Wikipedia

Dédée Bazile

Dédée Bazile (c. 1736 – c. 1816), also known as Défilée or Défilée-la-folle, was a Haitian revolutionary and vivandière. She gathered the remains of Emperor Jean-Jacques Dessalines for burial.

Dédée Bazile
Nickname(s)
  • Défilée
  • Défilée-la-folle
Bornc. 1736
Cap-Français
Diedc. 1816
Port-au-Prince
Allegiance Haiti
Service / branchIndigenous Army
Known forGathering the remains of Jean-Jacques Dessalines for burial
Battles / warsHaitian Revolution
Children6

Bazile was born near Cap-Francais. She had six children as a result of rape by her enslaver. In 1796, during the Haitian Revolution, Bazile joined the Indigenous Army as a vivandière. She marched with the soldiers, sold provisions to them, and was nicknamed Défilée. Historical accounts claim she exhibited madness, usually attributed to the killing of her parents, brothers, or sons by French forces, although the characterization is sometimes contested.

Emperor Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed Haiti's independence in 1804, but his dictatorship was unpopular and he was assassinated by soldiers in 1806. His body was stoned by crowds in Port-au-Prince. Défilée eventually gathered his remains for burial, although historical accounts differ on whether she carried them to a cemetery. Some accounts claim she frequently returned to his grave to spread flowers or sing an elegy. Historians have interpreted her gathering of the remains as a Vodou priestess ritual to prevent Dessalines from resurrecting, or as an anti-colonial political gesture. Défilée lived in poverty until her death.

Défilée is prominent in Haitian legend, folklore, and literature. Initially remembered in a Haitian folklore song, she became a symbol of national conscience among early 20th century writers. Writers and historians radicalized under United States occupation of Haiti portrayed Défilée as a maternal symbol of resistance. Around the 21st century, she was reclaimed by Haitian diasporic women writers.

Early life and military career

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Dédée Bazile was born around 1736 near Cap-Français to enslaved parents.[1] At age 18, she was raped and tortured by her enslaver, a colonist.[2] In turn, she had three daughters, Agate Jean, Victorian Jean, and Annesthine, and three sons.[3] Bazile either escaped or her enslaver abandoned her for another woman.[4] In 1796, during the Haitian Revolution, Bazile joined the Indigenous Army as a vivandière who managed a canteen shop. She sold provisions, especially meats, to the soldiers and often marched with them. When they halted, she ordered them to continue, shouting, "Défilez, défilez!" Bazile was accordingly nicknamed Défilée.[5]

Multiple historical accounts claim that Défilée exhibited madness, hence the later nickname Défilée-la-folle.[6] She was homeless and publicly spoke to invisible beings, possibly lwa spirits of Haitian Vodou, which contributed to her reputation as a madwoman.[7] The storyteller Joseph Jérémie associated her madness with a relentlessness in battle: "In her madness she had set herself the task of giving the enemy no rest ... But Défilée could not conceive of existence without a battle, without an ambush on the winding path."[8]

Historical accounts attribute her madness to various causes. One given by the descendant Didi Coudol cited Défilée's abandonment by her enslaver for another woman, though the historian Octave Petit rejected this explanation as implausible and violatory.[9] President Ertha Pascal-Trouillot attributed her madness to the slaughter of her parents by French forces. Pascal-Trouillot explained that the event prompted her "wild passion" for General Jean-Jacques Dessalines and caused her to offer sex to the soldiers.[10] An account by Jérémie, quoted by Jean Fouchard and Petit, cited the killing of her relatives. One night, a few of Défilée's brothers and sons,[a] all enlisted in the army, did not return from a party in the mountains of Cahos, Fort-Liberté.[12] They were among nearly 600 Haitians that had been massacred by French soldiers commanded by Donatien Rochambeau. The news traumatized Défilée, though she continued to follow the Indigenous Army with the same determination.[10] Conversely, the laureate in medicine Louis-Joseph Janvier wrote, "Défilée was not absolutely mad". Rather, he felt that the killing of her brothers and sons led only to a "cerebral disturbance".[6]

Gathering the remains of Dessalines

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The French army were defeated in November 1803, and Dessalines proclaimed Haiti's independence the following January. As Emperor, Dessalines enforced plantation labor to promote the economy and began a dictatorship.[7] He disappointed many nouveaux libres—the newly freed 80% of the population—who felt his rule evoked the slavery they had faced before the revolution.[13] Anciens libres—those freed before the revolution, often mulattoes—were angered by his plans to reallocate land to the nouveaux.[14] As well, high-ranking military officials began to object to his rule.[7] Haitians began an insurrection in the south in August 1806, which culminated in his assassination on October 17.[15] Soldiers ambushed Dessalines in Port-Rouge under orders from a clique of Africans and mulattoes, among them his friend Alexandre Pétion. Dessalines was shot, stabbed, stripped, and had his fingers cut off. His corpse was brought to Port-au-Prince, where it was stoned by crowds and said to resemble "scraps" and "shapeless remains".[16]

Multiple modern sources assert that Défilée gathered the remains of Dessalines for burial.[17] Some assert that she also carried the remains to a cemetery,[18] or that she led his burial.[19] The historian Thomas Madiou stated in his account that Défilée was wandering when she found a group of children stoning Dessalines and shouting joyfully. She asked them who the corpse belonged to, and when they answered, "her wild eyes became calm" and "a glimmer of reason shone on her features". The historian and claimed eyewitness Beaubrun Ardouin, who was ten in 1806, stated that Défilée found Dessalines at noon. She was a madwoman, but in a moment of lucidity and compassion, she lamented alone beside him.[20] The scholar Anténor Firmin believed that Dessalines lay abandoned in the street for two days before Défilée found him, but the scholar Jana Evans Braziel found this incredulous.[21]

Madiou further stated that Défilée reassembled the remains of Dessalines, gathered them into a sack, and carried them to a cemetery. Pétion later sent soldiers to bury him for a generous sum.[22] Conversely, Ardouin claimed to have met Défilée and rejected Madiou's suggestion that she could have carried him: "Perhaps Madiou did not recall that Dessalines was hefty, weighing perhaps 70 to 80 kilos: how could a rather weak Défilée carry such a weight?"[20] According to Ardouin, Pétion's soldiers had carried Dessalines, and she followed them to the Trousses-Côtés cemetery.[22] The historian Joan Dayan also considered it implausible that Défilée carried his remains alone, but insisted that a madman named Dauphin assisted her.[20] Ardouin further stated that Défilée left Dessalines's funeral ceremony last and, for a while afterwards, returned to his grave to spread flowers over it.[22] Jérémie added that Défilée composed the earliest elegy to Dessalines and often sang it while kneeling before his grave after kissing it three times.[23]

Analysis

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An embodied, fully immanent ritual—Défilée's gathering of Dessalines's remains—traverses and confounds boundaries dividing body and spirit, state and ritual, death and life, gesturing toward infinity.

—Jana Evans Braziel, Small Axe[24]

Dayan believed that by gathering the remains of Dessalines, Défilée showed concern for proper burial rites and a fear of the undead. She understood Défilée to have acted as a manbo, a Vodou priestess, who intended to prevent Dessalines from resurrecting. Dayan explained that Vodouists strongly worried that sorcerers might ressurect unburied human remains and use them for harmful magic.[25]

The sociologist Sabine Lamour, who believes Défilée buried the remains of Dessalines, considered the act an anti-colonial political gesture. Lamour premised that Défilée's identities as a freedwoman, a poor person, a canteen worker, a bereaved person, and a war survivor each suggested a strong commitment to community or an association with a larger cause. She believed that by burying the remains of Dessalines, Défilée rejected the sociopolitical erasure he would have faced if left desecrated in the street. Lamour considered the burial an attempt to disccourage Haitians from the colonial practice of bodily desecration: "Défilée invites Haitians to renounce the terror and cruelty to which people were accustomed during slavery, and to rebuild the world with a different outlook. The anciens libres and nouveaux libres would need to give up their enmity in order to establish a new society." Lamour added that Défilée continued to visit the grave of Dessalines even as his name was banned across the country, he was deemed a tyrant, and government officials ordered his supporters to be banned from national politics. Lamour rejected the characterization of Défilée as a madwoman as an attempt to discredit her.[26]

Later life and death

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Little is known about Défilée's life after she gathered the remains of Dessalines.[7] She settled in Fort-Saint-Clair, Port-au-Prince, and lived in poverty on welfare spending. She was found dead on a road around 1816. Joseph Jérémie claimed that Défilée was buried in the city's main cemetery and that her grave had disappeared.[27]

Legacy and historiography

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Historical accounts of Défilée are rare and often nationalist in tone, which has left many ambiguities and obscurities in her biography. Nevertheless, she is a source of Haitian legend, folklore, and literature. Historical accounts of her have been repeatedly reinterpreted in oral traditions such as songs, proverbs, and stories. As such, Jana Evans Braziel regards Défilée as a lieu de mémoire, a symbol that has preserved part of Haiti's collective memory. Braziel wrote: "legend flourishes from history, and novels from legends: the figure of Défilée is discerned only in the interwoven threads of history, literature, myth, and folklore."[28]

Défilée was initially remembered in a Haitian folklore song dated to Henri Christophe's rule over northern Haiti or Jean-Pierre Boyer's presidency—two periods characterized by oppression. Haitians sang it to express regret for celebrating the assassination of Dessalines. The lyrics are written from Défilée's perspective, and the drama centers on her lament over both the unstable political environment and the legend that the spirit of François Mackandal, a Maroon leader, warned Dessalines not to go to Pont-Rouge.[29] Défilée was later recorded in early Haitian historiographies of the revolution, including Thomas Madiou's 1847 Histoire d'Haïti and Beaubrun Ardouin's 1853 Études sur l'histoire d'Haïti. The two books provide brief but useful accounts of her actions after the assassination. However, Joan Dayan and Braziel remark that both reinforce a patriarchal historical record and only invoke Défilée or other women in the Haitian Revolution as an interlude to men's actions.[30]

By the 20th century, writers sought to discuss Dessalines candidly to help find solutions for frequent civil war in the country. In 1904 and 1906, during celebrations of the centennials of Haiti's independence and his assassination, many writers interpreted Défilée as a symbol of national conscience.[31] For example, in the preface to his play L'Empereur Dessalines, Massillon Coicou wrote: "Isn't she the most beautiful incarnation of our national consciousness, this madwoman who moved amidst those who were mad but believed themselves sane?"[20] The play premiered in October 1906 and was the first to theatricize Défilée, portrayed by Sylvia Innocent, a member of the intellectual elite. In the play, Défilée weeps over Dessalines's muddy remains then carries them in her dress.[32]

Défilée was embraced from 1915 to 1934 during the United States occupation of Haiti, particularly in nationalist poetry.[33] Frédéric Burr-Reynaud and Christian Werleigh contributed poems about her to the nationalist literary magazine Stella, published in Haiti from 1926 to 1930. Werleigh's poem "Le miracle: Dessalines et Défilée" was more overtly nationalist than Coicou's play, radicalized under U.S. occupation. The poem portrays Pétion and those who celebrated the assassination as shortsighted and the impetus for Haiti's collapse. Werleigh contrasts them with Défilée, portrayed as a redemptive and maternal symbol who preserved Dessalines's memory for future revival.[34] In 1931, the historian Octave Petit published a journal article about Défilée, also overtly nationalist. Petit filled in details of her life using oral testimony from her descendants Filius Bazile and Didi Coudol and the storyteller Joseph Jérémie, but lamented that the biography was incomplete. The article portrays her as a symbolic mother of Haiti, a model for Haitian women, and a symbol of resistance relevant under U.S. occupation. Petit declares that Défilée emulated Mary, mother of Jesus, when she sacrificed her children in the revolution to protect Haiti.[35]

Défilée was adapted by Harlem Renaissance writers. She is depicted in John F. Matheus and Clarence Cameron White's 1932 opera Ouanga! and Langston Hughes's 1936 play Emperor of Haiti.[36] The Haitian historian Windsor Bellegarde reversed the roles when describing the assassination's aftermath in 1947, as if a sane Défilée taught a lesson to the mad citizens of Port-au-Prince. The Haitian playwright Henock Trouillot imagined her role in the aftermath in his 1967 play Dessalines ou le sang du Pont-Rouge.[37] The historian Jean Fouchard also recorded Jérémie's testimony in the 1950s for his 1972 book La meringue: danse nationale d'Haïti.[38]

Défilée was embraced from 1994 to 1995 during Operation Uphold Democracy, a military intervention in Haiti led by the U.S. and United Nations. In particular, Haitian diasporic women writers adapted her during and after the intervention.[39] In his 1994 song "Defile", the Haitian protest singer Manno Charlemagne describes Défilée as courageous and patriotic and encourages listeners to follow her example.[7] Dayan wrote a pioneering overview of Défilée and her legacy in the 1995 book Haiti, History, and the Gods.[40] Défilée is named in a few short stories in Edwidge Danticat's 1995 collection Krik? Krak!, portrayed as an lwa to Haitian women and an ancestor to many characters. Myriam J. A. Chancy also reclaims Défilée in her 2003 book Spirit of Haiti.[41] In 2020, the Haitian feminist organization Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn held a gathering titled Ann Refè Jès Défilée a! (Let Us Repeat Défilée's Gesture!) to commemorate the victims of the 2018 La Saline massacre.[42]

Notes

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  1. ^ Sources count between one to three brothers and two to three sons.[11]

References

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  1. ^ Lamour 2022, p. 65.
  2. ^ Dayan 1998, p. 40; Knight & Gates Jr. 2016.
  3. ^ Braziel 2005, p. 65.
  4. ^ Dayan 1998, p. 40; Braziel 2005, pp. 65–66.
  5. ^ Dayan 1998, p. 40; Lamour 2022, p. 66.
  6. ^ a b Braziel 2005, p. 66.
  7. ^ a b c d e Knight & Gates Jr. 2016.
  8. ^ Dayan 1998, p. 44; Lamour 2022, p. 67.
  9. ^ Braziel 2005, pp. 65–66.
  10. ^ a b Dayan 1998, p. 44.
  11. ^ Dayan 1998, p. 44; Braziel 2005, p. 65; Lamour 2022, p. 65.
  12. ^ Dayan 1998, p. 44; Braziel 2005, pp. 65–66.
  13. ^ Knight & Gates Jr. 2016; Lamour 2022, p. 68.
  14. ^ Dayan 1998, pp. 24–25; Lamour 2022, p. 68.
  15. ^ Lamour 2022, p. 68.
  16. ^ Dayan 1998, p. 17; quoted in Braziel 2005, p. 67.
  17. ^ Wilks 2008, pp. 1–2; Clitandre 2018, p. 68; Fradinger 2023, p. 143.
  18. ^ Braziel 2005, p. 68; Stieber 2020, p. 318.
  19. ^ Knight & Gates Jr. 2016; Lamour 2022, p. 62.
  20. ^ a b c d Dayan 1998, p. 41.
  21. ^ Braziel 2005, p. 68.
  22. ^ a b c Dayan 1998, p. 41; Braziel 2005, p. 68.
  23. ^ Dayan 1998, pp. 45–46.
  24. ^ Braziel 2005, p. 71.
  25. ^ Dayan 1998, pp. 45.
  26. ^ Lamour 2022, pp. 69–75.
  27. ^ Braziel 2005, pp. 65–66; Lamour 2022, p. 67.
  28. ^ Braziel 2005, pp. 63, 69, 76.
  29. ^ Dayan 1998, pp. 42–43.
  30. ^ Dayan 1998, pp. 47, 287; Braziel 2005, pp. 59–60, 62.
  31. ^ Stieber 2020, pp. 220–221, 225, 237.
  32. ^ Stieber 2020, p. 225.
  33. ^ Braziel 2005, p. 60; Stieber 2020, pp. 225–226.
  34. ^ Stieber 2020, pp. 231, 233, 235–238.
  35. ^ Braziel 2005, pp. 62–64.
  36. ^ André, Bryan & Saylor 2012, p. 122; Farooq 2016, pp. 177–178.
  37. ^ Dayan 1998, p. 42.
  38. ^ Braziel 2005, pp. 62, 66.
  39. ^ Braziel 2005, pp. 60–61, 77.
  40. ^ Braziel 2005, pp. 60, 62; Stieber 2020, p. 318.
  41. ^ Braziel 2005, pp. 62, 80, 84.
  42. ^ Lamour 2022, p. 62.

Bibliography

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  • André, Naomi; Bryan, Karen M.; Saylor, Eric, eds. (2012). Blackness in Opera. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-09389-0.
  • Braziel, Jana Evans (September 2005). "Re-membering Défilée: Dédée Bazile as Revolutionary Lieu de Mémoire". Small Axe. 9 (2): 57–85. doi:10.1353/smx.2005.0014. S2CID 144652298.
  • Clitandre, Nadège T. (2018). Edwidge Danticat: The Haitian Diasporic Imaginary. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-4188-2.
  • Dayan, Joan (1998) [1995]. Haiti, History, and the Gods. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-21368-5.
  • Farooq, Nihad (2016). Undisciplined: Science, Ethnography, and Personhood in the Americas, 1830—1940. New York University Press. ISBN 978-1-4798-4286-5.
  • Fradinger, Moira (2023). Antígonas: Writing from Latin America. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-191973-2.
  • Knight, Franklin W.; Gates Jr., Henry Louis, eds. (2016). "Défilée, Dédée Bazile (c. 1730s–1810s)". Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro–Latin American Biography. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-993580-2.
  • Lamour, Sabine (Spring 2022). "The Political Project of Marie Sainte Dédée Bazile (Défilée): Reappropriating This Heritage to Build the Present". Journal of Haitian Studies. 28 (1): 62–81. doi:10.1353/jhs.2022.0001. JSTOR 27211681. S2CID 257787146.
  • Stieber, Chelsea (2020). Haiti's Paper War: Post-Independence Writing, Civil War, and the Making of the Republic, 1804–1954. New York University Press. ISBN 978-1-4798-0216-6.
  • Wilks, Jennifer M. (2008). Race, Gender, and Comparative Black Modernism: Suzanne Lacascade, Marita Bonner, Suzanne Césaire, Dorothy West. Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-3487-0.
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