À l’ombre de Vertières : situer le véritable patriotisme
In the Shadow of Vertières: Where Does True Patriotism Lie? The arrival of thousands of Salvadoran troops and the first setbacks inflicted on Haiti’s gangs are forcing the country to confront an old question differently: What does it mean to defend sovereignty when the state can no longer fully exercise it on its own? By Patrick Prézeau Stephenson (Le Français suit) As November 18 approaches, Haiti returns, as it does every year, to Vertières. We know almost by heart the story we are preparing to tell. We will invoke Jean-Jacques Dessalines, François Capois, the Indigenous Army, the defeat of the French expeditionary force and the extraordinary sequence of events that, only weeks later, culminated in the birth of the first state created by a successful revolt of enslaved people. We will remember that men whom the colonial world regarded as incapable of governing themselves forced one of the great military powers of the age to abandon Saint-Domingue. Inevitably, we wil...
