What Pat Robertson really meant

On the night of 14 August 1791, a man named Dutty Boukman organised a meeting with enslaved Africans in Bois Caiman, in the northern mountains of the island of Santo Domingo.

This meeting preceded the uprising that began on 22 August 1791 and which would pave the way towards Haiti's independence. The French quickly captured Boukman, who was leading the uprising, beheaded him and brought the rebellion under control.

They dispalyed Boukman's head on Cap's square to show the slaves that their invincible leader was dead. By 1804 the enslaved Africans had established the first independent Black state in the Americas - sounding the death knell of French imperial ambitions in the Americas. Haiti became a beacon for enslaved Africans, and its revolution led to the eventual end of plantation slavery.

Pat Robertson, a ultraconservative preacher, stated on the 700 Club today:

"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about. They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the Third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the Prince.' True story. And so the Devil said, 'OK it's a deal.' And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another."

What Robertson really meant was that is that it would be impossible for blacks to defeat white plantation owners during the Haitian revolution without the help of Satan. This is, of course, a blatantly racist view. It also insults the Haitian VooDou religion. 

Robertson should immediately apologise. The devil did not cause an Earthquake in Haiti.  We do not need this sort of rhetoric during this horrible tragedy. 
 
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The Haitian pact with the Devil

Dutty Boukman was a houngan, or vodoun (vooodoo) priest whose death was considered a catalyst to the slave uprising that started the Haïtian Revolution.  Boukman is thought to have been of Jamaican birth.


On 22 August 1791, Boukman functioned as a houngan (priest) together with an African-born priestess and conducted a ceremony at the Bois Caïman and prophesied that the slaves Jean François, Biassou, and Jeannot would be leaders of a slave revolt that would free the slaves of Saint-Domingue.

A pig, which symbolized the wild, free, and untamable spiritual power of the forest and the ancestors, was sacrificed, an oath was taken, and Boukman and the priestess exhorted the listeners to fight bravely against their oppressors.

Days later the Haitian Revolution began. Boukman was not the first to attempt a slave uprising in Saint-Domingue, as he was preceded by others. However, his large size, warrior-like appearance, and fearsome temper made him an effective leader and helped spark the Haitian Revolution.

Soon after the revolt began Boukman was caught by the French authorities and beheaded. The French publically displayed Boukman's head to dispell his aura of invincibility that Boukman had cultivated.

While the rebellion was temporarily quelled in northern Haiti it continued in other parts of Haiti and soon became unmanageable.



Bois Caïman (Haitian Creole: Bwa Kayiman) is the purported site of the Vodou ceremony presided over by Dutty Boukman on August 14, 1791. It is widely accepted as the starting point for the Haitian Revolution.

Some scholars, however, have deemphasized the role of the Bois Caïman ceremony in sparking the Haitian revolution or have even gone so far as to question whether the event even took place.

Whatever the ultimate disposition of these claims, no one can deny that the historical memory Bois Caïman has political and spiritual resonance for many Haitians to the present day.

source: Wikipedia

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