The Political Project of Marie Sainte Dédée Bazile (Défilée): Reappropriating This Heritage to Build the Present

Abstract

The Political Project of Marie Sainte Dédée Bazile (Défilée): Reappropriating This Heritage to Build the Present Sabine Lamour On January 31, 2020, a gathering was held to remember the massacre that had occurred in La Saline, the second-largest slum in Port-au-Prince, on November 13 and 14, 2018.1 Attended by family members of the victims as well as Haitian civil society representatives, feminists, and activists from human rights organizations including Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn (SOFA) and the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH), the event was titled Ann Refè Jès Défilée a! (Let us repeat Défilée’s gesture!).2 According to a report published by RNDDH (2018), several state dignitaries had participated in plotting and carrying out the carnage in La Saline. This service functioned as a symbolic gesture that enabled the living to mourn and provided an appropriate burial for the dead—similar to the duty that Défilée had fulfilled in 1806 when she gathered the remains of Emperor Jean-Jacques Dessalines and gave him an honorable burial after his assassination on October 17, 1806. Défilée prevented the body of Dessalines, the founder of the Haitian nation, from being left on the street and eaten by animals. Haitian historiography has erased the political dimension of Défilée’s civilizing act and humanizing intervention. This historiography seems to disregard the accomplishments of women; their narratives do not hold historical value, nor do they provide meanings to Haiti’s collective dynamics in the same way as men who are, in contrast, revered as the fathers of the nation. Studies that mention women’s actions and recount their lives3 as part of Haiti’s national epic are almost nonexistent. Instead, scholars of Haitian history devote their attention to the biographies and [End Page 62] thoughts of Toussaint, Dessalines, Pétion, and Christophe. Venerated as ancestors and elevated to the rank of fathers of the nation, these four men occupy the most prominent places in Haitian memorial celebrations. Their actions, deeds, and gestures are analyzed and examined by academics in Haiti and abroad. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Défilée la folle. Painting by Patricia Brintle, reprinted with permission. Women do not have the status of mothers of the Haitian nation,4 nor are they considered ancestors whose actions are worth remembering. When they appear in accounts of Haitian history, scholars tend to list their actions in footnotes; their political positions are often linked to those of men, or their decisions are perceived as being influenced by men. Pushed to the side, women’s words and actions reach current generations through anecdotes and jokes whose historical significance is overlooked. Unknown or nicknamed with sobriquets, women are discredited as ancestors and their contributions devalued. Similar to dominant epistemologies of the Global North, Haitian history ignores gender relations and women’s accomplishments. However, in Haiti and abroad, and in various fields of research, some scholars are striving to excavate the contributions of women in the [End Page 63] history of Haiti. The earliest discussion began with the publication of Madeleine Sylvain Bouchereau’s thesis Haïti et ses femmes in 1957; Grace Louise Sanders (2013, 2023) undertook a systematic review of women’s activism during and after the United States Occupation of 1915–1934. In Haitian literature, Évelyne Trouillot (2001, 2003, 2010, 2020) and Marie-Célie Agnant (2007, 2015) stand out among those who use history to expose the erasure of women and give a voice to them. In addition to these novelists, Yveline Alexis (2021) highlights the contributions of women to the Caco movement in her study Fight Back: The Life and Legacy of Charlemagne Péralte. Like Sabine Manigat (2013), Alexis explains that Haitian historiography constrains women to the roles of wives, mistresses, or lovers of those considered heroes. Similarly, Jasmine Claude-Narcisse (1997) explains in an interview with Radio Haiti that even such figures as Joute Lachenais, who was the wife of President Pétion and then of President Boyer, are wholly ignored in the examination of Haitian history between 1806 and 1843. In analyzing...