Citation

Asante MK. J. Black Stud. 2011; 42(2): 276-287.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0021934710395589

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Perhaps no other revolution in modern times, whether American, French, Russian, or Algerian, has stirred such different emotions and raised so many theories of the act itself as the Haitian Revolution. This essay is framed around the given and received interpretations of Haiti’s long history in order to demonstrate that there is neither curse nor punishment in Haiti’s history; there is only intrigue, interest, and interference. The natural disasters whether earthquakes or hurricanes do not occur because of some rational targeting of the country but are the results of the arbitrariness of nature. Of course, how Haiti has dealt with these natural disasters can be interpreted from positions of class narrative, religious narrative, and cultural narrative.