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What Language Did Toussaint Louverture Speak?: The Fort de Joux Memoir and the Origins of Haitian Kreyòl*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
Abstract
Using contemporary accounts, letters drafted by former slaves, and the memoir written by Toussaint Louverture shortly before his death, this article attempts to recreate the language spoken by Haitian revolutionaries and, in particular, Toussaint Louverture. Detailed historical and linguistic analysis of these sources shows that Louverture wrote predominantly in French, only employed Kreyòl orally (especially when addressing a working-class audience), and rarely used the Ewe-Fon language of his Arada ancestors. His memoir suggests that Haitian Kreyòl, which some linguists think is derived from African languages, was more influenced by archaic, popular, or regional variants of French. Louverture’s preference for French also reinforces theses that describe him as a moderate figure inclined toward the European model.
- Type
- The West Indies and Europe in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
- Information
- Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales - English Edition , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 107 - 130
- Copyright
- Copyright © Les Éditions de l’EHESS 2013
Footnotes
*
This article is accompanied by documentary material and a comprehensive translator’s note available under the heading “Complementary Reading” on the Annales website: http://annales.ehess.fr.
References
This article uses the rare documents directly written by the revolutionaries of Saint-Domingue—especially the most famous among them, Toussaint Louverture— in order to reconstitute their way of speaking and eventually restore their voice. Such an approach has both linguistic and historical merit, allowing for further comprehension in the field of oral culture in colonial Haiti, particularly that of popular French and Kreyòl. By demonstrating the extent to which Louverture
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48. The word “Toussaint” appears at the bottom of the burial act for Louverture’s eldest son, dated November 17, 1785. This possibly corresponds to his signature (document produced by Jean-Louis Donnadieu). See 1DPPC 2324, Archives nationales d’outremer (hereafter “ANOM”), Aix-en-Provence.
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76. Baille to Bry, 17 vendémiaire XI [9 October 1802], TL-2B2b, Nemours Collection, Universidad de Puerto Rico Rio Piedras, San Juan.
77. Ménard to Berthier, 30 vendémiaire XI [22 October 1802], B7/8, SHD-DAT, Vincennes.
78. Louverture to Bonaparte, 26 October 26 1802, AF/IV/1213, file 1, AN, Paris.
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81. AF/IV/1213, file 1, AN, Paris.
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95. AF/IV/1213, file 1, AN, Paris.
96. Molière, Les femmes savantes, act II, scene 6.
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98. Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti, 2:91.
99. On apheresis and agglutination in Kreyòl, see Valdman, , Le créole, 180 Google Scholar.
100. Sylvain, Le créole haïtien, 38, 49, and 161.
101. On the conjugation of modern Kreyòl, see ibid., 103.
102. Valdman, Le créole, 373-79.
103. Bayon de Libertat to Pantaléon II de Bréda, 7 July 1783, 18AP/3, file 12, AN, Paris.
104. Goodman, A Comparative Study, 124.
105. Faine, Philologie créole; Valdman, Le créole, 373-79.
106. Saint-Rémy, Mémoires, 88; Jenson, Beyond the Slave Narrative, 304; and Desormeaux, Mémoires, 9.
107. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique, 1:66.
108. Ducœurjoly, Manuel des habitans, 2:359.
109. “Mon odyssée,” ca. 1798, box 1, 85-117-L, P., HNOC, New Orleans.
110. AF/IV/1213, file 1, AN, Paris.
111. Valdman, Le créole, 295 and 323.
112. AF/IV/1213, file 1, AN, Paris (underlined in the original text).
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