Overview

By 1791, the French Revolution had spread to Ha�ti, where slaves and free blacks alike had begun demanding civil rights guaranteed in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man. Enter Romaine-la-Proph�tesse, a free black Dominican coffee farmer who dressed in women's clothes and claimed that the Virgin Mary was his godmother. Inspired by mystical revelations from the Holy Mother, he amassed a large and volatile following of insurgents who would go on to sack countless plantations and conquer the coastal cities of Jacmel and L�og�ne. For this brief period, Romaine counted as his political adviser the white French Catholic priest and physician Abb� Ouvi�re, a renaissance man of cunning politics who would go on to become a pioneering figure in early American science and medicine. Brought together by Catholicism and the turmoil of the revolutionary Atlantic, the priest and the prophetess would come to symbolize the enlightenment ideals of freedom and a more just social order in the eighteenth-century Caribbean. Drawing on extensive archival research, Terry Rey offers a major contribution to our understanding of Catholic mysticism and traditional African religious practices at the time of the Haitian Revolution and reveals the significant ways in which religion and race intersected in the turbulence and triumphs of revolutionary France, Ha�ti, and early republican America.

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9780190625870

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Reviews

"""The Priest and the Prophetess offers a rich and fascinating story, evocatively told, that gives us new insight into the spiritual, cultural and political meanings of the Haitian Revolution. Through the carefully reconstructed life of the remarkable Romaine Rivi�re, Rey illuminates a key moment in the religious history of Haiti and the Afro-Atlantic world.""--Laurent Dubois, author of Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution ""Tracing the collaboration and divergence of two remarkable figuresone a defrocked French priest, the other an African-descended prophetessTerry Rey brilliantly illuminates the role of popular Catholicism as an intellectual force in the revolutionary Atlantic world. Along the way, Rey resurrects little-known life histories of the Haitian Revolution. Deeply researched and engagingly written, this is micro-history at its very best."" --James H. Sweet, Vilas-Jartz Distinguished Professor of History, University of Wisconsin, Madison ""Romaine-la-Proph�tesse has always been a mysterious figure, lurking in the background of the scholarly literature of the Haitian Revolution. Drawing on a wide range of archival and primary sources, Terry Rey has given us a fuller picture of Romaine, a zealous Catholic who dressed in women's clothes as he led a band of insurgents into fierce fighting. By uncovering the story of Romaine's life, Rey provides important insights into the role of Catholicism in the ideology of the Revolution.""--John Thornton, Professor of African American Studies and History, Boston University"

Author Information

Terry Rey is Associate Professor of Religion at Temple University.

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