JOURNAL LEGACIES OF THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION

Luz Romero

University of Oregon Legacies of the Haitian Revolution Professors Fabienne Moore and Tania Triana Luz Romero

Weeks 1-2
INTRODUCCION TO HATIAN REVOLUTION

Haitian Revolution and the modern political vices

The terminology to refer places and groups of people has been determined by several factors that swing from politics to class feelings. Those denominations cannot easily hide their connotations, which are more clearly understood when revisiting and re-reading history. The case of Haiti is particularly interesting due to its agitations during the colonial period, which determined not only the current status of the Caribbean country but also inspired insurrection movements in other European colonies. Haiti has not been always named Haiti, and Haitians have not been always named Haitians. Nowadays, when Haiti is named the most common associations to it would be poverty, voodoo, black Africans, Creole, earthquakes; however Haiti has a past that is linked with the emergence of independent states and the abolition of slavery in the Americas. The most important event is partially registered in historical accounts as the Haitian Revolution and it could be understood as a compact event that brought to light the contradictions of the French Revolution, the relocation of values and spirituality of the African heritage and the appearance of hybrid identities in political debates. Speaking about the Haitian Revolution requires the understanding of a glossary that was used to label the colonized-other. In its review of the metropolitan political attitudes toward the abolitionist movements in SaintDomingue as Haiti was known during the French colonization-, Jeremy Popkin uses and quotes
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words as free color people, people of color, free coloreds, or negroes. The debates mentioned by Popkin certainly addressed to two essential arguments: one was the ideal of liberty and the humanistic conclusion that every man is born free; the other was the assumption on economy, since it was believed that the colonial economies benefited the metropolitan one, and, as a consequence it was essential to maintain the production mechanism that made it possible: slavery. Popking shows how those arguments were used in order to guarantee or eliminate privileges in French government and, as a result, intermediate and incomplete results happened: denial of rights to colonized subjects that were not considered as fully prepared to administrate their own liberty. It is possible, then, to suggest that a lexicon that euphemistically and politically convenient- designated the colonized-other appeared simultaneously to the Haitian Revolution. At the present time, it is visible the same dynamics in immigration policies, which demand new denominations for people that emigrate and offer a fertile land to ensure or abolish privileges in government. Perhaps, it is also probable to see that continuity of the political vices as a failure of the promises made by modernity like Sibylle Fischer suggests. Fischer raised questions about the fulfillment of a modernity project within a context of colonization, where the expansion of rights may cause the collapse of the metropolis. So, for Fischer, modernity was a European phenomenon a product of eurocentrism- that could not have a resonance beyond its own ideological borders: we need to understand the ideological, cultural, and political conflicts that led to the ascendancy of a modernity that could be claimed only by European nations (and then only by some of those) (37). Fischers remarks on modernity help to understand Dubois reflections on the Haitian Revolution, which can not be reduced to a racial dispute, but as a

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process of political complexity, since a diversity of anachronic ideologies were together in the same scenario; for example, there was a colonial imaginary to whom antislavery was unthinkable as Trouillot suggests- that shared the same space with letrados on French Revolution, with Catholicism, and with African heritage.

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JOURNAL LEGACIES OF THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION

Luz Romero

University of Oregon Legacies of the Haitian Revolution Professors Fabienne Moore and Tania Triana Luz Romero

Weeks 3-4

Spirit of Haiti and the continuity of Haitian Identity: the voyage

The novel Spirit of Haiti proposes an idea of identity based on the complexity of cultural processes. The novel narrates the lives of four characters Alexis, Philippe, Carmen and Leahduring the 1990s, when Aristide was removed from power in a coup and when many Haitians must face a new social order of exploitation and corruption. Alexis is a painter who starts a new life in United States; he, previously convinced of the attachment to his roots, falls into the alienation of his own readjustment. So, Alexis could be seen as the portrayal of the conflict on identity when people emigrate. Philippe is a tourist guide who has never left Haiti; initially, he seems to belong to the earth -the Haitian land and historical past-: Philippe feels the king on this bright Sunday morning. He understands clearly why Christophe would have chosen these hills to build his palace, San Souci. No worries. As if such a name could have changed the course of their history (27). However, Philippe is victim of his own trepidation due to the silence about his homosexuality, his illness, and the feelings of being a stranger in its own land. In other words, Philippe is a personification of the balance of the internal individuation subjectivity- and the social historical heritage.

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Carmen represents the continuity of cultural interchange. She is the daughter of a French Canadian father and a Haitian mother, works as counselor for Haitian women. She is also pregnant; her trip to Haiti shows her some revelations about the baby she is carrying. One could say that she is alienated just because she was not raised in Haiti; but she was moved by her sense of capturing her roots and of understanding what being Haitian means: Carmen tries to think what it would be like to set foot in Haiti once again, what it would be like to turn new eyes on a country that had birthed her, and her mother also, only to become a forgotten jewel in the crown of her memory. The only thing that had kept her tied to the island of her birth throughout her childhood had been telephone lines, umbilical cords made of twine and wire(106). Carmens trajectory on identity goes in the opposite direction of Philippes and Alexis trajectories; while she is trying to recapture that forgotten jewel, the other characters are searching and perhaps questioning- the continuity of Haitian identity. Leah is lesbian and blind. She has never left Haiti. Apparently, her blindness makes her to be dependent on other people, but at the same time she is more sensitive to spirituality and supernatural powers. She is the facilitator of Carmens spiritual voyage. Like Tiresias, blind and wise, Leah knows what about the unfulfilled blank in Carmen and she will help her: hes going up the mountain she [Leah] says cryptically. Who? Ah, it is up to you to find out I dont understand, Carmen says. You will in time. I told you yesterday that the answers are all within you Leah unblocks Carmen inner powers, so she will listen the voices of the surroundings and she will find stories for your child [Carmens non born baby daughter] (216).

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Spirit of Haiti explains Haitian identity as a complex process with the following characteristics: it goes beyond geographical borders, it implies the understanding of a spirituality based on voodoo, and it confronts the individuality and the historical heritage. In Mary Chancys novel, identity is the zone of question, confrontation and construction of the self thanks to understanding of the individual, the social and the spiritual factors. That spiritual factor is, in other words, the voodoo beliefs and system of values, which is not only linked to a religious individuality but also to Haitis historical past Boukman-, as it is explained by Fernndez Olmos: For Haitians, both in the island and through the world,

voodoos tradition of service and the link to the spirit world and to the past it representsprovides perhaps the clearest evidence of cultural and religious continuity for a people whose history of struggle against poverty and oppression has known few victories since the Haitian Revolution simpered into dictatorship and chaos. The connection to the Iwa, rooted as it is in traditions connected to family and the land [] seems at first hand threatened by migration to the United States, Canada and beyond. One may indeed wonder if the Iwa will follow their serviteurs across the waters to new peristils away from the native land(126). Chancys novel answers Fernndez Olmosquestion. Spirituality can travel, therefore identity is built in a virtual space that requires the subject to be open to voodoosspirituality. Literary topos of the voyage helps to understand the search of identity that the characters of the novel experience. Finally, the characters are a metonymic representation of the Haitian population, which thanks to the political turmoil after the coup to Aristide immigrated to other countries. One final remark on Chancys novel is the relocation of Haitians in the present. This is an evidence of the achievements in understanding Haiti beyond its colonial status and its revolution,

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whose complexity is possible to conceive or to reduce into a category of object by simplifying its process into a racial conflict. Here, I use the word object according to Anibal Quijano. He explains that even though colonies obtained their political independence, some colonialist assumptions continued on the imaginary; it is because colonization implies also the domination of the colonized peoples imaginary. One of those assumptions is the paradigm of rationalism, which required the Subject-Object relationship. The object was the colonized-other, who could not be understood as a subject because the paradigm does not allow seeing another subject. On the contrary, in the paradigm, non European cultures slo pueden objetos de conocimiento y/o de prcticas de dominacin (16). Chancys novel presents identity from a postcolonial perspective since its characters are not portrayed within a logic of race or slavery; her concept of identity includes el reconocimiento de la heterogeneidad de toda realidad [] las diferencias no son necesariamente el fundamento de la dominacin [] La heterogeneidad histrico-estructural, implica la copresencia y la articulacin de diversas lgicas histricas en torno a alguna de ellas, hegemnica, pero de ningn modo nica (19). Spirit of Haiti shows how voodoo, homosexuality, historical past, immigration struggles are part of those logics; in other words, Haitians are not any more the black slaves that were seen under the scope of the rationalist paradigm; they are subjects, whose identity is defined within the complexity of its processes.

The other side of the coin: Bug-Jargal Bug-Jargal , on the other hand, represents the logic of the European modern rationalism that is described by Quijano, who says that colonization is what defined Europe; during the colonization period, the idea of Europe was founded by contrast with other cultures: la emergencia de la idea

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de occidente o de Europa, es una dmisin de identidad, esto es, de relaciones con otras experiencias culturales, de diferencias con las otras culturas. Pero, para esta percepcin europea u occidental en plena formacin, esas diferencias fueron admitidas ante todo como desigualdades, en el sentido jerrquico. Y tales desigualdades son percibidas como de naturaleza: slo la cultura europea es racional, puede contener sujetos (16). In Bug-Jardal, Victor Hugo, presents the Haitian revolution as the rebellion of the black slaves. For him, the subjects that are fighting for egalit and rights are portrayed only in the category of the object dominated, which was only seem according to race and hierarchy categories. None other logics are acceptable: You can readily imagine that this medical treatment was a laughable as the worship that went under his ministry, and its more than likely that the small number of cures it chanced to bring about would not have been enough to retain the blacks trust in the obi had his drugs not been accompanied by all sorts of trickery, and had he not sought to act all the more on the imagination of the negroes the less he acted on their afflictions (124). The ritual for being cure is laughable because it is not thinkable -unthinkable as Truillot may say- to treat a person by methods that are different from the modern medicine. Equally, Pierrot is a black, very black slave, who in spite of being an African king, is supposed to be faithful and loyal to his masters. Biassou, the black leader, is portrayed as despot who abuses of the power that he has a leader. The colonist mulatto considers his mixed race tag as pejorative because he thinks it is not as valuable as the white race. The novel is abundant in examples of race and hierarchy as part of the rationalist paradigm that Quijano explains. Quijanos argument becomes stronger outside of the novel as well. Hoffman explains that French literature lacks of narrations of the Haitian Revolution and the only two relevant examples are Bug-Jargal and Touissant Louverture by LaMartne. The success of Bug-Jargal -in

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order to survive longer than other narrations on the Revolution- is not only because the imaginary corresponds with the modern rationalist paradigm, but also because the novel is a melodrama, one of the narrative formats born during modernity.

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University of Oregon Legacies of the Haitian Revolution Professors Fabienne Moore and Tania Triana Luz Romero----Weeks 5-6

In order to uphold the continuity of the independence projects, narratives on identity also emerged in documents other than literature writings. They were written by men who were active in public affairs: Simn Bolvar, Jos Mart, and Firmin, are a few examples. In addition, Haitian constitutions stated clear points about identity. All these written productions see identity as the result of group social negotiations rather than the outsider imperative imposition. On the same line, they disdain the concept of race and origin as a stand for the opposition of superiorityinferiority. Instead of reelaborating new categories for races, those intellectuals refer to Latin America as a place of cultural hybridity that holds its own right of developing its autonomy and its own governance. However, the syncretism implied in cultural hybridity is problematic because it generalized the internal dynamic of hybridity into a racial hybridity, and, as a consequence, it concealed other aspects as social class and gender. La carta de Jamaica: written by Bolvar as an account of the political events in Latin America in regard to the independence movements; it provides some justifications for the emancipation of the American nations, asks for the cooperation of European nations, tries to predict the future of the young new nations -Mexico, Nueva Granada, Venezuela, Buenos Aires, Chile and Per-, and finally it recalls for the unification of Latin American countries. One could read that the main purpose of the letter was to gain support from England, who is maximized as La Europa que no se halla agitada por las violentas pasiones de la venganza, ambicin y codicia.
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Nuestra Amrica: Wrtitten by Jos Mart. Nuestra Amrica is a public speech in which the author expresses the importance of looking within America in order to know it and to govern it better. Its looks inside the Latin American growth are self-critical and claim for the recognition of cultural-political authenticity by refusing the imitation of European models: La Universidad europea ha de ceder a la Universidad americana. Metaphors enrich Marts text and open it to interpretations absolutely valid for the 20th century, for example the following quotation: El desdn del vecino formidable, que no la conoce, es el peligro mayor de nuestra AmricaPor ignorancia llegara tal vez a poner en ella la codicia. That vecino could be United States taking advantage of the political turmoil that gave birth to the bananas republics. In Nuestra Amrica, while USA is a neighbor, Latin American countries are brothers, sons of the same mother who is not Spain or Europe-. On the equality of the human races: written by the Haitian anthropologist Antenor Firmin. It questions the scientific authority of ethnography to approach human beings as objects of study. His argumentative logic queries the apriori of superiority that marginalizes people according to the color of skin. Mainly, it exposes how scientific discourse could fall into an agenda of power based on the non rational assumption that human beings can own other human beings. Haitian Constitutions: Fischer explains how Haitian constitutions respond to colonization by using similar mechanisms to the ones that were used by colonizers. One can easily imagine the situation in a simple level Sanchopanzesco style as the philologist Americo Castro would say- : Haitians hold the same knife that colonizers used, but this time they were not holding it from the edge. Fischer also argues that the Haitian written production after independence could be understood as foundational narratives that promoted the African identity rather than class

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conflicts. On one hand, considering only the Haitian literary production as a foundational narrative would be a fallacy, since literature was a privilege of the literate elite and, possibly, it would put on evidence the class conflicts among others-. On the other hand, only a few of them survived the silence imposed by historiography because the irreducible social heterogeneity and transnationalism of cultures of antislavery were no more convenient in the European metropolis than they were in the plantation zone (226). Different from literature, constitutions can take the role of foundational narratives, since they recapture the ideological apparatus including its contradictions- of the new country. According to Fischer, Haitian constitutions take the opposite direction [to racial taxonomy] and infuse distinctions of skin color with political meaning; even though they were clear about racial equality among Haitians, they had ambiguities about Haitian citizenship, which closed the scope on the transnationalism of antislavery. As Fischer explains, Indigenism also was taken into the nationalist discourse; the most remarkable example of that trend was the renaming of Saint Domingue as Haiti. For Fischer, Henri Christophers monarchal rule spoke the same language that his governed people could understand: the absence of a sizeable and socially diverse group of literate citizens meant that a republican constitutional regime could not effectively impose constrains on the exercise of power we can not see that the hereditary nature of his regime fills precisely the place that a constitution can not fill when the majority of people, including the head of state, can no read or write (253). Those are just a few examples that Fischer uses to illustrate that Haitian literature was under the literate influence form France, while the political scenario -as well as the documents that were produced by it- responded to an authentic vision of antislavery and antiracism with

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clear territorial borders and the faculty of being re-appropriated by other colonized and enslaved regions. Public documents are historical traces of the actual presence of imaginary in public and official life. They serve as a testimony of the implications and applications of ideas about race, identity, politics, etc. According to Fischer constitutions and other foundational writings- : articulate more clearly the revolutionary nature of the new state, the radically syncretistic modernity of its ideological origins, and the extraordinary challenges the new state was facing in a world where slaveholding was the rule and were colonialist designs were just beginning to extend into Africa and Asia (227). Fischers statement could be also extended to scientific discourse, public speeches and official letters. Obviously the written productions summarized before belong to different fields, however all of them were produced by the hombres letrados, all of them have an organic approach on identity. It means that they all accepted syncretism as a fundamental component of colonized peoples identity and rejected the assimilation of race as an indicator for social discrimination. Those texts also gave a new interpretation for race, re-appropiated indigenous past, suggested an autonomous form of government, and criticized Europe. Bolivar, for example said: Y la Europa civilizada, comerciante y amante de la libertad, permite que una vieja serpiente, slo por satisfacer su saa envenenada, devore la parte ms bella de nuestro globo?. And decades later, Mart added that America padece de la fatiga de acomodacin entre los elementos discordantes y hostiles que hered de un colonizador despticoque han venido retardando, por su falta de realidad local, el gobierno lgico. Firmin also said: A mulattos intelligence is not some special virtue inherited from his father or mother; it is rather, an hereditary attribute obtained from either parent, and its source is unpredictable.

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However, that syncretism is a dangerous simplification because it generalizes identity by leaving aside other aspects as class conflicts and gender. In other words, the racial syncretism was a political illusion that allowed creating a holistic image of Latin America, which forced some sectors to be part of a national project by oppressing them or just simplifiying them with an arbitrary homogeneous tag: los indios weak and savages-, los negros black and slaves. For example, Bolivar claimed nosotros no somos indios ni europeos, sino una especie media entre los legtimos propietarios del pas y los usurpadores espaoles, but lines ahead, when he is explaining his plan for La Nueva Granada, he does not refer to the indigenous communities as legtimos propietarios del pas. He called them salvajes: Los salvajes que la habitan seran civilizados y nuestras posesiones se aumentaran con la adquisicin de la Goagira. Bolvar used syncretism in order to put himself in a dominant and oppressive position. Another example is Marts metaphore of Latin America as an Indian mother: Estos nacidos en Amrica que se avergenzan, porque lleva el delantal indio, de la madre que los cri, y reniegan, bribones!, de la madre enferma y la dejan sola en lecho de enfermedades! Pues quin es el hombre? el que se queda con la madre a curarle la enfermedad, o el que la pone a trabajar donde no la vean y vive de su sustento en tierras podridas?. From his eloquence, it is possible to deduce that Mart perceived indigenous women as sick abandoned mothers that work as servants. That image of the sick, abandoned servant may work very well for the situation of America, but it is not fair with indigenous women because they not only appeared exploited and undervalued, but lonely and needed of protection. Perhaps that is the way Mart saw America and mixed races, but one wonders if there was not other metaphors to express it. Did it have to be an indigenous woman?

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In her study of the French Set Girls, Prof. Johnson explores the internal dynamic of the simplified syncretism. She also evidences that there were class struggles among the blacks by explaining how migration within the Caribbean not only affected cultural production but also social conflicts among people from different origins that were generalized as black slaves. The French Set Girls: Suggests a deliberately drawn status distinction between themselves [the French girls] and other local slaves, a manner of distancing themselves via cultural practices (207). She mentions that the Frenchness of immigrants from Saint Domingue had African heritage and it influenced other regions. Slaves also carry with them that Frenchness, which was perceptible in performing arts. Music singing and dancing- were therefore a method to express agency in terms of race as well as in social position.

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University of Oregon Legacies of the Haitian Revolution Professors Fabienne Moore and Tania Triana Luz Romero----Weeks 7-8

QUEIMADA and LA LTIMA CENA: DISARTICULATING ARCHETYPES OF COLONIALISM

Queimada and La ltima cena are film that could be understood as historical narratives. However, their interpretation of the historical facts could be seen as an analogy related to more contemporary contexts. In both films the archetypes of colonial economies are personified at different levels, which make clearer the criticism about modern forms of colonialist capitalism. In Queimada, sir William Walker is a conspirator for the British government. During his first visit to the island, he must provoke a rebellion in order to allow British the monopoly of trading sugar. He finds in Jos Dolores a leader. Years later, Walker must return to Queimada to kill the rebels, lead by Jos Dolores. La ltima cena is based on an historical fact that had place in Cuba a little after the Haitian Revolution in 1795. A Spanish Count owns a sugar refinery, whose development is moved thanks to the labor of slaves. During the celebrations of the Holy Week, he tries to imitate Jesus and invites the slaves to sit in his table. Both films depict the archetype of the white European man: all-powerful, administrator of violence, provider of survival means, and supporters of development in favor capitalist economies. As archetypes of the white European man, they show their power to control slaves and subordinates; also, they personify the hostility that colonizer hegemony uses against enslaved people. The count and sir William Walker are characters that correspond to the over interpretations of the Darwinist paradigm. At the end of the 19th century, many saw in Darwins
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theories a scientific basis for domination regardless of Darwin moral views. The principle of his theory on natural selection, which emphasizes on the struggle for surviving and inheritance, was reappropiated in order to justify domination. If during the 16th and 18th, the discourses on civilization were guarantee on Christianism and evangelization, during the 19th and 20th the discourses on civilization were supported by scientific thought. The Count and sir William Walker are bearers of power, knowledge and civilization; for the first one is the Christian civilization by the analogy master-slave: Jesus is the master, and Christians are the slaves. For the latter, civilization in two ways: knowledge on the taking over the administration of violence and knowledge on the subjugation to economic monopolies. The last scene of Queimada shows that sir William Walkers idea of civilization is rejected by Jos Dolores: Ingls! Remember what you say. Civilization belongs to whites, but what civilization? and until when?. Same rejection is presented in La ltima cena, when Sebastin narrates a skeptical short story against the discourse of the white master: Olofi hizo la verdad y la mentira. Un da pelean. La mentira cort la cabeza de la verdad y la verdad cort la cabeza de la mentira y se la puso encima. As es como la cabeza de la mentira va por el mundo sobre el cuerpo de la verdad. Both movies show clearly that the good will of the Count and Sir William Walks is not genuine. On the contrary, the values that they seemed to instruct are a mask for their individualism. On one hand, Sir Williams tried to be Jos Dolores friend by giving him the means of emancipating his people; but, during the return of Sir William Walks to Queimada, he wants to take advantage of the moments they both shared in order to make Jos Dolores surrender: Sir William sent alcohol to Jos Dolores, but Dolores answered: I will drink no more, Englishmn. Jos Dolores is very aware of the hypocrisy and indentations of his old friend.

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Sir William Walks do not hesitate in being a tool for his country, which wants to take over the sugar monopoly, and persecute Dolores. By contrast, Jos Dolores remains upright to his genuine ideals and rejects the Walks friendship. In La ltima cena, the Count wants to feed his narcissism as a humble master; he extols Christian values but he does not want to decrease the sugar production. During the supper, he pretends to be understanding; he played the role of Jesus, but the next he will avoid any responsibility. After his soul, his narcissism, is already cured, the Count would not stand the same propaganda that he defended the night before. As a result of his double standards, the slaves provoke a rebellion and nobody can save Don Manuel from being the scapegoat, like Jesus. Don Manuel represents the drama of the mestizo: rejected from authentic belonging to dominant and dominated groups and condemned to obey to the master knowing that he would never have the masters power. The rejection of the archetypes of colonization and their discourses evidences the opposition that the films have against colonialism. The films make emphasis on the hypocrisy and individualism of the white colonizer, who could be understood as a personification of the economic imperialism. During the last decade of the 19th century, industrialized nations were competing in order to control international markets; with the development of communication and transportation systems, those nations originated new forms of colonialism. One example is the expansion of the United Fruit Company, which was supported by local governments; the United Fruit Company brought benefits but it also prolonged racism and exploitation in the so called countries banana republics. The films also show the slaves characters more elaborated: they have names and attitudes that make the different from each other. The perspective about slavery changes from

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the white dominant discourse to the black enslaved discourse by the use of dialogue or I may say polyphony, following Mijail Bachtin-; the slaves speak and express their own thoughts. And, beyond the slaves perspectives about the masters and their means of dominance, slaves perform actions that do not obey to imperatives and that are the reaffirmation of their agency. In La ltima cena, the slaves refuse to work on Holy Friday because the count ensured them that they would not be asked to work, however, when Don Manuel, el mayoral, forces them to work, the slaves resisted: they tied Don Manuel and demand justice from the Count, but the Counts justice consists on killing the slaves. Only one slave, Sebastin, can run away to the mountains. The archetypes of the quite slave and the white colonizer are disarticulated in both films. Jana Evans Braziel uses the concept of disarticulation to define the rearrangement of the relation of base and ideological superstructure. The phenomenon is called disidentification when the elements that are disarticulated are identitarian factors; for example, the Haitian Diaspora gwo negs disidentify with the hegemonic nationalist frames of heteromasculinity and other identitarian masks like race, for example- . In the Queimada and La ltima cena, the archetypes of the slave and the colonizer are disarticulated, in order to show the rejection of what they represent as archetypes; the slaves are not the objects of subjugation, the stand on the coherence and authenticity of their ideals. On the contrary, the white colonizers are not the providers of progress and enlighten ideals: they hypocrites and barbarians. In Queimada, however, there is an archetype that is not disarticulated: La mulata. Visually, it is presented as a necked prostitute, whose sensuality is dangerous to moral principles. From a masculine perspective, she is characterized and exposed as sensual, but disposable object. One aspect that is difficult to approach for directors and perhaps for historians is the idealization of liberty in opposition to the guarantees of liberty. The films are shrewd to post the

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conflict of being individually free within a system designed to exploit slaves when they are submitted or to marginalize them when they are emancipated. So, when Jos Dolores becomes the head of government, he has a hard time in understanding its administration affairs, he is still pushed to accept the dominants ideological framework. In La ltima cena, the eldest slave begs for liberty, and when the master gives it to him, he does not have a place to go; Sebastin as the only survivor of the Counts massacre runs into the forest and has become a fugitive. The questions are, then, what could a slave do after being emancipated in a place whose feeling of belonging is relative non absolute-? Is he still marginalized? Was his identity forced to imitate dominants patrons? Were marginalization and imitation the only options? The answers to these questions are very complex and required to seen case by case: for example, in Colombia, the circumstances around the emancipation of the slaves in San Andres Islands were different to the ones in San Basilio de Palenque. Equally important is the significance of that legacy in the contemporary context.

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