Women in the Haitian Revolution

[2] In spite of their various important roles in the Haitian Revolution, women revolutionaries have rarely been included within historical and literary narratives of the slave revolts.

[2] In the French colony of Saint-Domingue, enslaved Black women suffered particular forms of gendered violence in addition to the standard abuse and mistreatment of slaves.

[3] Due to high infant mortality and a low fertility rate, slave women were kept from engaging in monogamous family relationships and instead treated as objects of reproduction.

Enslaved women who escaped their slave owners to live as maroons were able to return to their roles as practitioners of Vodou because they would not be punished for rejecting French Catholicism.

Communities of escaped slaves turned to Vodou mambos, or priestesses, which radicalized them and facilitated the organization of a liberation movement.

[7] Vodou mambos were also typically knowledgeable of herbal remedies as well as poisons, which were weaponized and used against French slave owners and their families during the revolution.

[8] Ideologically, the image of a Haitian Vodou priestess inspired insurgents to fight the colonial government in order to not only liberate themselves but to serve a higher, spiritual purpose.

After the murder of revolutionary leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines, she is said to have been responsible for gathering his decomposing remains, reassembling the pieces of his mutilated body, and ensuring that he be buried with dignity.

[1] From 1791 to 1972, Romaine-la-Prophétesse and wife Marie Roze Adam led an uprising of thousands of slaves and came to govern two main cities in southern Haiti, Léogâne and Jacmel.

[15] Romaine was assigned and often regarded as male, but dressed and behaved like a woman,[16] prominently identified as a prophetess[17] and spoke of being possessed of a female spirit[18] and may have been transgender,[19] and is counted by Mary Grace Albanese and Hourya Bentouhami [fr] among the women who led the Haitian Revolution.

In addition, women worked as spies, posing as sex workers and merchants in order to deliver messages and gain information about the French.

[11] The sexual brutality Black women faced in Haiti consisted of continual rape by plantation owners oftentimes leading to infertility.

The absolute harshness faced by these slave women pushed them to see the revolution as an important opportunity to participate in the fight directly.