1915 and 2008 focuses on Charlemagne Péralte and those inspired by his anti-imperial campaign, most notably Haitian women and artists, as well as exiles mobilizing in New York City. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in Haitian nationalism, US imperialism, popular resistance, historical memory, and methodology, to name several of Alexis's foremost areas of contribution.Whereas most scholarship on Péralte focuses on his assassination by marines in 1919 and their strategy of publicly displaying his cadaver to squash a Haitian resistance operation (cacos) to the 1915 US military invasion of Haiti, Alexis challenges the image of Péralte as a “lawless bandit” by introducing readers to Péralte as a man who also gained prominence because of how he used “his pen” and because of the nationwide recognition of “his political portraiture” (p. 3). Ten chronological chapters survey pivotal and prominent moments from the existing historiography: the 1915 US military invasion of Haiti, the US military mission's official end in 1934, the 29-year dictatorship of François and then Jean-Claude Duvalier, and the transition to popular democratic rule after Duvalier's 1986 exile, which resulted in ongoing foreign intervention.Alexis's source base is abundant, interdisciplinary, and original: traditional records from Haiti and the United States (most notably, from the US Marines, Navy, and State Department archives), letters and other writings from Péralte, his eldest brother (Saül), and his mother (Anne-Marie Claire Emmanuel, also known as Madame Masséna), oral histories (including conversations with three of Péralte's descendants and residents of Péralte's hometown, Hinche), newspapers, published primary sources, murals, paintings, literature (particularly by Haitian women), radio transmissions, and ethnographic observations. These primary sources allow Alexis to foreground how the “subaltern speak and act” (p. 3). She discusses them alongside an equally diverse secondary literature, particularly grounded in Haitian-authored historiography and scholarship based outside Haiti on resistance.Through Alexis's efforts, we learn about Péralte's leadership style, how he came to lead the cacos, and how his enduring legacy epitomizes the fact that historical memory is central in Haitian nationalism. Alexis points to Péralte's privileged economic background (due to military positions that he and his family members held), his prestigious schooling, his nationwide and diplomatic political appointments, and family bonds as factors that helped Péralte garner widespread respect for himself. Moreover, Péralte's ability to convey profound connections between past and present, combined with his vast knowledge of Haiti's terrain and communities, allowed him to recruit fighters and establish strategies that generated support for anti-imperial campaigns across cities, regions, social classes, and gender lines.Alexis goes beyond the “man-made boundary” of most narratives by foregrounding the Haitian women in the cacos and broader anti-invasion campaign (p. 18). She introduces letters from Péralte's mother to her son that offered Péralte strategy and encouragement during his missions, women who took up arms, women who produced literary writing as a form of protest, and women who mobilized against both the invasion and domestic forms of gender-based oppression, including disenfranchisement.Alexis also documents how enduring Péralte's legacy is and the centrality of historical memory to diverse articulations of Haitian nationalism by engaging diverse ethnographic sources. Haitian artist Philomé Obin's paintings of Péralte between 1944 and 1970, the 1982 founding of the Charlemagne Péralte Center in New York City by activist priests in exile, the inclusion of anti-imperialist ideas in the manifesto of the Port-au-Prince–based political party named Front Charlemagne Péralte de Liberation Nationale, and the inclusion of Péralte's name and image on the painted facades of a barbershop in Brooklyn, New York, and a Haitian schoolhouse in 2008 are among the ways that Alexis demonstrates how Péralte is remembered or “resurrected” (a word she uses in chapter 8's title) to critique foreign intervention and the authoritarianism of Haitian heads of state, in addition to extending a bond that Alexis names “patriotic kinship” (p. 7). Alexis contributed to such memory making by commissioning original art for the book's vivid cover, which conveys the dignity and power that she argues for in the book.Readers might appreciate anticipating Alexis's stylistic decision to interject Haitian Kreyòl throughout the narrative. Translations and wordplay accentuate the authenticity of Alexis's overall writing tone. Still, amid brilliant turns of phrases and concepts, most readers may need to pace themselves to capture the many layers in Alexis's argument.Overall, Haiti Fights Back is a groundbreaking work of interdisciplinary history based on conscientious methodology, abundant findings, pointed arguments, and numerous paths for academic and nonacademic readers to deepen their study of Haiti, Haitian experiences, US imperialism, and the resistance practices of women and men in anti-oppression campaigns that transcend time and space.