
The Colonial System Unveiled
Baron de Vastey(Author)
Liverpool University Press
Published on 25. January 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
340 pages
978-1-78138-304-9 (ISBN)
Description
Long neglected in mainstream history books, the Haitian Revolution
(1791-1804) is now being claimed across a range of academic disciplines as
an event of world-historical importance. The former slaves' victory over
their French masters and the creation of the independent nation of Haiti in
1804 is being newly heralded not only as a seminal moment in the
transnational formation of the 'black Atlantic' but as the most
far-reaching manifestation of 'Radical Enlightenment'.
The best known Haitian writer to emerge in the years after the revolution
is Baron de Vastey (1781-1820), who authored over ten books and pamphlets
between 1814 and his murder in 1820. His first and most incendiary work, Le
systeme colonial devoile (1814), provides a moving invocation of the
horrors of slavery in pre-revolutionary Saint-Domingue. Its trailblazing
critique of colonialism anticipates by over a hundred years the
anticolonial politics (and poetics) of Cesaire, Fanon, and Sartre.
Translated here for the first time, Vastey's forceful unveiling of the
colonial system will be compulsory reading for scholars across the
humanities.
(1791-1804) is now being claimed across a range of academic disciplines as
an event of world-historical importance. The former slaves' victory over
their French masters and the creation of the independent nation of Haiti in
1804 is being newly heralded not only as a seminal moment in the
transnational formation of the 'black Atlantic' but as the most
far-reaching manifestation of 'Radical Enlightenment'.
The best known Haitian writer to emerge in the years after the revolution
is Baron de Vastey (1781-1820), who authored over ten books and pamphlets
between 1814 and his murder in 1820. His first and most incendiary work, Le
systeme colonial devoile (1814), provides a moving invocation of the
horrors of slavery in pre-revolutionary Saint-Domingue. Its trailblazing
critique of colonialism anticipates by over a hundred years the
anticolonial politics (and poetics) of Cesaire, Fanon, and Sartre.
Translated here for the first time, Vastey's forceful unveiling of the
colonial system will be compulsory reading for scholars across the
humanities.
Reviews / Votes
Reviews'In this first-rate critical edition, Bongie illuminates the significance of Baron de Vastey's Le systeme colonial devoile well beyond the field of Haitian Studies. Indeed, he argues that The Colonial System Unveiled "can legitimately be considered the first systemic critique of colonialism ever written, certainly from the perspective of a colonized subject". With the book now available in English for the first time, many new readers will be amply persuaded.'
Ada Ferrer, New York University 'The volume performs the great service of renewing attention to the remarkable and little understood figure of Vastey, and more broadly to the need for further research on a less well-known period of the Haitian revolutionary era.'
John Savage and Sean Anderson, H-France Review 'The volume performs the great service of renewing attention to the remarkable and little understood figure of Vastey, and more broadly to the need for further research on a less well-known period of the Haitian revolutionary era. ...This volume holds great interest not only for specialists of the Haitian Revolution, French Empire, or Atlantic World slavery, but also for scholars of transhistorical African Diaspora studies and a broader postcolonial intellectual history.'
John Savage and Sean Anderson, Lehigh University, H-France Review
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Liverpool
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-78138-304-9 (9781781383049)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Baron de Vastey was a man of letters in post-revolutionary Haiti. He wrote four major books between 1814 and 1819, along with a series of pamphlets, before being murdered in 1820. Chris Bongie is Professor and Queen's National Scholar at Queen's University, Canada. Previous publications include Friends and Enemies: The Scribal Politics of Post/Colonial Literature (LUP, 2008), Islands and Exiles: The Creole Identities of Post/Colonial Literature (Stanford UP, 1998) and Exotic Memories: Literature, Colonialism, and the Fin de siecle (Stanford UP, 1991).
Author
Edited and translated
Department of English, Queens University (Canada)
Content
Preface: Baron de Vastey and Post/Revolutionary Haiti
Jean Louis Vastey (1781-1820): A Biographical Sketch
Introduction
1. 1820: Death of a Scribe
2. 1814: The Colonial System Restored
3. 1814-2014: Reading the Protean Text
The Colonial System Unveiled
Notes to The Colonial System Unveiled
Supplementary Essays:
1. Marlene Daut - 'Monstrous Testimony: Baron de Vastey and the Politics of Black Memory'
2. Doris Garraway - 'Abolition, Sentiment, and the Problem of Agency in Le systeme colonial devoile'
3. Chris Bongie - 'Memories of Development: Le systeme colonial devoile and the Performance of Literacy'
4. Nick Nesbitt - 'Afterword: Vastey and the System of Colonial Violence'
Bibliography
Index
Jean Louis Vastey (1781-1820): A Biographical Sketch
Introduction
1. 1820: Death of a Scribe
2. 1814: The Colonial System Restored
3. 1814-2014: Reading the Protean Text
The Colonial System Unveiled
Notes to The Colonial System Unveiled
Supplementary Essays:
1. Marlene Daut - 'Monstrous Testimony: Baron de Vastey and the Politics of Black Memory'
2. Doris Garraway - 'Abolition, Sentiment, and the Problem of Agency in Le systeme colonial devoile'
3. Chris Bongie - 'Memories of Development: Le systeme colonial devoile and the Performance of Literacy'
4. Nick Nesbitt - 'Afterword: Vastey and the System of Colonial Violence'
Bibliography
Index