Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue 3031226909, 9783031226908

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Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue Julia Prest

Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue “[The book] is an exciting and impressive project that presents the first study of public theatre and slavery in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haïti), attending not only to representations of enslaved people on stage, but also the real presence and relationship between enslaved people of colonial Haïti and the theatre. Prof. Prest brings to bear a remarkable corpus of sources, from notarial records and eyewitness accounts to newspaper adverts, published treatises, and the texts of plays, to advance a series of significant, groundbreaking findings.” —Christy Pichichero, George Mason University, Fairfax, USA “‘Un-silencing’ the enslaved Haitians who built the theaters, changed the scenery, and played the accompaniments, Julia Prest discovers new worlds backstage in the theaters of eighteenth-century Saint-Domingue—an exemplary study in the method and imagination required of voicing muted histories.” —Joseph Roach, Yale University, Connecticut, USA “From the creator of the indispensable performance database ‘Theatre in Saint-­ Domingue, 1764–1791’, the first large-scale synthesis of information concerning enslaved people in one of the world’s major centers of theatrical performance. Prest presents playhouses, their audiences, the lives and labor of enslaved domestics, musicians, and craftsmen, and the transformative effects of the Haitian Revolution.” —Kate van Orden, Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA

Julia Prest

Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-­Domingue

Julia Prest University of St Andrews St Andrews, UK

ISBN 978-3-031-22690-8    ISBN 978-3-031-22691-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22691-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or ­hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and ­institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To my mother and in memory of my father

Acknowledgements

My thanks are due first to Chris Miller who, during a casual conversation in the corridors of Wall Street, New Haven, a long time ago, told me that there was theatre in Saint-Domingue. I barely knew what or where Saint-­ Domingue was, but something about this piece of information piqued my interest. Some years later, I retrieved it from my mental filing cabinet and embarked on what would be the most challenging—and the most enriching—journey of my academic life. The project has benefitted from generous funding from various sources: a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (2016) enabled me to create the Theatre in Saint-­ Domingue performance database that I consult almost every day; a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study at Durham University (2016) and a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2017–2018) allowed me to get to grips with the core material, while a grant from the Scottish Funding Council Restarting Research scheme (2020–2021) helped me, ably assisted by Vanessa Lee, to focus on slavery and enslaved people. Research trips to France were funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Leverhulme Trust and the University of St Andrews. Many individuals have helped move the project forward. Among them are Juliane Braun, Trevor Burnard, Bernard Camier, Paul Cheyney, Logan Connors, Camille Cordier, Carrie Glenn, Michael Harrigan, Suzanne Krebsbach, Jeff Leichman, Jeremy Popkin, Clare Siviter, Benjamin Steiner, Rob Taber and Cyril Triolaire, who generously shared documents—and insights—with me. Melody Shum sent me photographs from newspapers held in Aix-en-Provence, Giulia Scuro sent some from Paris and Emily Hathaway and Sophie Delsaux sent some from New Orleans. Robert vii

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Acknowledgements ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Mealy advised me on some tricky musical matters, while Fabien Cavaillé helped me with the finer points of French and of playhouse architecture. Anne McConnell looked over my Creole, and Duncan Stewart prepared the map and helped me with my images. My thanks to you all. I am also indebted to several individuals who kindly read and commented on my work. I took Noémie Ndiaye’s valuable feedback on an earlier piece with me into this project. Sarah Adams, Fabien Cavaillé, Logan Connors, Sara James and Charles Walton each read chapters of the manuscript, as did the two anonymous readers for Palgrave Macmillan. Your feedback made this a better book. My partner, Roy Dilley, accompanied me on a long trip to eighteenth-century Saint-Domingue and read every word. Mèsi anpil.

Prefatory Note on Language and Translations

When writing as myself, I have favoured ‘enslaved people’ over ‘slaves’. When reporting the point of view of colonials and when translating the term ‘esclave’, I have used ‘slave’. In my English translations, I have retained the terms ‘nègre’ and ‘négresse’—partly in order not to lose the violence of contemporary language, but also owing to the ambiguity and untranslatability of the term, which was sometimes used to designate black people, sometimes enslaved people, often suggesting a conceptual overlap between the two. I have also retained ‘mulâtre’ and ‘mulâtresse’. All quotations are given in the original language first, with unstandardized spelling and punctuation retained. These are followed by my English translations, which are designed to convey core meaning and some sense of the original expression, but with the titles of theatrical works standardized.

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Contents

1

Introduction  1 Chapter Summaries  12

2

Mitigated Spectators: Enslaved People in the Playhouse 17 The Theatre Audience in Saint-Domingue  18 The Enslaved Audience  35 Conclusion  49

3

 Unsustainable Tensions: ‘Slave Ownership’ Among Theatre-Makers 51 Theatre Directors  53 Actors  64 Instrumentalists  85 Deserter Works  87 Conclusion  99

4

 Mitigated Portrayals: Enslaved Figures in Creole Repertoire101 Les Veuves créoles (Anonymous, 1768) 105 Figaro au Cap-Français (Clément, 1785) and Le Mariage par lettres de change (?Clément, 1785) 109 Arlequin mulâtresse protégée par Macanda (Unknown, 1786) 113

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CONTENTS

Jeannot et Thérèse (Clément, ?1758) 123 Les Amours de Mirebalais (Clément, 1786) 135 Les Nègres de place ou le commerce de nuit (Unknown, 1786) 137 Julien et Suset (Clément, 1788) 146 Conclusion 150 5

 Concealed Contributors: Enslaved Participation in Theatre-Making153 Orchestral Musicians 154 The ‘nègre créole’ 162 Black Supernumeraries 166 Non-performing Contributors 169 Builders 175 Conclusion 186

6

 New Citizens: Shifting Roles in Revolutionary-Era Theatre189 ‘Revolutionary’ Theatre from France 192 La Répétition interrompue (Mozard, 1789) 196 Le Triomphe du tiers état ou les ridicules de la noblesse (?Pastoret de Calian, 1789) 203 The Haitian Revolution Begins 208 La Liberté générale ou les colons à Paris (Bottu, 1796) 214 Le Héros africain (Unknown, 1797) 224 Conclusion 231

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Conclusion233 Exodus 236

Bibliography245 Index263

Abbreviations

AA ADPAA ANOM BOSD CÉSAR GOSD GSD JGSD MC ML MGPFSD SAA TSD

Affiches américaines, 1766–1791. Avis divers ou petites affiches américaines, 1764–1765. Archives nationales d’outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence. Bulletin officiel de Saint-Domingue, 1797–1799. Calendrier électronique des spectacles sous l’ancien régime et sous la révolution database. Gazette officielle de Saint-Domingue, 1802–1803. Gazette de Saint-Domingue, 1791. Journal général de Saint-Domingue, 1790–1791. Moniteur colonial, 1791. Moniteur de la Louisiane, 1794–1815. Moniteur général de la partie française de Saint-­Domingue, 1793. Supplément aux affiches américaines, 1766–1791. Theatre in Saint-Domingue, 1764–1791 database.

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List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 2.1

Fig. 2.2

Fig. 2.3 Fig. 2.4

Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2

Map of Saint-Domingue in the late eighteenth century 3 Detail from drawings featuring Port-au-Prince playhouse (1782 and 1783), showing seating plan of auditorium and elevationperspective of stage. (Archives nationales d’outre-mer (France), FR ANOM F3 296 E75) 26 Detail from drawings featuring Port-au-Prince playhouse (1782 and 1783), showing site plan with entrance on the right. (Archives nationales d’outre-­mer (France), FR ANOM F3 296 E75) 27 Detail from drawings featuring Port-au-Prince playhouse (1782 and 1783), showing long section with staircases. (Archives nationales d’outre-mer (France), FR ANOM F3 296 E75) 27 Watercolour by Chevalier de Largues, Vue perspective de la place Montarcher (Cap-Français), showing the playhouse on the right. (Courtesy of William Reese Company, New Haven, Connecticut)32 Watercolour by Boquet, Le Pillage du Cap, révolte de SaintDomingue (1793). M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University 210 Detail from watercolour by Boquet, Le Pillage du Cap, révolte de Saint-­Domingue (1793), featuring man in Arlequin costume at the centre. M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University 212

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 6.3

Fig. 7.1

Detail from watercolour by Boquet, Le Pillage du Cap, révolte de Saint-­Domingue (1793), featuring man in Pierrot costume at the centre. M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University Poster for Federal Theatre Project performance of Haiti featuring Toussaint Louverture (1938). (Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons)

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Introduction

On 3 November 1784, the local newspaper in the French colony of Saint-­ Domingue, in present-day Haiti, included under the ‘Spectacles’ (Theatre) rubric the following announcement for a performance at the local theatre in the town of Cap-Français: Les Comédiens du Cap donneront samedi 6 du courant, au bénéfice de M. Dubuisson, une représentation d’AUCASSIN & NICOLETTE, OU LES MŒURS DU BON VIEUX TEMPS, grand Opéra en trois Actes; cet Opéra est rempli de Scenes aussi touchantes qu’agréables, le bon Comique y est adroitement amené, la Musique est bonne; enfin, l’accueil que le Public a daigné lui faire, donne à M. Dubuisson l’espoir de ne s’être pas trompé sur son choix. (SAA 3 November 1784, 710) The actors of Le Cap will give on Saturday 6th of this month, for the benefit of M. Dubuisson, a performance of Aucassin et Nicolette, ou les Mœurs du bon vieux temps, a large-scale opera in three acts. This opera is full of scenes that are as touching as they are agreeable, its comic elements are cleverly constructed, the music is good. Finally, the reception that the public have granted it, makes M. Dubuisson hope that he has not made a mistake in his choice [of work].

Henri Dubuisson was a white actor and firework maker who had a long association with the playhouse in Cap-Français (commonly known as Le Cap) in the 1770s and 1780s. He and his wife appeared in many performances and were regular beneficiaries of performances that they organized © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Prest, Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22691-5_1

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at their own expense. Dubuisson’s production of Grétry and Sedaine’s three-act opéra-comique, based on an eighteenth-century version of a thirteenth-­century chantefable (a genre that alternated sung verse with recited prose), Aucassin et Nicolette, is one such benefit performance. A few pages later in the same edition of the newspaper, we find another notice submitted by Dubuisson posted under the rubric ‘Esclaves en marronage’ (maroon slaves): Michel, Mondongue, taille de 5 pieds 3 pouces, étampé A. F., ayant eu une guigne à l’orteil, qui lui a fait tomber l’ongle; Janvier, de petite taille, étampé A. F.; tous les deux sont partis marrons le 24 du mois dernier; on les soupçonne du côté de Maribaroux. Ceux qui en auront connaissance, sont priés d’en donner avis à M. Dubuisson, Comédien, au Cap. (SAA 3 November 1784, 716) Michel, from the Mondongue region, five foot three inches tall, branded A. F., having had a wound on his big toe, which had made the nail fall off; Janvier, small in stature, branded A.  F.; both of them ran away on the 24th of last month; they are thought to be on the Maribaroux side [of Le Cap]. Those who recognize them are asked to inform M. Dubuisson, actor in Le Cap.

A subsequent announcement confirms what this one implies: that Michel and Janvier ‘belonged’ to Dubuisson. The implications of performers ‘owning’ enslaved people, mostly domestics, are discussed at length in the ‘Unsustainable Tensions’ chapter of this book. Here we note the blunt fact that actors in Saint-Domingue were also enslavers. We draw attention to the contrast between the warm emotions that Dubuisson’s performance of a tale of young love is expected to arouse in his spectators (many of whom were also ‘slave owners’) and the banal way in which the same Dubuisson, who explicitly identifies himself as an actor, presents the violence that has been meted out on the bodies of Michel and Janvier in the form of their brandings and the effects of an injury to Michel’s big toe. This seemingly contradictory position sits at the heart of the links between public theatre and the enslaved people of Saint-Domingue. Although these connections have been alluded to by a number of critics over the years, the topic has not received the sustained critical attention that it deserves, and this is the first book-length study on the subject. This book is primarily about theatre. Specifically, it seeks to write the enslaved people of Saint-Domingue (back) into the history of public theatre in the colony. Saint-Domingue enjoyed the most vibrant public theatre tradition of the eighteenth-century Caribbean. As Clay has ably

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demonstrated, theatres in Saint-Domingue were run, like so many other things in the colony, as businesses (Clay 2013). Between 1764 and the beginning of the slave revolts in August 1791 (and more sporadically after that date), the colony saw hundreds of performances of over 700 named works in several towns, including Léogane, Les Cayes, Jacmel, Fort-­ Dauphin, Saint-Marc and especially in the purpose-built playhouses in its two main port towns of Port-au-Prince in the Western Province and Cap-­ Français (now Cap-Haïtien) in the Northern Province (Fig. 1.1). Most theatrical events included a double bill of two works, sometimes with additional music and dancing interludes, and some were followed by fireworks or, more commonly, a ball. Details of all upcoming performances as announced in the local newspapers between 1764 and 1791 are available via my trilingual (French-English-Haitian Creole) Theatre in Saint-­ Domingue database (TSD): https://www.theatreinsaintdomingue.org. The majority of works performed in the colony’s playhouses were imported from France, and some of them were advertised in relation to

Fig. 1.1  Map of Saint-Domingue in the late eighteenth century

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previous performances in the metropole. It has often been assumed—at the time and even to this day—that theatre in Saint-Domingue was merely an inferior copy of the metropolitan model. This was the view expressed in the 1791 performance almanac, whose entry on Cap-Français notes: On n’est pas difficile dans nos Colonies en fait de spectacle; et les habitans du Cap sont tellement avides de comédie, que, pourvu qu’ils aient des comédiens quelconques sous les yeux, ils leur font grace du reste, parce qu’il faut se contenter de ce que l’on a, faute de mieux. (Almanach 1791, 293) When it comes to theatre, they are not picky in the colonies, and the residents/ planters of Le Cap are so hungry for drama that as long as they have some actors in front of them, they forgive them everything else because they have to make do with what they have got for want of anything better.

But it is wrong to assume that performances were of poor quality, and it is unhelpful—especially today—to view theatre in Saint-Domingue only in relation to a metropolitan tradition. French works were adapted to local conditions, and some even received their premiere in the colony. Moreover, a small number of new local works were written and performed there, and it is possible—indeed, desirable—to speak of a theatre tradition that was emerging in the 1780s as ‘Creole’, in the primary contemporary sense of the term, meaning local. For the baron Wimpffen—an explorer and visitor to Saint-Domingue—Creole taste was not in line with ‘good’ taste and had a whiff of the buccaneer about it (Clay 2013, 209), but we might turn this on its head and argue in favour of Caribbean (rather than European) traditions. The genre of the Creole parody, for instance, appears to have been unique to Saint-Domingue. More generally there was a marked preference in Saint-Domingue for lighter works and works that included music, especially opéra-comique or, as Doe calls it, ‘dialogue opera’ (Doe 2020)—a genre featuring musical numbers and spoken dialogue—especially those to music by Grétry. The comedies performed ranged from more literary works to pantomimes, including commedia dell’arte-inspired Harlequinades and works featuring acrobatics. Occasionally serious works were performed—Voltaire was the colony’s most popular tragic playwright, while Gluck was the only representative of serious opera in the colony. The majority of performers came from France—some of them performed in the colony while on tour, some in the context of a limited-term contract, while others moved to Saint-­ Domingue on a more permanent basis. Some were born in the colony,

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including two solo performers of mixed racial ancestry who have attracted quite considerable critical attention. Audiences were mostly white but included small numbers of free people of colour—an intermediate socio-­ racial group of free non-white individuals, many (but not all) of mixed racial ancestry and some born into freedom.1 Most scholars of theatre in Saint-Domingue have ventured that enslaved people were probably present at theatre performances in Saint-Domingue. Enslaved people were the largest group in the colony by a considerable margin. How did they compare numerically with the other groups present in late eighteenth-century Saint-Domingue? Even then, group classifications were slippery because they cut across notions of the supposed binary of freedom and unfreedom as well as the non-binary categories of racial ancestry—black, white and brown (or sometimes, in contemporary parlance, yellow)—and social caste or class. Notwithstanding all the documents that suggest otherwise, not all white people were property owning, not all free people of colour were of mixed racial ancestry and not all black people were enslaved. In other words, a person’s social position did not neatly correspond to a particular racial background, nor was their racial background—or social position—easily legible on their skin (as many colonials would have wished). Some white people in the colony were poor, and some free people of colour were wealthy and ‘owned’ slaves. A small number of Native Americans were also present in the colony. Even without these important caveats—and despite the existence of census records— it is difficult to be sure of the exact numbers. A census for the end of 1789 recorded 32,000 free white people, 28,000 free people of colour and 500,000 enslaved people in the colony (McClellan 1992, 49). This suggests that white people made up nearly 6% of the population, free people of colour 5% and enslaved people approximately 89%. As McClellan reminds us, such ratios were unusual: at the end of the eighteenth century in the United States, the population comprised approximately 80% free white people, 2% free people of colour and 18% enslaved people (McClellan 1992, 48–49). In fact, the numbers of enslaved people in Saint-Domingue will have been even higher than the records suggest as many ‘slave owners’, in order to reduce their tax dues, did not declare all their ‘property’, while enslaved children and adults over 45 were exempt from the head tax in any case (McClellan 1992, 48). Some free people of colour whose freedom was not formally recognized (also, sometimes, for tax reasons) 1

 For more on the free people of colour, see Garrigus (2006) and Rogers (1999).

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will have been incorrectly categorized in the records and, as Garrigus has demonstrated, this is further complicated by the fact that some colonial families were reclassified from white to non-white following the increased racism that marked the period after an anti-militia revolt of 1769 (Garrigus 2006, 143–44). Details of the white population will also have under-­ represented the significant military presence in the colony and the marginalized poor white people sometimes known as petits blancs. But the broad brush is clear: enslaved people—the majority of them born in Africa—outnumbered the white population by a very significant margin, while the free people of colour almost equalled the white population by 1789. These proportions of white, free coloured and enslaved people varied from one part of the colony to another and differed significantly in urban and rural areas. Public theatre was, of course, an urban phenomenon. Geggus notes that ‘scarcely one in twenty of the colony’s slaves were urban dwellers’ (Geggus 1996, 262), and most of these were enslaved domestic servants. With regard to domestic labour on plantations and in towns, Moitt notes that (in contrast with field labour) roles were usually gender based: men were valets, butlers, barbers, wigmakers, tailors, watchmen, gardeners, fishermen, canoemen, coach drivers, hunters and cooks, while women were midwives, nurses, hospitalières (doctors), housekeepers and seamstresses; they were also cooks, servants and washerwomen (Moitt 2001, 62). Enslaved domestics played an important role in raising their master’s children, sometimes alongside their own. Men’s jobs tended to be outside, whereas women were based inside, although urban housekeepers would go out to shop for goods in town and female domestic servants would sometimes run errands that took them outside the home. Overall, the male population among enslaved people in Saint-Domingue outnumbered the female population, although the sex ratio became more balanced in the 1770s and 1780s (Geggus 1996, 259–60). Although more men were imported from Africa than women, Moitt makes that case that scholars have underestimated the number of enslaved women in the French Antilles partly because they have emphasized slave imports (which favoured men) over longevity (which favoured women) (Moitt 2001, 33). In the course of this book we shall meet enslaved men and women, most— but not all—of them living in the colony’s towns. A major goal of this book is to lay bare the fact that enslaved people— mostly enslaved urban domestics—were an integral part of the story of public theatre in Saint-Domingue and not merely a part of the uncomfortable backdrop against which that story unfolded. In so doing, this book

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aims to bring enslaved people in from the margins of public theatre in Saint-Domingue and put them at its centre. It is perhaps helpful to think of the process in relation to Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s four key moments in historical production (Trouillot 1995, 26). We make history by granting enslaved people retrospective significance and can then seek to address the making of a narrative through fact retrieval. This is no straightforward undertaking, however, not least because of the lack of personal testimony from enslaved people themselves—a challenge that relates to Trouillot’s moment of fact creation and the making of sources. As Connolly and Fuentes put it, ‘we have irretrievably lost the thoughts, desires, fears, and perspectives of many whose enslavement shaped every aspect of their lives’ (Connolly and Fuentes 2016, 105). This archival silence requires counter-­ action on the part of the researcher in order to uncover the counter-fact, which Smallwood defines as ‘the fact the archive is seeking to ignore, marginalize and disavow’ (Smallwood 2016, 125)—Trouillot’s moment of fact assembly. Some scholars have succeeded in unearthing and analysing texts that allow us to glimpse or, more accurately, to overhear the words and viewpoints of enslaved people prior to—and distinct from—the slave narratives of the anglophone nineteenth century. The great majority of those texts are legal documents—a seemingly unlikely source for the testimony of enslaved people but, as it turns out, an extremely valuable one, particularly given that most enslaved people were illiterate, while those who could write seldom had the opportunity to record their own experiences for posterity. In Hearing Slaves Speak, Trevor Burnard introduces the reader to an overlooked set of archives from the early nineteenth century, those of the Fiscal in Berbice, Guyana, who, as the chief legal officer of the colony, received hundreds of complaints from enslaved people who testified directly and whose testimony was transcribed and has been preserved in something close to its original form (Burnard 2010).2 Although the Fiscal rarely found in favour of the enslaved people, the latter did at least have the opportunity to air their grievances in their own words and, in the process, to speak about other matters that concerned them. In a similar vein, Sophie White has mined the mid-eighteenth-century trial records of the Louisiana Superior Council, before which enslaved people appeared on numerous occasions as defendants and witnesses (and only very 2  I am grateful to Trevor Burnard for sending me an electronic copy of his book when I was unable to source one myself.

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occasionally as complainants), usually in relation to marronage (running away) and/or theft (White 2019). These too contain transcriptions that convey a powerful sense of the enslaved people’s concerns, personalities and language (including their use of Creole) as they sought to tell their stories. They also provide valuable insights into why enslaved people ran away and into their lives as fugitives—questions that are examined in the ‘Unsustainable Tensions’ chapter of this book. Unfortunately, similar archives do not exist for the French Antilles where, as Marie Houllemare has demonstrated, the widespread destruction wrought by the local environment (including, in the case of Saint-­ Domingue, the earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince in 1770) was compounded by a deliberate campaign—or series of campaigns—to eliminate written records of slave testimony. Local magistrates ordered the deliberate destruction of such documents at the same time that the authorities sought, particularly after the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), to preserve more carefully and systematically documents dealing with European subjects and, to a lesser extent, free people of colour (Houllemare 2019). For Houllemare, the elimination of records relating to enslaved people should be understood in the broader context of a series of repressive measures aimed at limiting their access to justice (Houllemare 2019, 359). Occasional documents do remain for the French Antilles, and a selection of these are included in a volume covering the Antilles, French Guiana and Louisiana in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries edited by Dominique Rogers (2015). Régent, Gonfier and Maillard analyse select testimony from enslaved people in Guadeloupe, Île Bourbon (now La Réunion) and Martinique recorded between 1790 and 1848 (Régent et al. 2015). More recently, the work of White, Burnard, Rogers and others has been brought into conversation in an edited collection about African and Indian slave testimony in British and French America, 1700–1848 (White and Burnard 2020). A number of approaches are employed in this book to bring us closer to the lives and experiences of enslaved people—and their ‘owners’—who had connections to the theatre.3 Sources familiar to theatre researchers are re-read for what is barely there and easily overlooked. Although this book is concerned primarily with enslaved people rather than the more accessible topic of enslaved characters, theatrical works performed in the colony 3  For more on the methodological challenges of researching colonial-era Caribbean theatre, see Prest (2023).

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are re-read for the ways in which they may have resonated with local audiences in their particular environments. It is well-known that theatre audiences apply aspects of the works they see and hear to their own situations even when these are very different from the work’s original context. Indeed, this is even spelled out in one account from the local newspaper reporting on the performance in 1789 of de Belloy’s tragedy, Gaston et Bayard, during which we are told ‘le Public saisit & applaudit quelques passages qui pouvoient s’appliquer aux circonstances’ (AA 7 October 1789, 542) (the public seized upon and applauded some passages that could be applied to the circumstances). Theatrical sources are also re-read alongside—and in conversation with—sources and archival materials that are less commonly used in theatre research. These are mostly ‘colonial’ materials that are themselves ‘cultural artifacts, built on institutional structures that erased certain kinds of knowledge, secreted some, and valorized others’ (Cooper and Stoler 1997, 17) and thus part of the ‘process of colonial violence’ (Smallwood 2016, 124). Such materials are read critically both against the colonial grain—in search of alternative viewpoints—and along the bias grain—a process that Fuentes describes as a kind of stretching of archival fragments in search of what has been extinguished (Fuentes 2016, 7). Crucially, all sources are read with a mind that is open to surprises and to having its preconceptions challenged. Sometimes this is not enough, and we must dare to ask questions that we cannot always answer or even, following Dayan and Hartman, ‘imagine what cannot be verified’ (Dayan 1995, xvii; Hartman 2008, 12).4 In what follows, I have attempted to distinguish clearly between different levels of certainty—between what is certain, probable or possible—and what is informed speculation. Although theatre researchers, particularly of the early modern period, are generally more comfortable with higher levels of certainty, making room for things that are uncertain is essential when dealing with the stories of enslaved people. Since these people barely make it into the record as human beings (rather than numbers in a ledger or commodified items of property) in the first place, we have an ethical obligation, as Fuentes has argued so convincingly in relation to enslaved women in particular, not to ‘let our desires for empirical substantiation remand these fleeting … lives back into oblivion’ (Fuentes 2016, 138). More generally, it is worth recalling Leslie Harris’s 4  For Hartman, this is part of the creation of ‘critical fabulation’—something that narrates the impossibility of the task at the same time that it seeks to accomplish that task (Hartman 2008, 11–13).

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observation that ‘there is no perfect archive, where every historical question is answered clearly and without the need for interpretation and imagination’ (Harris 2014, 79) in any case. Regarding sources, a staple of researchers of theatre in Saint-­ Domingue—and of Saint-Domingue more generally—is the local newspapers. These include, in 1764—the year that seems to have marked the beginning of formal public theatre in the colony as well as the arrival of the first local printing press—the Gazette de Saint-Domingue, which was soon replaced by the Avis divers ou petites affiches américaines (ADPAA) published in 1764–1765.5 Both of these featured some theatre announcements for performances in Cap-Français. Between 1766 and 1789, the Affiches américaines (AA) and its sister publication, the Supplement aux affiches américaines (SAA), featured regular announcements for upcoming performances in the local theatres, the majority in Port-au-Prince and Cap-Français.6 From 1789, Saint-Domingue, like metropolitan France, witnessed a ‘media revolution’, and after this date theatre announcements are still found in AA (which lasted until August 1791), but they are also scattered across other new newspapers including, in Le Cap, Le Moniteur colonial (MC) and Le Journal général de Saint-Domingue (JGSD) and, in Port-au-Prince, the Gazette de Saint-Domingue (GSD).7 The Haitian scholar, Jean Fouchard, who was the first to make the vibrant theatre tradition of the colony more widely known in a series of books published in the 1950s and reissued in the 1980s, wrote that ‘aucun témoin de l’époque ne permet mieux que ces journaux jaunis de ressuciter la vie quotidienne de Saint-Domingue dans les années qui précédèrent ou suivirent la Révolution’ (Fouchard 1988b, 17) (no contemporary eyewitness is better

5  Prior to the 1760s, there were various private amateur performances, and a court decision from 7 March 1740 requires an acting troupe in Le Cap, led by two actors called Tancein and Desmarets, to inform the colonial authorities of any permissions they may receive to perform (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1784–1790, III, 592). This is clear evidence of some formal theatrical activity before the newspaper records began. CÉSAR, following Parfaict, records an actor called Desmarets, who debuted the role of Crispin in Regnard’s Le Légataire universel in 1741. Fuchs also records a Desmarets who debuted unsuccessfully at the Comédie-Française in 1741 and who performed in Mannheim with his wife between 1750 and 1754 (Fuchs 1944, 60). I have been unable to find anyone with a name like Tancein. 6  For details of the changes that AA underwent in the course of its history, see Menier and Debien (1949). 7  For more on the complex history of these new newspapers, see Menier and Debien (1949) and Popkin (2018).

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than these yellowed newspapers at resurrecting daily life in Saint-Domingue in the years preceding or following the Revolution). In the absence of anything close to a full set of account books or other theatre records, I draw heavily on the many announcements of forthcoming performances that appear in these newspapers. For the same reasons, newspaper announcements form the basis of TSD, mentioned above. They provide information about what is to be performed and when and, sometimes, precious details about performers, costumes and sets as well as commentaries about the anticipated impact of, or background to, a work. Our reliance on newspaper announcements comes with two sizeable caveats: first, that while they offer a good record of one-off benefit performances organized by individual troupe members, they seriously under-represent regular subscription performances, which (depending on location and time period) were put on two or three times a week and which, for obvious reasons, did not need to be advertised to the same extent. The second caveat is that they only tell us what was programmed at the time when the advertisement was submitted and not what was actually performed. Occasionally, a subsequent advertisement notes a change in programming, but on many occasions such changes—particularly last-­ minute ones—will have gone undocumented (or been lost in hastily prepared handbills that have not made their way down to us). We know that theatre troupes were expected to be able to perform a wide range of works at short notice and with little rehearsal time, and we can be sure that some of the details in our newspapers will have been wrong. An account of a visit by Prince William Henry of England to the theatre in Le Cap in 1783 suggests that the work that had been announced was replaced by Favart’s L’Anglais à Bordeaux—a play that promotes good relations between France and England—only after the prince’s arrival in the playhouse, just moments before the performance was due to begin (SAA 9 April 1783, 189). Similar disparities have been found between works announced in advance in the local press and those documented after the event with regard to the theatre in eighteenth-century Bordeaux (Lagrave et al. 1985, 254). Likewise, a comparison of sample announcements and performance records in relation to the Comédie Italienne in revolutionary Paris revealed a ‘margin of discrepancy’ of 5% (Kennedy et al. 1996, 4). That margin may have been higher in Saint-Domingue. An avid theatre-goer who arrived in Le Cap on 21 May 1775 noted (initially—confusingly—in an appointment diary for the year 1774) works that he saw there between 13 August

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1775 and 27 December 1776 (Service Historique de La Défense, G199).8 A comparison of this diary with the works announced in the local press reveals major discrepancies. The diarist’s list of works confirms what was noted above about many performances simply not being documented in the press. This is no surprise. More surprising is the tiny number of exact matches between the diary and the newspaper announcements: only 3 out of nearly 80 (legible) entries. Other discrepancies suggest that works or programmes in preparation were simply shuffled around. More reassuringly for the theatre researcher, all the works that the diarist lists that I have been able to identify (which are the great majority) do feature in newspaper announcements at some point, although not necessarily in the same year (and very occasionally in a different location). This allows us to conclude that the theatrical repertoire that features in the newspaper announcement does broadly reflect that of the colony, even if the performance dates and combinations are not always accurate. The information from our newspapers is thus reminiscent of British comedian and pianist Eric Morecombe’s legendary retort to the German-American conductor, André Prévin, during a comical rendering of Grieg’s piano concerto: ‘I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order’.

Chapter Summaries The first chapter, ‘Mitigated Spectators: Enslaved People in the Playhouse’, tackles the vexed question of the presence or otherwise of enslaved people among the theatre audience in Saint-Domingue—a matter on which two contemporary eyewitness accounts from 1770s Cap-Français flatly disagree and which has been a source of considerable perplexity for scholars. By carefully reviewing those and other sources (including one that writes of the misbehaviour of enslaved people in the first row of boxes in the theatre in Le Cap), and placing them in their broader context, I conclude that enslaved domestics did accompany their ‘masters’ into the playhouse on a regular basis. Moreover, I suggest that, despite their near invisibility in the sources, enslaved people were a significant presence at the theatre and will sometimes have outnumbered the free people of colour present— a group that has attracted more critical attention and who sat in 8  I am grateful to Bernard Camier for sending me photographs of the diaries. Camier believes the diarist to be the Martinican-born lawyer, Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de SaintMéry (1750–1819) (Camier 2021).

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designated seats. I introduce the notion of the ‘mitigated (i.e. unofficial, partial and involuntary) spectator as a way of conceiving of the enslaved people present, considering this alongside the noisy and often inattentive spectatorship of the official audience. I argue, furthermore, that enslaved domestics, many of whom spoke good French, will have overheard and glimpsed, from the corridors and boxes of Saint-Domingue’s playhouses, significant portions of the many and varied works performed there, including works that engage with—and sometimes contest—the enslavement of human beings by other human beings. More broadly, I demonstrate that the official policy of segregated seating in the playhouses of Saint-­ Domingue belied a more complex reality that allowed for considerable mixing en route to—and when moving around—the playhouse. The next chapter is ‘Unsustainable Tensions: “Slave Ownership” Among Theatre-Makers’. Here I bring announcements from the local press for upcoming theatre performances into conversation with other advertisements found in close proximity to them in the same newspapers. These include lists of recaptured runaways, For Sale and miscellaneous advertisements, and especially advertisements for the return of enslaved runaways—a number of which were submitted by theatre-makers, including actors, directors and musicians. Some notarial documents are also examined. Although these sources are all broadly ‘colonial’, they are read not just as evidence of ‘slave ownership’, but above all for what they can, unintentionally, teach us about the lives of enslaved people, many of whom we know about only because they sought their own freedom by running away. The relationship between theatre-making ‘slave owners’ and their enslaved ‘property’ is brought into dialogue with the theatrical repertoire put on and performed by the same theatre-makers (and quite possibly, therefore, overheard by their enslaved domestics). Although in the French repertoire responsibility for human slavery is customarily projected onto European others (e.g. the English or Spanish) or religious and oriental others, notably the Ottoman Turks, the resonances with contemporary life in the colony are—and were then—inescapable. Occasionally, French works are more overt in their condemnations, which further highlights this tension. A key example is in relation to the lead actress in Cap-Français, Mme Marsan, who advertised for the return of her enslaved domestic, called ‘Paris’, at much the same time that she movingly portrayed the lead role in the anti-slavery pantomime, L’Héroïne américaine by Arnould. In the course of this chapter, I highlight a series of unsustainable tensions between the emergence of works challenging slavery and other abuses of

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power, and the society in which these works were performed. In a similar vein, I examine theatrical works that engage with the popular theme of ‘desertion’ (a term that was applied primarily to members of the military but also sometimes, in the colony, to enslaved runaways), including Mercier’s Le Déserteur, which was premiered in Saint-Domingue complete with its original ending—one that is undeniably sympathetic to the plight of individuals who ran away from cruel treatment by those with authority over them. ‘Mitigated Portrayals: Enslaved Figures in Creole Repertoire’ explores the modest but highly significant tradition of local or Creole theatre (i.e. works that were written and set in the contemporary Caribbean, usually featuring some dialogue in Creole) in order to ascertain the extent to which these provide more accurate portrayals of enslaved people than European repertoire. This chapter provides the most sustained and most complete account to date of the Creole theatre tradition in Saint-­ Domingue, which includes several Creole parodies of French works and a comedy featuring a black servant called Figaro. Most of these works are no longer extant and have therefore been overlooked, but the chapter includes detailed exploration and contextualization based on the scraps of information that do remain. What emerges is a tradition that does indeed come closer to portraying something more recognizable as life in Saint-­ Domingue, but also one that keeps the harsher realities of local life, especially for the enslaved population, very much at arm’s length. It is surely no coincidence that all the Creole works we know about are comedies— they feature local enslaved characters who are recognizable as such but whose portrayal as enslaved people is profoundly mitigated. Reading between the lines of cheerful portrayals of enslaved domestics in, notably, the anonymous comedy, Les Veuves créoles, I suggest that their very appearance may yet have been of significance to the enslaved domestics present in the theatre audience. With regard to the rural enslaved characters presented (who were not represented among our mitigated audience), it would appear that their portrayal aimed to explore, take control of and then defuse several matters that were of genuine concern to the colonial population. These include interracial sexual relations, slave dances and vodou rituals, as well as the story and subsequent legend of the rebellious slave leader, Macandal. Our works thus deal lightly with some weighty matters and create the welcome illusion (for the majority of the audience, that is) that everything is under (white) control, but some cracks in this

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theatrical armour can still be discerned, and these provide further evidence of the unsustainable tensions that underpinned life in the colony. The next chapter, ‘Concealed Contributors: Enslaved Participation in Theatre-Making’, presents the contributions made by enslaved people to public theatre-making in Saint-Domingue as can be extrapolated from newspaper announcements, notarial documents, wills and personal correspondence. Some contributors are relatively prominent, as is the case for the enslaved musicians in the theatre orchestra (who have attracted some critical attention) and the intriguing performance of the role of a prince by a black Creole man who was probably enslaved. Others are essentially invisible—these include the enslaved wigmakers and painters who worked behind the scenes, and especially the carpenters and builders who participated in the construction and maintenance of the colony’s playhouses, who have received little or no critical attention in the context of theatre research. Other contributions examined include those of enslaved coachmen who drove audience members to and from the playhouse, and those of domestic servants, notably servants ‘belonging’ to theatre-makers. By setting prominent and less prominent contributors alongside one another, I deliberately cast my net widely and consider them—and the jobs they did—on an equal footing. Although it is impossible to render full justice to the many hidden contributions that enslaved people made to the public theatre tradition of Saint-Domingue, this partial account of the lives of some enslaved individuals prevents them from slipping back through the archival gaps completely. The final chapter, ‘New Citizens: Shifting Roles in Revolutionary-Era Theatre’, engages with the revolutionary period—first the French Revolution and then the years following the Saint-Dominguan slave revolts of 1791 that marked the beginning of the Haitian Revolution. The chapter is structured around the performance in Saint-Domingue of four new theatrical works—three of them written for a Saint-Dominguan audience—and speculates how they might have been received, particularly by the mitigated enslaved audience (in the case of the first two) and, following abolition, by the colony’s ‘new citizens’ (in the case of the second two). The first work is La Répétition interrompue, written by the editor of the local newspaper, Charles Mozard, in response to the news from France of the unification of the three estates and performed in Port-au-Prince in October 1789. Although the work clearly seeks to retell the news in a way that made sense to the local audience, the contradictions it contains are easy to discern, particularly when we consider that the most famous local

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performer of colour appeared in it singing of national unity and friendship when she herself was denied a political voice owing not just to her biological sex but also to her racial ancestry. What is conspicuously absent from it is any reference to the enslaved population. This eliding of controversial topics is in marked contrast with the performance a few months later of Le Triomphe du tiers état—a French work that celebrated (by calling for) the end of feudalism and likened its abuses to those of transatlantic slavery. Following the abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue in 1793 by the French commissioners, Sonthonax and Polverel (and across the French empire in 1794), we find increased representation of France’s ‘new citizens’ in the characters of La Liberté générale—a work that was written for (and performed and published in) Le Cap in 1796 and which openly celebrates the end of slavery, albeit as something that originated in metropolitan France rather than in the colony. Our last play, created under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture, who had himself been born into slavery, is Le Héros africain ou la traite des noirs, which was performed in Le Cap in May 1797. The work is set on the African coast and portrays the people of Africa as both freedom-loving and willing to defend themselves against the pernicious incursions of the Europeans—in this case the English (who were occupying part of Saint-Domingue at the time)—in search of people to enslave. The conclusion features a brief examination of public theatre in the months leading up to the founding of Haiti on 1 January 1804 as the local resistance, now led by Dessalines and Christophe—future Emperor and King of (northern) Haiti respectively—fought off a French expedition sent by Napoleon to reintroduce slavery. I then examine some of the trajectories taken by refugee theatre-makers from Saint-Domingue who subsequently performed in theatres elsewhere. With particular reference to Charleston and New Orleans (where slavery was still in place), I revisit the question of the presence of black and enslaved people in the playhouse and their portrayal onstage as it was perceived in the wake of the Haitian Revolution. The book ends by gesturing towards another set of links between Saint-Domingue and theatre in the form of new works by various playwrights, including Glissant, C.L.R.  James and Métellus. Revivals of these works and new plays on the subject will no doubt continue to be made for years to come since, as Hartman and others have noted, the project of freedom remains incomplete (Hartman 2008, 4, 14; Walcott 2021).

2

Mitigated Spectators: Enslaved People in the Playhouse

In terms of racial ancestry, social group, occupation and biological sex, theatre audiences in the playhouses of Saint-Domingue were quite diverse. They included white men—and some white women—from the planter class of both French and Creole backgrounds; resident and visiting merchants and other tradespeople; professionals such as lawyers; sea captains, travellers and colonial officials, as well as some free people of colour. Members of the military, including people of all ranks from the army and the navy, also made up an important part of the theatre audience in Saint-­ Domingue. The class of non-property-owning white people, sometimes known as petits blancs, who were mostly artisans and labourers, will occasionally have attended the playhouse when they could afford to do so— theatre tickets in Saint-Domingue were considerably more expensive than in metropolitan France (Clay 2013, 208). Audiences were segregated. Practices varied from one playhouse to another, but the primary mode of segregation in all of them was by racial ancestry or skin colour, and a disproportionately small (though gradually increasing) number of seats were allocated to free people of colour, the majority of them women, prior to the Haitian Revolution. Additional less obvious modes of segregation were also at play, particularly in the two largest playhouses in the colony in the towns of Port-au-Prince and, especially, Le Cap. These included special seating areas for colonial officials and sometimes the military more generally; separate boxes for small groups, including trellised boxes for

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Prest, Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22691-5_2

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people who did not want to be seen at the theatre; and segregation by ticket price linked to a seating area—a practice that is, of course, still customary in traditional playhouses across the globe today. No mention is made in contemporary sources of ticket prices or a seating—or standing—area for the enslaved population in any of the playhouses in Saint-Domingue. In order to address the question of the presence or otherwise of enslaved people in the theatre audience in Saint-­ Domingue, I shall begin by examining what contemporary sources do tell us about audiences before exploring in greater depth what they fail to comment on or make clear. Better-known practices of seating and segregation will thus form the basis for a more speculative investigation into what I shall term the ‘mitigated spectatorship’ of a small portion of the enslaved population in Saint-Domingue.

The Theatre Audience in Saint-Domingue The public theatre’s reliance on advertisements in the local press has already been noted, and AA and SAA offer an obvious starting point into an investigation into the theatre audiences of Saint-Domingue. Details of the cost of one-off theatre tickets and annual or monthly subscriptions were published on a number of occasions in the local press. Subscriptions were sometimes divided by biological sex. One advertisement for subscriptions to the theatre in Le Cap, published in SAA 18 April 1772 (190), gives the following prices (all of which are in colonial livres): 240 livres for the year for ‘[l]es Dames’ ([white] women) as opposed to 360 livres for male subscribers, or 30 livres per month for women to include their entry into postperformance balls, compared with 36 livres for men, excluding post-performance balls.1 This privileging of the (white) female spectator was aimed primarily at addressing the imbalanced sex ratios that were prevalent in the colony, particularly among the white population within which men outnumbered women by a significant margin—according to Clay, women comprised under 20% of the white population (Clay 2013, 213).2 Women were explicitly encouraged to attend the theatre in some announcements, and the annual prospectuses for 1783, 1784 and 1788 in 1  The prospectuses for the theatre in Le Cap in 1773, 1776, 1783 and 1784 have the same prices for annual subscriptions (ANOM F3 160). 2  See Debien 1972 for a rare example of testimony from a white woman who went to the theatre.

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Le Cap indicate that only groups of women were permitted to take out annual subscriptions for the first- and second-level boxes (ANOM F3 160). In AA 25 February 1784, special verses addressed ‘Aux Dames’ (To the Ladies) commented, with reference to Le Cap, that ‘Nos Spectacles par vous brillent de mille appas’ (133) (thanks to you, our performances sparkle with a thousand charms), while in AA 4 June 1785, the women of Port-au-­ Prince were invited in similar verses to ‘venez de vos regards embellir notre scène’ (247) (come and embellish our stage with your gaze). A theatre advertisement published in SAA 25 May 1785 salutes ‘ce Sexe charmant qui donne l’ame à tout’ (233) (this charming sex that brings everything to life), while a long set of verses following the announcement of a benefit performance for the actor Dame Bourgeois in Le Cap refers to women as ‘ce Sexe charmant’ (this charming sex) and ‘ce Sexe enchanteur’ (this enchanting sex) (SAA 17 August 1785, 359). And of course the anticipated presence of women in the theatre audience was thought to be an incentive for (heterosexual) men to attend performances as well. If the majority of sources addressed to women hint at the erotic appeal of the female spectator, one advertisement, submitted by the (female) actor, Mlle Leroy, conjures up the image of female virtue when she notes that her choice of repertoire for an upcoming benefit performance (the opera, Félix, by Monsigny and Sedaine) includes ‘des exemples de vertu qui font honneur à son sexe’ (AA 21 January 1784, 40) (examples of virtue that are a credit to her sex). It is revealing that the white Creole lawyer and documenter of life in SaintDomingue (where he lived for many years), Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry (1750–1819), considered the presence of 130 ‘dames’ at a performance in Le Cap during carnival to be noteworthy when the full capacity of the playhouse was approximately 1500 people (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 363).3 A newspaper announcement relating to theatre subscriptions in Port-­ au-­Prince in 1772 divides subscription costs by individual (300 livres), married couple (450 livres) or household (600 livres for three members of the same household) (AA 3 June 1772, 271).4 Occasionally prices for all or some seats within the playhouse were not fixed, as was the case for the 3  In his Nouvelles considérations, considered in more detail below, Dubuisson noted the presence of more than twice that number—268 women—at a performance (possibly the same one) in Le Cap during carnival (Dubuisson 1780, 82). 4  Moreau de Saint-Méry gives the slightly higher figure of 500 livres for a married couple (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 327).

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loges (boxes) and parterre (a seated floor or ‘pit’ area) at a benefit performance organized by the actor, Dubourg, in Le Cap in 1784 (SAA 15 December 1784, 809–10). The reason given for this is that Dubourg was keen to have as large an audience as possible, but no information is provided about what spectators might have paid in practice. With regard to another benefit performance in Le Cap, organized by the actor Mme Chevalier in 1785, readers of the newspaper are told that ‘les prix seront au gré de ceux qui honoreront son Spectacle de leur présence’ (SAA 23 February 1785, 89) (the prices will be at the discretion of those who honour the performance with their presence)—a practice that we would now call ‘pay what you like’. Interestingly, an advertisement from Port-au-Prince in 1787 indicates that the practice of having flexible pricing for benefit performances would no longer be permitted (AA 6 September 1787, 452). It is unclear how many benefit performances in Saint-Domingue deviated from standard ticket pricing as established by the shareholders of each playhouse, but we do know that in most cases, prices were fixed. Standard examples include this one from Le Cap in 1786: ‘le prix des places sera le même que l’année derniere à toutes les Pieces d’Acteurs, c’est-à-dire, une gourde les Loges & deux gourdins le Parterre’ (SAA 2 August 1786, 397) (the cost of tickets will be the same as last year for all the actors’ plays, that is to say, one gourde for the boxes and two gourdins for the parterre).5 Slightly more detail is provided in another advertisement for a benefit performance the same month: ‘Les premieres Loges à une gourde, les secondes & le Parterre à deux gourdins’ (SAA 9 August 1786, 410) (the first boxes cost one gourde, the second boxes and the parterre cost two gourdins). This price list overlooks the fact that by this time there were three rows of boxes in the playhouse in Le Cap, and we must consider what has been missing from such announcements all along: any mention of the seating areas that we know from other contemporary sources were allocated to free people of colour. The failure to mention the price of any seats reserved, notably, for the military can be explained by the fact that military spectators were mostly recruited by other means, including compulsory subscriptions for soldiers stationed at the local garrisons in Port-au-Prince and Le Cap.6 But the same cannot be said for the free people of colour who 5  Clay notes that a gourde was the equivalent of eight colonial livres and five sous, or about five and a half livres tournois (Clay 2013, 309n64). 6  Garrisoned troops paid 300 livres a month for a group subscription and 66 livres for nonsubscription performances (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 327).

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relied on the local newspapers—and on handbills that were distributed on performance days—for information in much the same way that the white audience did. We know that the main reason for free people of colour being admitted to the public playhouses of Saint-Domingue at all—and in increasing numbers even when oppressive measures against them increased during the 1780s—was a financial one (Clay 2013, 217). As theatres struggled to turn a profit or even to make ends meet, the free people of colour represented an important source of additional income to shareholders and beneficiaries. This being the case, the choice not generally to publicize their seats in the local press in explicit terms (e.g. by indicating the price of the third level of boxes in Le Cap or the second boxes in Port-­ au-­Prince) suggests an ongoing reluctance to acknowledge the spectatorship of free people of colour publicly. As no handbills from this period remain, we do not know if prices for their seats were included on those. However, we do know of seating policies relating to free people of colour from other contemporary sources including, notably, Moreau de Saint-Méry, who also provides additional information about other forms of segregation in the colony’s playhouses. Saint-Marc, situated in the Western Province, was the third largest town in the colony and the stopover point for bi-weekly mail deliveries via a coach road that linked Cap-­ Français and Port-au-Prince.7 Moreau de Saint-Méry notes that an early improvised theatre, erected by a group of performers including someone called Clément (whose work features prominently in the ‘Mitigated Portrayals’ chapter) in the wing of a large house in the late 1760s, included first- and second-level boxes and that ‘un gradin de bois élevé à l’extrémité de la salle fut destiné aux gens de couleur’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 199) (a raised wooden stand at the far end of the room was for the people of colour). The use of the word ‘extrémité’ may indicate that the free coloured audience was situated in a separate physical structure as far as possible from the performance area and the white audience. A purpose-­built theatre that could accommodate approximately 500 spectators, which opened in Saint-Marc in 1773, is described by Moreau de Saint-Méry as having two rows of boxes, an amphithéâtre (a raised seating area opposite the stage, usually, in this period, behind the parterre and below the first row of boxes) that was big enough to accommodate 70 people, and a seated parterre (in France at this time many parterres had 7  For more on the socio-economic history of the towns of Saint-Marc and Léogane, see Taber (2015).

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standing room only) ‘au fond duquel se placent les gens de couleur, sans distinction de nuances’ (at the back of which are placed the people of colour, not distinguished by nuance) (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 202). The free people of colour in Saint-Marc were no longer, then, as far away from the stage and other spectators as possible, but at the back of the stalls, close to the raised amphithéâtre. These would probably have been the seats that afforded the least good view of the performance, especially if the parterre area was not raked. According to Moreau de Saint-Méry, seats in the first loges in Saint-Marc cost two gourdes, while those in the second loges and in the parterre cost just one gourde. He does not give a price for seats in the amphitheatre but does note that the military benefitted from half-price tickets and had no special place in the playhouse. Further south in the Western Province of Saint-Domingue, in the town of Léogane, following various theatrical endeavours in the town, a new theatre was set up in 1786 by a free man of colour from Cul-de-Sac called Jean-Louis Labbé, who was of mixed racial ancestry. According to Taber, Labbé was specifically labelled a mulâtre in the notarial documents (which are generally more specific when describing people of mixed European and African descent) in which he features; moreover, he had been born into slavery but was freed in 1771 (Taber 2015, 184). Taber notes that Labbé was the buyer or seller in 22 sales contracts in Léogane between 1778 and 1788. He also entered into a financially substantial business partnership with a retired white planter in June 1784. Labbé led the coloured militia that was responsible, alongside a brigadier and three men from the maréchaussée (the police force charged with pursuing enslaved fugitives) for security in his playhouse. Moreau de Saint-Méry’s description is of a somewhat unusual set-up featuring improvised boxes in the balcony—‘on a pratiqué un balcon qui forme les loges’ (they have created a balcony that makes up the boxes)—and ten benches on each side in the parterre (the rest of which was given over to standing room in a rare example of a standing space in the pit area in Saint-Domingue) (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 461). This more makeshift arrangement was owing mostly to the fact that the theatre was constructed in an ordinary house. But another social factor also seems to have been at play. As in Saint-Marc, the amphitheatre in Léogane is reported to have seated around 70 people, but here (unlike in Saint-Marc) it was for the people of colour. Given that the capacity of the theatre was around 400, these 70 seats represent ­approximately 17.5% of the audience capacity—a proportion that, as will be seen, was slightly higher than in Port-au-Prince and very significantly

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higher than in Le Cap. It is probably no coincidence that, in a theatre run by a man of colour, the free coloured community were granted better seats—and more of them—than elsewhere in the colony. According to the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française (1762) the amphitheatre is a place ‘d’où les Spectateurs voient le spectacle plus commodément’ (from which the spectators see the performance more easily). Given the improvised nature of the boxes (seats in the first tier of boxes were usually considered the best in the playhouse) and the fact that the benches in the parterre seem to have faced inwards, it appears that the free people of colour in Léogane had some of the best seats in the house, at least from a viewing perspective. The fact that all seats in the playhouse cost the same amount (one gourde) may also hint at a more egalitarian approach to theatre in Léogane in comparison with other towns in Saint-­Domingue.8 On the other hand, the project appears to have been unsustainable as an advertisement in the local press in 1788 indicates that ‘le nommé Labbé’ (the so-called Labbé), who here describes himself as a merchant and former director of the theatre in Léogane, was selling his sets, scores and costumes (AA 5 June 1788, 274). We do not know why Labbé abandoned his project or if his status as a former slave had anything to do with that decision. One thing is, however, clear: an important factor in Labbé’s social ascent related to his willingness to engage with the enslavement of others, both as an owner and also as a trader. In 1787, for instance, Labbé purchased ten enslaved people with a view to renting them out, having previously rented enslaved people from others (Taber 2015, 185–86). One further detail deserves comment: although, as was the case everywhere except Le Cap, Léogane did not distinguish between lighter- and darker-skinned audience members among the free people of colour, it has been noted that they sat ‘de manière que les femmes soient sur le devant’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798 II, 461) (in such a way as to have the women in front). This informal segregation by biological sex within the free coloured spectatorship hints at the fact that audience members—and particularly female audience members—were also on show at the theatre. Contemporary accounts, most of them written by white men, treated white female spectators with more reserve than female spectators of colour. Accounts of free women of colour, described as priestesses of Venus, wearing their ‘élégant déshabillé’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 365) 8  This is where Minette’s half-sister, Lise, performed under Labbé’s auspices (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 462).

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(elegant negligee) along with luxurious accessories to attend the theatre should be treated with circumspection in the context of the heterosexual white male fantasy of the alluring and dangerously sexual woman of mixed racial ancestry.9 Moreau de Saint-Méry comments, hyperbolically, that ‘l’être entier d’une Mulâtresse est livré à la volupté’ (Moreau de Saint-­ Méry 1797–1798, I, 92) (the whole being of a mulâtresse is given over to voluptuousness). We should be cautious because Moreau de Saint-Méry and others make generalized assumptions about the motivations of women whom they sexualize with prurient glee.10 The free coloured women in Léogane probably did sit at the front of the amphitheatre, and this may well have been in order that they could be seen and admired by desiring (heterosexual male) eyes. But it may also have been for other reasons, such as a wish to enable female spectators, who were generally shorter than their male counterparts, to see the performance more easily.11 In the larger theatre of the larger town in Port-au-Prince, the free people of colour did not sit at the back of the parterre (as in Saint-Marc) or in the amphitheatre (as in Léogane). Rather, they sat in the 15 upper (i.e. secondlevel) loges that were furthest away from the stage—seven on each side and one at the back. We are fortunate to have a set of detailed drawings of the playhouse, which are included in a document featuring a number of properties owned by François Mesplès, who had built the playhouse in 1777. Mesplès subsequently divided up his property on the Place Vallière, which included the playhouse and 16 adjoining properties, between himself and his business associate, Lasserre (or Lasserve) Delafon. An agreement was reached by their respective lawyers on 30 October 1781 and 27 January 1782, which was formalized by the notaries Guieu and Grandpré (Roussier 1948, 177).12 A document written by Mesplès and reproduced almost in its  For more on this fantasy, see Garraway (2005).  Some women of colour who went to the theatre, especially in Le Cap, were no doubt sex workers, but we should not assume that the majority were. Women of colour had many different occupations (Rogers and King 2012). 11  We do not have details about segregation in the other towns in Saint-Domingue that sometimes featured theatrical performances. We know from an advertisement addressed to the local (male) planters that a playhouse was built in Jacmel in 1785 by a joiner called Galois (AA 20 August 1785, 363), while Moreau de Saint-Méry’s account of public theatre in Les Cayes only mentions special pricing, not seating (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 700). Fouchard notes that in 1787 the town of Jérémie had both a Vauxhall and a playhouse (Fouchard 1988e, 97). 12  Mesplès was granted the eight properties on the west side of the plot, while Lasserre was granted the eight properties on the east side. The playhouse remained in joint ownership, although the rent was to be paid to them separately. 9

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entirety by Fouchard indicates that a set of drawings was to be passed on to the French general and former governor of Saint-Domingue, Charles-Henri d’Estaing in 1783 (Fouchard 1988e, 59). These must be the drawings in question, which are now lodged in Aix-en-Provence. The boxes for the free people of colour are marked N in Fig. 2.1. The six upper loges nearer the stage (three on each side), which were not designated explicitly for the free people of colour, had lattices that could be closed to hide the identity of the spectators, and these were accessible via a separate staircase from the stage. They will have been occupied by people who did not wish to be on view at the playhouse, including white women, people in mourning and perhaps also family or social groups that crossed racial divides. But everyone accessed the playhouse in Port-­ au-­Prince initially through a courtyard with a fairly narrow entrance leading to another narrow entrance, as seen on the footprint in Fig. 2.2. Many in the audience used the same two staircases to access the boxes, with the free people of colour continuing up another flight of stairs to reach the second level, as can be seen in Fig. 2.3. This led to social and racial mixing that was a source of consternation for (some) white members of the audience, and the issue featured quite prominently in discussions about the need for a new playhouse in the town. An article published in 1786 recommended that in the new theatre (which was never built) ‘les Gens de Couleur pussent entrer & sortir sans se mêler avec les Blancs’ (AA 6 May 1786, 236) (the people of colour be able to enter and leave without mixing with the whites). Moreau de Saint-Méry reports that the first loges usually seated three people in front and four behind and that the trellised loges in the second level were designed to accommodate groups of four, six and eight people (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 326–27). According to the drawings featured in Fig. 2.1, the boxes for the free people of colour appear slightly less commodious than those beneath them, although they may still have contained an average of seven people each. If so, we may understand the theatre in Port-au-Prince to have had seating for approximately 105 free people of colour, which would represent 14% of its estimated capacity of 750 spectators. Writing about his experiences of the playhouse in Port-au-Prince in the 1780s, the visitor to Saint-Domingue, Alfred de Laujon, provided the following account of his impression of the seating arrangements there:

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Fig. 2.1  Detail from drawings featuring Port-au-Prince playhouse (1782 and 1783), showing seating plan of auditorium and elevation-perspective of stage. (Archives nationales d’outre-mer (France), FR ANOM F3 296 E75)

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Fig. 2.2  Detail from drawings featuring Port-au-Prince playhouse (1782 and 1783), showing site plan with entrance on the right. (Archives nationales d’outre-­ mer (France), FR ANOM F3 296 E75)

Fig. 2.3  Detail from drawings featuring Port-au-Prince playhouse (1782 and 1783), showing long section with staircases. (Archives nationales d’outre-mer (France), FR ANOM F3 296 E75) Une chose devait étonnement me frapper à mon entrée dans la salle. Il y avait quatre rangs de loges: les premières et les secondes étaient pour la société blanche, et les autres pour les personnes du pays, mulâtres ou noirs. Or, ces couleurs foncées, directement au-dessus de toutes les figures blanches, formaient un contraste auquel nos yeux ne s’accoutumaient pas.

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J’éprouvai[s] de plus un sentiment pénible; je n’étais pas né dans un pays où les figures devaient se distinguer, où l’humiliation et la honte devaient rester empreintes sur le berceau de certains hommes. (Laujon 1835, I, 166) Something really struck me when I entered the theatre. There were four rows of boxes: the first and second were for the white population, and the others were for local people, mixed race or black. Now these dark colours, directly above all the white faces created a contrast to which our eyes did not become accustomed. Moreover, I felt uncomfortable. I was not born in a country where faces were supposed to look differentiated, where humiliation and shame were supposed to remain imprinted on the cradle of certain men.

Laujon’s account of there being four levels of boxes appears simply to be a mistake, although we may count three levels if we include the two trellised ground-floor boxes (or loges baignoires) and, at a push, four if the raised amphitheatre is also counted. Two aspects of his description are of interest: first, the visual impression of a clear distinction between the white audience in the lower boxes and the darker-skinned audience in the upper boxes, and second, his personal discomfort at witnessing segregation on the basis of skin colour.13 The seating policies in Le Cap were somewhat more complex with regard to segregation by racial ancestry and, possibly, biological sex. They are also quite challenging to unpick. Regular formal public theatre seems to have begun in Le Cap in 1764, when performances took place in a large house on the corner of Vaudreuil and Saint-Pierre streets. These performances must have enjoyed some success as in April 1766, a large bespoke playhouse, built by a contractor called Jean Renaud (or Renault), was inaugurated and remained in use until it was destroyed during the 13  Interestingly, an eyewitness account from a visitor to the theatre in Saint-Pierre, Martinique in 1787, Paul Isert, commented on his impression of audience segregation by skin colour/racial ancestry in terms that are rather different from Laujon’s. Isert notes that the fourth row of boxes (it is unclear whether he has miscounted the rows, included the ground floor in his numbering or included the amphitheatre) is where ‘sont rélugés tous ceux qui ne peuvent pas prouver leur descendance de Parens Européen’ (Isert 1793, 340) (are relegated those who cannot prove that they descend from European ancestry) and notes that in this section there are people who have whiter skin than people, like him, from Northern Europe. We note that Isert couches the issue in terms of a burden of proof of ancestry rather than on that ancestry per se; we also note that, in marked contrast with Laujon, he is struck not by the contrast in skin tones in different parts of the playhouse, but rather by the presence of pale-skinned people in the area that is designated for people of colour.

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Revolution. As regards the admission of free people of colour to the playhouse in Le Cap, Moreau de Saint-Méry notes: ‘Ce n’est que depuis le mois de Juin 1775, que les négresses libres ont obtenu l’entrée du spectacle, où l’on avait admis, depuis 1766, les nuances supérieures des deux sexes, au fond du passage de l’amphithéâtre’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 365) (It is only since June 1775 that free négresses have been admitted to the playhouse, where since 1766 the superior nuances of both sexes had been admitted, at the back of the amphitheatre corridor). From this, we learn that, from 1766, paler-skinned (free) people of colour of both sexes were admitted to the playhouse, although, as Clay acknowledges, it is possible that these people were integrated into the ‘white’ audience prior to this date and that this change, coinciding with the opening of a new playhouse in Le Cap, signals not so much a change in the composition of the theatre audience but rather a change in how its members were categorized (Clay 2013, 306n14). We know that the category of ‘white’ was always fluid, but also that it was broader in scope in the early eighteenth century before a hardening of attitudes towards the expanding group of free people of colour brought with it a narrower interpretation of the term.14 Whatever the precise nature of this change, it was undoubtedly aimed also at enlarging the theatre audience now that public theatre was being performed in a large building. It is also clear that not all free people or women of colour were permitted to attend the playhouse at this point. It was not until 1775—uncoincidentally at a time of financial crisis—that négresses libres (i.e. darker-skinned free women) were also admitted and the number of weekly subscription performances was expanded from two (on Sundays and Thursdays) to three (adding Tuesdays).15 Moreau de Saint-Méry’s syntax and punctuation in the quotation above allow for some ambiguity with regard to seating arrangements as it is not absolutely clear if it was the paler-skinned audience members who were placed at the back of the amphitheatre corridor from 1766 or the négresses who were admitted in 1775. An article in the local press, possibly also written by Moreau de Saint-Méry, reporting on the opening of the new playhouse in Le Cap in April 1766 notes in its very last line that ‘L’Arriere Amphithéâtre ne sera uniquement que pour les Mulâtres et Mulâtresses’ (AA 23 April 1766, 146) (the back of the

 For more on this, see Garrigus (1996b).  Additional benefit performances were usually given on Saturdays.

14 15

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amphitheatre is reserved for mulâtres and mulâtresses).16 The question, then, is whether or not the ‘Arriere Amphithéâtre’ is the same as Moreau de Saint-Méry’s ‘au fond du passage de l’amphithéâtre’. The wording of the first designation suggests the back portion of a recognized seating area, whereas the wording of the second suggests something less formal and more improvisatory—and somewhere without seats. Furthermore, Moreau de Saint-Méry goes on to note that black mothers wanted to sit in the playhouse with their mixed-race daughters, but that the latter threatened to boycott the theatre altogether if they were obliged to sit with darker-skinned women—a not inconsequential threat given their number and the role they may have played, wittingly and unwittingly, in enticing white men into the audience.17 We do know that the two groups of women of colour were subsequently allocated separate boxes (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 365). This would suggest, then, that the women identified as négresses never sat formally with the women identified as mulâtresses in Le Cap and that, upon their admission in June 1775, it was the négresses libres who were accommodated at the back of the corridor leading to the amphitheatre and that paler-skinned men and women sat in front of them, as before, at the back of the amphitheatre itself. Moreau de Saint-Méry’s description of spectators placed ‘au fond du passage de l’amphithéâtre’ seems to indicate that the admittance of négresses libres did not signal a change in the playhouse’s layout, but rather that this new group of spectators was permitted to stand in a corridor whose prime purpose was to allow access to the formal seating area in the amphitheatre.18 In the absence of architectural drawings for the playhouse in Le Cap, it is impossible to be sure of its precise layout, but it is likely that the view of the stage from this makeshift area, which will have afforded standing room only, will have been quite poor owing to its distance from the stage and the restricted nature of a space that was never intended to accommodate spectators. In the case of the négresses libres who attended the theatre in Le  A manuscript version of this article is in ANOM F3 160.  An audience boycott took place in Le Cap in 1785 in response to what was seen as the heavy-handed policing of the theatre. According to Moreau de Saint-Méry, it lasted for several weeks, with the women in the audience refusing to return for an additional two weeks (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 369). 18  Moreau de Saint-Méry writes of the back third of the theatre’s footprint being given over to ‘l’amphithéâtre et ses dégagemens’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 360) (the amphitheatre and its access). 16 17

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Cap between June 1775 and the renovations of April 1784 outlined below, we might speak of ‘mitigated spectatorship’ owing to the poor visibility and auditory access they were granted, but above all to the fact that their standing area was in a space intended to permit the circulation of ‘official’ spectators as they moved towards designated seating areas. On the other hand, it seems clear that the négresses paid for their tickets as the decision to admit them was taken precisely at a time when the playhouse was in serious financial difficulty. This was primarily a financial choice rather than a social one. We must also ask on what basis individuals were designated as paler-­ skinned mulâtres[ses] or darker-skinned négres[ses] in the context of seating arrangements at the playhouse in Le Cap. Was the decision made on an ad hoc basis by the security personnel each day, with the result that some of the same women whose skin tone was considered somewhere between light and dark might end up in different areas on different days? Or were individuals required to demonstrate (or claim) some white ancestry? Perhaps women of middling skin tone who were known to be living locally with white men were admitted by association? We know that all these different factors (skin tone, ancestry and social connections or kin) were at play in perceptions of ‘race’ in the colony more generally, but we do not know exactly how these distinctions were made in relation to racial segregation in the playhouse or how they might have changed over time. A third row of 21 boxes was added to the playhouse in Le Cap in April 1784, along with a separate staircase by which to access it and some external balconies, one of which is visible on the right-hand side of Fig. 2.4.19 At this point, the négresses libres achieved a fuller form of spectatorship. Of the 21 additional boxes, seven of the ten that were furthest away from the stage were for ‘les mulâtresses’ and three for ‘les négresses’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 361). It would seem that, from April 1784, both groups were now seated in the same general area of the playhouse but, in theory at least, in separate boxes. Moreau de Saint-Méry famously observed that ‘quand une négresse et sa fille mulâtresse viennent à la comédie, elles se séparent; l’ébène est pour la gauche, le cuivre pour la droite’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 365) (when a négresse and her mulâtresse daughter come to the playhouse, they separate: ebony goes left and copper goes right). Although we know that the playhouse had staircases 19  See AA 28 April 1784, 275. Some pillars that obstructed the view from the boxes were also removed.

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Fig. 2.4  Watercolour by Chevalier de Largues, Vue perspective de la place Montarcher (Cap-Français), showing the playhouse on the right. (Courtesy of William Reese Company, New Haven, Connecticut)

on the left- and right-hand sides leading to the loges, Moreau de Saint-­ Méry notes the presence of ‘un escalier séparé, par lequel les gens de couleur se rendent à leur loges’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 362) (a separate staircase by which the free people of colour access their boxes). The 1784 theatre prospectus writes of the two main sections of the third-level boxes—those for the free people of colour—having a shared staircase but being ‘séparées l’une et l’autre par une cloison’ (ANOM F3 160) (separated from each other by a partition).20 More significant, perhaps, is the alleged separation of family groups. If a white father, only a small number of whom publicly recognized their mixed-race offspring, were also in attendance in the playhouse, he would of course have sat in a third location. Or might the group have all sat together out of sight in the trellised 20  It also indicates that another portion of the third-level boxes, with its own staircase, will be given over to military personnel.

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boxes? Certainly those boxes would have granted an extra level of privacy to mixed-race families who did not wish to be scrutinized during the performance. Each of the boxes could seat six people comfortably or eight less comfortably. With eight people in each box, this would give a maximum of 80 people of colour, which represents only 5.3% of the theatre’s full capacity of 1500 spectators. Why was the colony’s most vibrant city the one to admit the smallest number of free people of colour to its playhouse and the only one to separate free people of colour by skin tone? Although Le Cap was more cosmopolitan than other towns in Saint-Domingue in some respects, it was also more European—and therefore more racially prejudiced—in its outlook. And where are the pale-skinned male spectators who, according to Moreau de Saint-Méry, were a long-term feature of the audience in Le Cap? We know that free women of colour outnumbered free men of colour, particularly in the colony’s main towns (Socolow 1996, 281; Rogers 2003, 40), and this, combined with Moreau de Saint-­ Méry’s sexual fantasies, may be one explanation for the near-absence of the latter from his account. Were any men of colour, in fact, incorporated into the ten boxes that Moreau de Saint-Méry suggests were for women of colour only, or did they sit in some of the remaining upper boxes? Of the remaining 11 third-level loges, some were trellised and rented out on a yearly basis by special arrangement with the director (Moreau de Saint-­ Méry 1797–1798, I, 362). But to whom were they rented out? As Camier notes, the theatre prospectus for 1784 originally featured a line indicating that people of colour could rent individual boxes on a yearly (or daily) basis; however, it has been crossed out, and a handwritten note indicates ‘défendu sous aucun prétexte au directeur vu les chicanes que ces loges occasionnèrent’ (ANOM F3 160 fol. 15; Camier 2004, 290) (director not allowed under any circumstances given the squabbles that these boxes have caused). This leaves the question of whether free black men were ever formally admitted to the playhouse in Le Cap open. Their (apparent) continued exclusion from a space that brought people together is perhaps easier to comprehend in a colony that was constantly haunted by the spectre of a slave revolt as well as that of upward social mobility: free black men, like free black women, were likely to have close ties to the enslaved population; unlike free black women (whose mutinous urges were underestimated by the colonial authorities), their capacity for revolt was widely acknowledged, albeit sometimes only in tacit or implied terms. Although the

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question of social mobility appears frequently in contemporary writings, I have found nothing explicitly linking fears of revolt with the theatre in the pre-­revolutionary period. We should not assume that any rules or guidelines were followed to the letter or, even if they were, that this did not lead to mixing between groups in, near and en route to the playhouse. Theatre-goers could arrive in mixed groups, mix and mingle outside the playhouse and would sometimes encounter each other as they moved around the building. Specifically, they will have rubbed shoulders in the theatre cafés in Port-au-Prince and Le Cap, and in cafés near those (and other) playhouses.21 Even when segregated seating was practised, communication between groups was possible, as the following anecdote from Moreau de Saint-Méry confirms. He writes about the amphitheatre in Le Cap as: [un] asile des jeunes gens de la ville et de la garnison, à cause des filles de couleur, dont les loges sont au-dessus, la conversation est quelquefois établie de bas en haut et de haut en bas, et elle est d’un genre qui pourrait offenser des oreilles, même difficiles à blesser. (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 364–65) A haven for the young people of the town and the garrison because of the girls of colour whose boxes are above them. Sometimes conversations take place from downstairs upwards and from upstairs downwards and they are of a kind that could offend the ears, even those that are difficult to shock.

Although, many questions remain, three things are clear from the sources examined so far: first, that free people of colour were formally admitted to special seats in all the main playhouses of Saint-Domingue; second, that in Le Cap one group was accommodated on an ad hoc basis in an area of the playhouse not identified as being for spectators (leading to what I have called ‘mitigated spectatorship’); and third, that the presence or otherwise of the enslaved population in the playhouse is not addressed in advertisements for theatre tickets in colonial newspapers (from which the free coloured audience is also missing), in theatre documents or in Moreau de Saint-Méry’s accounts (in which the free coloured

21  For more details on these, including a café run by a free black man from France called Yoyo, see Fouchard (1988e, 161n1).

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audience does feature).22 This invisibility in the sources invites further interrogation, and it is to enslaved people whom we now turn.

The Enslaved Audience The lack of evidence regarding the enslaved population is not, at one level, surprising for the reasons outlined in the Introduction to this book. It is, however, noteworthy when one considers a detail about the theatre built in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, in 1786–1787 that is not mentioned in the newspaper announcements in Saint-Domingue (SAA 21 January 1786, 35), but which does feature in a manuscript document written by Moreau de Saint-Méry. The third row of seating in the new playhouse in Saint-­ Pierre was divided in two: on the right-hand side looking at the stage was a section for the free people of colour divided into separate boxes; on the left-hand side was a communal area for the slaves (ANOM F3 133, fol.14).23 The term used here is unambiguous: esclaves. Interestingly, Moreau de Saint-Méry’s document notes that ‘Aux Iles du Vent les mulatres libres restent mêlés aux negres. Cependant les gens de couleur de Saint-Pierre vouloient que les negres fussent mis à part au spectacle’ (in the Windward islands free mulâtres continue to mix with nègres. However the people of colour of Saint-Pierre wanted the nègres to be apart at the theatre). The comment confirms that practices relating to social mixing diverged even between the ‘French’ islands of the Greater and Lesser Antilles. Indeed, Moreau de Saint-Méry notes that the social mixing more typical of the Lesser Antilles extended into the playhouse in Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe: ‘On y paye une gourde partout excepté au paradis où se mettent pêle-mêle les gens de couleur libres ou esclaves qui ne payent qu’une demi-gourde’ (ANOM F3 133, fol. 68) (You pay one gourde everywhere except in the gods where the free and enslaved people of colour, who only pay a half-gourde, are all mixed up). One reason for this divergence lay in the islands’ varying demographics: in Saint-Domingue, the proportion of free people of colour was much higher than in Martinique and Guadeloupe 22  The only reference I have found to tickets for ‘nègres’ to any type of entertainment in Saint-Domingue is for a horse-riding display in Fort-Dauphin in 1775, about which we read ‘Les billets seront d’une piastre gourde pour les Blancs, une demi-gourde pour les Mulâtres, & deux escalins pour les Nègres’ (SAA 14 October 1775, 490) (the tickets will be a piastre gourde for the white people, a half-gourde for the mulâtres and two escalins for the nègres). 23  My thanks to Bernard Camier for sending me a copy of the original manuscript, ‘Sur le théâtre de Saint-Pierre’.

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and was thus perceived as a greater threat to the dominance and authority of the white population; in turn, the free people of colour in Saint-­ Domingue went to greater lengths to establish social—and physical—distance between their own group and the enslaved population. We do not know if enslaved theatre-goers in the Lesser Antilles purchased tickets, attended the playhouse independently of their ‘masters’ or only in their presence, but Maurice Nicolas has noted that the enslaved population were ‘parmi les plus assidus au spectacle’ (Nicolas 1974, 12) (among the most assiduous attendees at the theatre) in Saint-Pierre. Although the situation in Saint-Domingue was undoubtedly different from that in Saint-Pierre, the absence of a designated seating or standing area for enslaved people does not necessarily equate to an absence from the space of the playhouse, particularly in the case of the enslaved domestic servants who we know often accompanied their masters on all sorts of business while seldom leaving a paper trail in contemporary sources. In his monograph on colonial-era Jamaican theatre, Errol Hill has noted that, in England and America it was ‘the custom for gentlemen and ladies attending the theatre to send their servants ahead of them to secure their seats until they arrived just before the play began’ (Hill 1992, 37). As Hill suggests, it is likely that this practice was also widespread in the colonial Caribbean and that enslaved domestics were sometimes granted entry to the playhouse before (and without) their ‘masters’. We know that this happened in colonial Charleston (where many people would flee from Saint-Domingue in the 1790s) in the pre-revolutionary era thanks to the following announcement published in the local newspaper, the Columbia Herald and Patriotic Courier, on 14 April 1785: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen will please to send their servants to keep places as soon as the doors are opened, with positive orders not to quit the box for which they hold tickets on any account’ (Dillon 2014, 47).24 Although the enslaved domestic servants are enjoined not to leave the box at least until their master arrived, it is unclear what happened after that. Hill notes that ‘house slaves would surrender the seats they had been holding and would repair to the gallery if they were permitted to watch the play’. He also speculates about coachmen and attendants transferring to the gallery to be ‘on hand at the end of the performance to drive the gentry home’ (Hill 1992, 37–38). This use of the gallery by domestic 24  Attitudes towards the presence of domestic servants would change following the events of the Haitian Revolution, as discussed briefly in the Conclusion to this book.

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servants—a practice also adopted in the United States—is partly a continuation of the English tradition. However, domestics and liveried servants (notably lackeys) were, in theory at least, prohibited from entering the playhouses of France on the grounds of ‘l’ordre, la décence et la tranquillité’ (Peuchet 1818, 357–58) (order, decency and calm).25 Police and other records confirm that servants did find their way into French playhouses, either at the behest of their masters or, sometimes, as an expression of personal agency. Some mayors and royal governors, for instance, occasionally brought their household staff to the playhouse, and we know of at least one person in Rouen who complained about finding himself sitting in a good seat in close proximity to such domestics. The fact that this person complained about the domestics’ ‘bizarre reflections’ confirms that the experience of the same work provoked different responses among people from different social backgrounds (Clay 2013, 167). Ravel mentions the case of a lackey called Dufresne, who accompanied his mistress to the theatre before changing into some ‘bourgeois’ clothing that he had hidden in her carriage in order to watch the play himself—one imagines from a less conspicuous area in the playhouse such as an upper balcony (Ravel 1999, 18). With particular reference to the playhouse in Bordeaux, it has been noted that while lackeys and coachmen generally waited for their masters outside the playhouse, ‘les domestiques des comédiens … se glissaient dans la salle malgré les défenses’ (Lagrave et al. 1985, 275) (the actors’ domestics slipped into the playhouse despite the prohibitions). In the context of the colonial Caribbean, where masters were customarily accompanied by their domestics when they left their home, it is likely that a domestic servant sent ahead to reserve a seat—or possibly another domestic servant who arrived with his ‘master’—will have been required to attend his (or, sometimes, her) ‘master’ during the performance itself. This would be impossible if they were outside the building and difficult if they were watching the performance in a separate space within the playhouse. Rather than repairing to the gallery (or, in Saint-Domingue, to the upper boxes, the back of the parterre or, in Léogane, the amphitheatre), enslaved domestic servants will probably have waited near to their ‘masters’ in the various corridors leading to wherever the latter were seated—a possibility that is explored in more detail below. 25  The ‘Ordonnance du roi, concernant les spectacles, et notamment l’Opéra-Comique’ from 14 January 1759 is essentially the reiteration of an earlier ordonnance from 17 June 1743.

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First, we shall examine the fleeting moments when contemporary eyewitnesses in Saint-Domingue comment on the presence or absence of enslaved people in the local playhouses. The one person who clearly states that enslaved people were not only present in the playhouse but also part of the official audience there is the jurist, Hilliard d’Auberteuil (1751–1789), whose controversial two-volume Considérations sur l’état présent de la colonie française de Saint-Domingue was published in Paris in 1776–1777. The work arrived in Saint-Domingue in summer 1777. Hilliard d’Auberteuil was born in France but relocated to Saint-Domingue in 1765, where he spent ten years working as a legal clerk, before returning to Paris. He came back to live in Saint-Domingue in 1786 or 1787 and died there in 1789 (Ogle 2003, 40). Hilliard d’Auberteuil’s book is concerned primarily with the legal relationship between metropolitan France and Saint-Domingue, and the regulation of political and social matters within the colony. With regard to the latter, he was profoundly troubled by the lack of clear distinctions and boundaries between white people, free people of colour and the enslaved population: among the solutions he proposed was ‘a massive project of racial engineering’ that would supposedly ensure in time that each individual’s status were easily legible on her or his body (Ogle 2003, 43). But he also commented on other things, including the public theatre in Le Cap, which he had the opportunity to experience first-hand on many occasions. Critical of the fact that the theatre in Le Cap was run by a group of shareholders, Hilliard d’Auberteuil (who was also critical of the large military presence among the audience) made the following observations about the audience there: En 1775, ils se sont avisés non-seulement d’engager les Mulâtres à fréquenter leur théatre, mais encore d’y inviter les Negres & Négresses libres ou esclaves: en vain leur a-t-on représenté que si c’est un privilege pour les affranchis que de jouir des spectacles faits pour les Blancs, il fallait le restreindre au lieu de l’étendre, & ne pas le communiquer à des esclaves: qu’il était plus raisonnable de laisser ce privilege aux Mulâtres & Mulâtresses que de le leur faire partager avec les Negres & Négresses, parce que les Mulâtres sont en plus petit nombre,26 plus attachés aux Blancs plus riches & mieux élevés; 26  Fouchard argues that there were more free black people in Saint-Domingue than is usually assumed and understands Hilliard d’Auberteuil to be referring here to the proportions of different groups in the playhouse (Fouchard 1988b, 261n). If we take into account the presence of enslaved domestics, discussed below, this becomes even more credible.

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que l’innovation qu’ils osaient entreprendre pouvait indépendamment du ridicule & du scandale entraîner à de fâcheux inconvéniens, ils n’ont voulu rien entendre. (Hilliard d’Auberteuil 1776–1777, II, 111) In 1775 [the theatre management] decided not only to encourage mulâtres to go to their theatre but also to invite nègres and négresses, free and enslaved. In vain it was explained to them that if it is a privilege for the free people of colour to enjoy performances created for white people, this needed to be restricted and not extended, and not granted to slaves; that it was more reasonable to leave this privilege to the mulâtres and mulâtresses than to make them share it with the nègres and négresses, because the mulâtres are fewer in number, more attached to the richest and most well-bred whites, that the innovation that they dared make could, independently of any ridicule and scandal, bring about regrettable misfortunes—but they would not hear any of it.

Hilliard d’Auberteuil cites the shift in policy in 1775 discussed above, whereby darker-skinned free people were now permitted to go to the theatre in Le Cap. Unlike Moreau de Saint-Méry, who only mentions free black women in relation to this policy, Hilliard d’Auberteuil suggests that it included free black men and members of the enslaved population as well. Whom should we believe? Moreau de Saint-Méry wrote his Description in 1797 having relocated to Philadelphia and was writing over two decades after the events in question. While Hilliard d’Auberteuil might be understood to be more accurate in his account since it was written more contemporaneously, Moreau de Saint-Méry claims to have been directly involved in those events by acting as an intermediary on behalf of the négresses libres (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 365). Hilliard d’Auberteuil’s ‘ou esclaves’ (or slaves) in the first sentence cited above could be understood as a throwaway, hyperbolic afterthought were it not for the fact that he then elaborates on the matter in terms of freed status (‘affranchis’) as opposed to enslaved status (‘des esclaves’). He then confuses the matter somewhat by returning to the opposition between Mulâtres(ses) and Negre(sse)s which, as we know, did not correlate as neatly with free and enslaved status as Hilliard d’Auberteuil and others would have liked. Interestingly, when he elaborates in a footnote on the ‘fâcheux inconvéniens’ that allowing black and/or enslaved people into the theatre audience will provoke, he does not—as one might expect—write about the possibility of revolts; rather he comments about the anticipated effects of free black people having inappropriate social aspirations, suggesting that they would have to resort to stealing in order to support the additional costs of dressing up to go to the theatre (Hilliard d’Auberteuil

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1776–1777, II, 111n).27 In the same paragraph, Hilliard d’Auberteuil thus equates blackness with enslavement, while also acknowledging that blackness can also signify freedom. In 1780, the French playwright and historian of the Americas, Pierre Ulric Dubuisson (1746–1794), responded to Hilliard d’Auberteuil’s publication in his Nouvelles considérations sur Saint-Domingue, en réponse à celles de M.H.D. par M.D.B. We have records of at least one of Dubuisson’s works being performed in the colony: the tragedy, Nadir ou Thamas-­ Kouli-­Kan, given in Le Cap on 14 February 1782. Another work, a drame, entitled L’ École des pères ou les effets de la prévention, performed in Le Cap on 21 March 1778, was also by Dubuisson. The announcement says it is by ‘Mr D.B.N. actuellement dans cette colonie’ (SAA 14 March 1778, 80–2 [sic]). According to Moreau de Saint-Méry, Dubuisson’s drame, L’ École des pères, was a flop and, in an open letter to the editor of the local newspaper, the playwright complained of ‘une charmante petite Cabale’ (a charming little cabal) having been set up in the playhouse to ensure the failure of his work by making so much noise that it became inaudible (AA 21 March 1778, 88–5 [sic]).28 Dubuisson, whom Moreau de Saint-Méry also identifies as the author of a successful five-act tragedy called Mirza, wrote his response while in Le Cap. On the matter of the admission of enslaved people to the playhouses of Saint-Domingue, Dubuisson seems clear: Les Esclaves de quelque couleur qu’ils soient ne sont soufferts à aucun Spectacle, ni au Cap, ni ailleurs; les gens d[e] couleur libres sont à cet égard des soutiens vigilans de la loi, ils ne souffrent jamais patiemment que quelqu’un de leur espèce, dont la liberté n’est pas reconnue, s’y glisse parmi eux: c’est un privilege dont ils sont jaloux, & qu’ils éxercent dans toute son etendue. (Dubuisson 1780, 85) No slaves of any colour are accepted at any performance, in Le Cap or elsewhere. On this matter, the free people of colour are vigilant enforcers of the law—they never patiently endure someone of their kind, whose freedom is not recognized, slipping in among them. It is a jealously-guarded privilege, and one that they enforce to the fullest extent.

27  Similar concerns were expressed in the 1780s in relation to the newly rebuilt playhouse in Saint-Pierre, Martinique—see Clay (2013, 219). 28  Oddly, the letter is dated 22 March.

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Moreau de Saint-Méry’s account of how the lighter-skinned free women of colour did not wish to sit with darker-skinned free women supports Dubuisson’s argument about the free people of colour—many of whom were themselves ‘slave-owning’—jealously guarding their privileges. His suggestion that they would not allow enslaved people—or rather, people who looked like them but whose freedom was not formally recognized— to be present among the theatre audience is highly plausible and serves as another reminder about the grey area that existed between those whose freedom was recognized and those whose freedom was not recognized. In a society as conscious of racial ancestry, the value of freedom and the formal recognition of that freedom as that of Saint-Domingue, it is indeed inconceivable that free people of colour would have wished to sit alongside enslaved people—or people whose freedom was questionable—as fellow audience members. If a person of colour who claimed—but could not prove—their status as free sat with others who looked like her or him, the concern was that this would call into question or ‘contaminate’ the freedom of others. But Dubuisson’s account also hints at how difficult this might have been to regulate. The suggestion is that some enslaved people may have tried to join the free people of colour in the theatre audience. Although it was probably relatively easy for the officials in charge of policing the theatre to eject people from the playhouse whose enslaved status was known, problems may have arisen when it could not be established either way. As evidenced in many contemporary sources, including runaway advertisements, enslaved people would sometimes claim to be free (‘se disant libre’) or successfully pass as such. Indeed, the very existence in contemporary documents of the terms and concepts ‘libre de fait’ (de facto freed), ‘libre de savane’ (unofficially free) and ‘réputés Affranchis sans l’être’ (reputed free without being so), designating unofficial forms of freedom that were not supported by formal documentation, confirms that the enslaved/free dichotomy was not as clear-cut as the colonialists—and especially Hilliard d’Auberteuil—would have liked. In some instances the people in question will legally have been free—and not just passing as such—but unable to prove this fact owing to a lack of documentation. Some of these people will have attended the playhouse as free people of colour. Dubuisson also goes on to contest Hilliard d’Auberteuil’s claim that there are fewer Mulâtres(se)s than Negre(sse)s present among the theatre audience in Le Cap. Interestingly, Dubuisson’s example, unlike Hilliard d’Auberteuil’s, is couched uniquely in feminine terms: ‘il y a constamment

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au Spectacle vingt Mulâtresses pour quatre Négresses’ (Dubuisson 1780, II, 86) (there are always 20 mulâtresses at the theatre for every four négresses).29 It is possible that Dubuisson is privileging the female audience as part of his heterosexual colonial fantasy and/or because fewer men of colour attended the theatre in any case. But it is also possible that he is indicating, without explicitly stating, that the darker-skinned audience members were in fact all female, as suggested by Moreau de Saint-Méry. How do we make sense of two contemporary eyewitness accounts making opposing claims about the presence of enslaved people among the theatre audience in Le Cap in the 1770s? Dubuisson’s contribution is couched as a rebuttal of a recent, erroneous account and therefore claims to be more accurate than Hilliard d’Auberteuil’s. The fact that Dubuisson was involved in the theatre might also give him greater credibility. But there is perhaps also some slippage in the language used by the two men: where d’Auberteuil writes about ‘fréquenter leur theatre’ (which would ordinarily translate as something like ‘go to their theatre’), Dubuisson writes about slaves not being permitted ‘à aucun spectacle’ (which would ordinarily translate as ‘to any performance’). It is possible, then, that Hilliard d’Auberteuil is responding to the presence in the playhouse of enslaved people, while Dubuisson is arguing that none were present as formal spectators. As we have seen, Dubuisson’s account still allows for the possibility of the presence of enslaved people despite their exclusion. Meanwhile, we know that Hilliard d’Auberteuil was very concerned about a society in which people from different racial and social backgrounds could not always be distinguished one from the other. We also know that he was writing partly in response to a recent expansion of the theatre audience to include darker-skinned free women (and possibly darker-skinned free men). His somewhat alarmist—and confused—claims should be read in this light. While there is no clear evidence to support the claim that enslaved people were formally permitted to be audience members in Le Cap, it is plausible that the admission of darker-skinned people to the theatre made it more likely that some enslaved people would find their way into the playhouse. Certainly there were more people present who, to Hilliard d’Auberteuil, looked like slaves. It is also possible that what Hilliard d’Auberteuil is really referring to is the unofficial presence of

29  Although the ratio is exaggerated, the claim that mulâtresses outnumbered négresses is consistent with the fact that the former were allocated seven boxes and the latter only three.

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enslaved people waiting on their masters in the boxes and corridors of the playhouse rather than as formal spectators. With the exception of some brief references to enslaved musicians who played in the theatre orchestras (which are discussed in the ‘Concealed Contributors’ chapter), the one tantalizing allusion in the local press to enslaved people in the public playhouse was published in 1784. The following announcement appeared under the ‘Spectacles’ rubric: Le sieur Romanville, Acteur, s’est apperçu du vif intérêt que le Public a bien voulu prendre pour lui au sujet de sa représentation qui devait se donner samedi 28 août, & qu’il avoit remise au lundi 30 dudit, vu la circonstance fâcheuse de Dimanche, attribuée à l’inconduite des Negres qui étoient aux premieres loges. Le public n’ayant pas perdu de vue les intérêts du sieur Romanville, & voyant le tort considérable que cela auroit pu lui faire, lui a conseillé, pour la seconde fois, de remettre sa piece à samedi 4 septembre, jour fixé: LES ÉVENEMENS IMPRÉVUS, & LES VENDANGEURS. Les personnes qui ont des billets, sont prévenues que si leurs affaires ne leur permettoient pas de pouvoir attendre jusqu’à ce jour, on pourra s’adresser au sieur Arnusi, qui leur remettra l’argent. Le sieur Romanville, sensible à toutes ces attentions, s’est cru obligé, par devoir, d’insérer cet avis pour en témoigner toute sa reconnaissance. (1 September 1784, 559) Sieur Romanville, actor, has noticed the keen interest that the public has kindly taken in him in relation to his performance that was supposed to take place on Saturday 28 August, which he put back to 30th of that month in wake of Sunday’s unfortunate situation, attributed to the misbehaviour of the nègres who were in the first boxes. The public not having lost sight of Sieur Romanville’s interests and seeing the considerable damage that it could have done to him, advised him, for the second time, to put back his play to Saturday 4 September, a fixed date: Les Évènements imprévus and Les Vendangeurs. People who have tickets are advised that if their activities do not permit them to wait until that day, they may contact Sieur Arnusi, who will reimburse them. Sieur Romainville, mindful of all such details, thought he should, by obligation, include this announcement to testify to his utmost gratitude.

This reference to the misbehaviour of the nègres in the first boxes has been a source of fascination and perplexity among scholars of the field for some time. Some have wondered if it indicates that the rules in Le Cap were not strictly enforced or if undocumented changes to them were made (Fouchard 1988e, 152–53; Clay 2013, 220; Camier and Dubois 2007, para 27), but the advertisement has otherwise been left dangling.

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In order to unpick this further, we must first attempt to clarify Romanville’s chronology. On Wednesday 25 August 1784, Romanville announced an upcoming performance on Saturday 28 August of Les Évènements imprévus and Les Vendangeurs. Then, in the above announcement, which appeared on Wednesday 1 September, Romanville indicates that the performance was initially postponed from Saturday 28 August to Monday 30 August and has now been postponed a second time until Saturday 4 September. Such postponements were not unusual and were made for a number of reasons—insufficient preparation time or the unavailability of a key performer and, on at least one occasion, heavy rain.30 But Romanville’s claim that a performance scheduled for a Saturday was postponed until a Monday owing to the unspecified unfortunate situation on Sunday is difficult to fathom. And what role did the nègres allegedly play in the postponement? Did the Sunday incident in fact occur after the initial postponement, that is, on Sunday 29 August, or might Romanville be referring back to an incident that took place in the playhouse on an earlier Sunday? The fact that no details of the incident are provided suggests either that the majority of theatre-goers and newspaper readers would have known what it was or that it was a delicate matter that should not be spelled out in a public print form. An article published in AA on 7 August 1784 reported to the Port-au-Prince readership on an earthquake on the evening of Sunday 25 July that had been felt across the colony including in Le Cap, where a lot of people (the majority of citizens, according to the report) were in the recently renovated playhouse. The article provides an interesting account of how the playhouse was evacuated. It indicates that the danger posed to the public lay not so much in the alleged instability of the Le Cap playhouse following the renovations of April 1784 as in the behaviour of the panicking evacuees: ‘le trouble inspiré par le danger pouvait causer plus d’accidens que le danger même’ (501) (the disorder provoked by the danger could cause more accidents than the danger itself ). The article notes that it is especially dangerous when everyone from the three tiers of boxes is trying to leave the building at once in a hurry:

30  For works requiring additional preparation time, see Prest (2017a); for a change in cast, see SAA 9 February 1788, 722; for the illness of an actor see AA 4 February 1784, 82 and for a performance postponed owing to rain, see SAA 6 December 1777, 586.

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lorsque tous les spectateurs se précipitent avec effroi dans les escaliers, pour gagner les dehors, ils sont exposés à trois [dangers]: celui d’être étouffés par la foule; celui d’être aussi bien estropiés, anéantis par l’effet de la secousse, dans l’escalier que dans les loges; celui enfin de l’être par la destruction de l’escalier même, moins solide ordinairement que ne le sont les loges, & qui se trouve surchargé alors par un poids qu’il n’est souvent pas capable de porter. (AA 7 August 1784, 501) When all the spectators rush fearfully down the staircases in order to get outside, they are exposed to three types of danger: that of being stifled by the crowd; being just as likely to be maimed or struck down by the tremors on the stairs as in a box; and finally that of being maimed or struck down by the collapse of the staircase itself, which is generally less secure than the boxes, and which is overburdened by the extra weight that it is often unable to support.

This separation of incident (the earthquake) from the indirect dangers provoked by the panicking crowd may shed light on why Romanville, in his enigmatic announcement, writes of a ‘circonstance’ (circumstance) and not of an ‘évènemen[t]’ (event) or ‘incident’ (incident). His turn of phrase certainly suggests that whatever happened was indirectly related to something else. Is it possible that the Sunday in question was in fact that of the earthquake and that the nègres were scapegoated for the botched evacuation of the playhouse and any damage done to it? The article from 7 August notes that audiences returned to the playhouse in Le Cap the Tuesday after the earthquake, and one upcoming performance in Le Cap scheduled for 31 July was announced in the press on 28 July (three days after the earthquake, but possibly submitted to the newspaper too late to be removed), which suggests that any damage was minimal. On the other hand, there are no announcements for performances in Le Cap in August 1784 until Romanville’s. Another possibility is a fire on a Sunday in August—something that would also have necessitated an evacuation of the playhouse and possibly some repairs. In the same article that reports on the earthquake, we read about how common fires were: ‘c’est au théâtre que le feu prend presque toujours’ (AA 7 August 1784, 502) (at the theatre fires are almost always breaking out). This was owing primarily to the lighting arrangements. Moreau de Saint-Méry describes the use in Le Cap of ‘des lampions du théâtre’ (the theatre’s [oil] lamps), presumably at the front of the stage, and the subsequent addition of candles in holders (Moreau de Saint-Méry

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1797–1798, I, 361) on the boxes.31 The suggestion in the Affiches article is that it would take some time for any fire to reach the seating area (particularly the boxes), which would seem to indicate that fires usually began at the front of the stage or even backstage. Might there have been a minor fire in the building followed by another botched evacuation, the latter blamed on the nègres? This brings us onto the nègres and their presence in the first row of boxes. The phrasing of Romanville’s article suggests that it is not the presence of nègres in this part of the playhouse that was the issue but their alleged ‘inconduite’. It is not impossible that, by this time, free black men had been admitted to the playhouse in Le Cap (or even that they were admitted along with free black women in 1775, as Hilliard d’Auberteuil suggests). However, any free black men present would almost certainly have sat with (or near to) the free black women in the upper boxes; it is highly unlikely that they would have been granted seating in the first level of boxes, which were understood to be the best seats in the house. This, combined with the fact that the nègres are not qualified with the adjective ‘libres’ (free), strongly suggests that they were enslaved domestic servants who had accompanied their masters to the playhouse. It is also possible that they had been sent there prior to the performance to save their seats, although, in theory, according to the prospectuses from the 1780s, the boxes were locked and the keys were held by porters who would not permit entry into them until the curtain went up (ANOM F3 160). As suggested above, the socially distinguished, wealthy or influential people who sat in the first-tier boxes in particular would almost certainly have been accompanied by enslaved domestics as a matter of course, as would some other members of the audience as well. What Romanville’s announcement in fact confirms is that enslaved people were in all probability present in the playhouse all along, hidden in plain sight—or, rather, at the back of the loges. What scope might there have been for inconduite on the part of these enslaved people based at the back of—or in the corridor outside—the first boxes? Behaviour in the playhouse among all social groups was formally supervised by representatives from the military—a process that was reviewed in 1785. According to Moreau de Saint-Méry, on both sides of 31  For more on theatre lighting in Paris, see Finot (2009). When describing the smaller theatre space in Léogane, Moreau de Saint-Méry noted that the lamps were too smelly and smoky to be used there (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 461).

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the theatre the first two boxes were joined together to accommodate more people, the one on the right allocated to the Governor General and his guests or officers from the local garrison, and the one on the left allocated to the Intendant and his administrative officers. The Governor General’s box was always guarded, while the Intendant’s was sometimes guarded (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 361). Seats in the remaining 16 first-level boxes were rented out to regular subscribers and to individuals or groups attending benefit performances. Given the significant military presence in the playhouse in Le Cap, it seems highly unlikely that enslaved domestic servants would have caused any deliberate disruption, although they will almost certainly have made some noise in the corridor outside the boxes, as others did too. The term inconduite is a mild one in the context of enslaved people who did not behave as their owners wished them to. Coupled with the rather cautious use of ‘attribuée’ (attributed), rather than the clear assertion that whatever happened was definitely the enslaved people’s fault, their scapegoating for something that official audience members might also have done (such as rushing down—and thereby damaging—the stairs or blocking the exits) seems likely here. How extensive and how significant might the ‘mitigated spectatorship’ of enslaved domestic servants waiting on their ‘masters’ at the back of the boxes or in the corridors of the playhouse have been? From a statistical point of view, if each of the 62 boxes—20 on the first floor and 21 each on the second and third floors (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 361)— contained six people who were accompanied by an average of one domestic for every two spectators (and the number of domestics may well have been higher), there would have been 186 enslaved domestics present in and around the boxes in the playhouse. More conservatively, if there were only an average of four people in each box with one domestic between two people, there would still have been 124 enslaved domestics attending to the people in the boxes.32 Although this number is small in relation to the number of enslaved domestics in Saint-Domingue (and tiny in the context of all the enslaved people in the colony), it is significant in the context of the theatre-going population. In Le Cap, we understand that there were ten boxes officially allocated to the free people of colour; even if these were full to capacity, that would mean that no more than 80 people were 32  Camier and Dubois note that average attendance over 690 performances at the playhouse in Le Cap between 1776 and 1781 was around 750 official spectators or more, that is, around or just above half capacity (Camier and Dubois 2007, para 17).

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admitted to those seats in a theatre that could accommodate up to 1500 spectators. Even our more conservative estimate above suggests that the number of enslaved people present in the playhouse, our mitigated spectators, could have been significantly higher than the number of free people of colour.33 This also has important implications for the sex ratios within the playhouse: while the majority of free people of colour who were admitted formally were female, the majority of enslaved domestics present will have been male. It is difficult to determine the extent to which our enslaved domestics were exposed to the works performed in the playhouses of Saint-­ Domingue. It is unlikely that those waiting on official spectators in their boxes will have been able to watch a show from start to finish. But it is highly likely that they would have glimpsed—and especially overheard— portions of performances while attending their masters from the corridors outside the boxes and when summoned into the box. Moreau de Saint-­ Méry notes how the partitions or ‘croisées’ that separated the boxes from the corridors outside could be left open to increase ventilation and mitigate the stifling heat (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 363). Ravel has noted how, in the theatres of eighteenth-century Paris, ‘the familiar cry of ouvrez les loges (open the boxes), a request to open the doors to the boxes to allow some circulation of air in the hall, rang out in the theater on days when the parterre was crowded’ (Ravel 1999, 41) and similar requests must have been common in Saint-Domingue, where theatres were known to be stuffy and airless. In Paris, we know that these calls became both a serious contentious issue and a common provocative joke (Ravel 1999, 153–55). When the partitions were left open in Saint-­ Domingue—especially on hotter, stiller days and when the playhouse was full—this will have increased not only the circulation of air but also visibility and audibility from the corridors. In such instances, the enslaved people will potentially have been able to hear the performance about as well as the people whom they were serving and possibly better than the free négresses in the corridor behind the amphitheatre before 1784. If the wooden partitions in the boxes were closed, smaller voices may not have 33  This supports the idea that Dubuisson’s claim about the relative numbers of enslaved and free coloured people, cited earlier, was about those present in the playhouse rather than official spectators. The ratio of free people of colour to enslaved domestics will have been higher in the other playhouses of Saint-Domingue, where a higher proportion of the overall seating was allocated to the free coloured audience.

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reached the corridors clearly, but the others will have done so when background noise permitted. Urban enslaved domestics, many of whom (unlike the majority of plantation workers) spoke French as well as Creole, who wanted to follow the play or opera will have been able to do so at least to a degree.34 Even those who had no interest in theatre will have caught snippets. Moreau de Saint-Méry notes that, on busy days, ‘les étroits corridors qui tournent autour des loges, sont pleins et on assiègent les portes de celles-ci’ (360) (the narrow corridors that run round the boxes are full and the doors to the boxes are besieged). The fact that he does not state that the people in the corridors were all enslaved suggests that the space was shared with paying spectators who chose to spend some of their time in the corridor, although this will presumably have been less common in Le Cap following the addition of the new external balconies in 1784.35 In such instances, enslaved people and free spectators will have experienced similar levels of aural and visual access to events on stage, although this was of course a choice on the part of one group and not the other. On balance, it is likely that the mitigated spectatorship of enslaved domestics will have been primarily an aural, rather than a visual, experience (‘spectatorship’ is an unhelpful term in this context), and this should be borne in mind when we consider some of the works that enslaved people may have encountered in this way in subsequent chapters.

Conclusion Despite everything that we do not know, it is possible to conclude that enslaved domestics were almost certainly a significant part of the public theatre audience in the playhouses of Saint-Domingue. Although they were mitigated spectators constrained by a number of factors (ranging from visual and aural constraints to the fact that they were not there by 34  Writing in 1782 in a passage that is aimed primarily at denigrating the widespread use of Creole in Saint-Domingue, a Swiss man stationed in Saint-Domingue during the American War of Independence noted that ‘les negres apprennent aussi facilement le françois que les autres étrangers’ (the nègres learn French as easily as other foreigners), referring to ‘tous ceux que l’on voit en France, & mème les domestiques des bonnes maisons de S.  Domingue’ (Girod-Chantrans 1785, 191) (all those that we see in France and even the domestics in the best houses in Saint-Domingue). 35  In a discussion of a possible new theatre in Port-au-Prince by ‘un voyageur’ (a traveller), mention is made of ‘la commodité de la terrasse’ (the convenience of a balcony) for the people in the loges (AA 25 March 1789, 170).

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choice), their partial experience of theatre performances is not dissimilar in some ways to that of the négresses libres in Le Cap straining to hear and see from the amphitheatre corridor between 1775 and 1784. Moreover, the public playhouse in Saint-Domingue was for the majority of its spectators a meeting place where people went to ‘parler d’affaires’ (Moreau de Saint-­ Méry 1797–1798, I, 364) (talk business) and other things. According to an article in the press arguing in favour of building a new playhouse in Port-au-Prince (mentioned above), the theatre was the only viable place in the colonies (unlike in metropolitan France) where people could gather together (‘il n’y a de réunion qu’au Spectacle’) (the only gatherings are at the playhouse) and, moreover, ‘ce qui se passe au Théâtre intéresse souvent beaucoup moins que ce qui se dit dans la Salle. Les Acteurs ne sont que le prétexte & rarement l’objet de la réunion’ (AA 29 April 1786, 222) (what happens on stage is often of less interest than what is said in the auditorium. The actors are merely the pretext and rarely the object of the gathering). Supporting this idea, the papers of the Ferronays family, who owned a sugar plantation in the Western Province and invested in the theatre in Le Cap, indicate that new projects and new business relations were initiated at the playhouse (Clay 2013, 213).36 With this in mind, the restricted spectatorship of enslaved domestics should not, from a theatrical point of view, be compared with the hypothetical (and non-existent) spectator who watched and listened avidly to each work being performed from start to finish. Rather, it should be compared with the real spectator who spent part of the performance chatting to her or his companions, heckling the performers, looking round the playhouse to spot other people present, resting, sleeping, conducting business, peering short- (or long-) sightedly through a loge grillée or moving around the building. Some spectators visiting from elsewhere (including Spanish sailors and people from the ‘Spanish’ part of the island) will not have spoken fluent French and will have understood even less of the text than any enslaved domestics with a good grasp of the language. In this context, the mitigated spectatorship of the enslaved ‘audience’ is significant. It is also important on its own terms.

 For more on the family and their businesses, see Cheney (2017).

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Unsustainable Tensions: ‘Slave Ownership’ Among Theatre-Makers

As we search for evidence and details of ‘slave ownership’ (a concept that is given in inverted commas in order to challenge the notion that an individual could possess and enslave another individual)—and thus of enslaved people—among theatre-makers in Saint-Domingue, we are obliged to look beyond theatre announcements. In many instances, we do not have to look very far, as many of our non-theatrical sources appear in the same newspapers as our theatre advertisements: these include jail lists, For Sale and miscellaneous advertisements, and especially advertisements for enslaved runaways, who were treated like lost property.1 These will be complemented by a small number of notarial documents detailing the sale of enslaved individuals in the town of Le Cap. In order to make the links with the public theatre tradition more visceral and to explore seemingly contradictory attitudes towards slavery held by people living in Saint-­ Domingue, I also bring newspaper and notarial sources into dialogue with the theatrical repertoire that was put on and performed by the theatre-­ making ‘slave owners’ in question (and quite possibly, therefore, 1  Transcriptions and reproductions of the runaway announcements from the AA and SAA between 1766 and 1791 are to be found, alongside similar advertisements from newspapers in Guadeloupe, Louisiana, South Carolina, Jamaica, French Guiana and Lower Canada, in the Marronnage dans le monde atlantique database at www.marronnage.info. For more on using runaway advertisements to uncover links between colonial-era Caribbean theatre and enslaved people, see Prest (2023b).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Prest, Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22691-5_3

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overheard by enslaved domestics, as discussed in the previous chapter). In addition, theatrical works that engage with the popular theme of ‘desertion’ (a term that was applied mostly to members of the military but also, occasionally, to enslaved runaways) and which were performed in the colony’s playhouses are re-examined in light of these findings. The fact that theatre announcements and advertisements relating to the sale and recapture of enslaved individuals appear in the same newspapers, often in close proximity, is significant. It means that they were likely to be of interest to—and read by—many of the same people. People who went to the playhouse or who read about what was going to be performed there were the same people who read runaway advertisements, jail lists, For Sale advertisements and miscellaneous advertisements or notices. The order in which advertisements appear in AA and SAA may also tell us something about the anticipated priorities of the readership and newspaper editors. Generally, newspapers begin with information about the standardized price of basic foodstuffs (from the colony and from France) and the arrival and departure of boats and ships in the local ports. These are followed by lists of enslaved people who have been arrested and put in jail (usually labelled nègres marrons or maroon slaves) and recaptured animals.2 These notices are closely followed by the ‘Spectacle[s]’ rubric announcing upcoming theatre performances. It is not unusual, then, for theatre advertisements to appear next to jail lists, often on the first page of the newspaper. This suggests that they were both considered to be high priority; both also invited action in the form of a trip to the jail to reclaim a captured runaway or a trip to the playhouse. After theatre advertisements come a host of other announcements or features that might include news from elsewhere in the colony, Europe or the Americas; For Sale advertisements and miscellaneous advertisements (Avis Divers), both of which sometimes included the sale of enslaved individuals; and personal advertisements submitted by individuals regarding enslaved runaways, labelled Esclaves en mar[r]onnage. Although some of these later sections in the newspaper also appear to invite action, their thrust perhaps has more to do with news—trivial or otherwise—and even local gossip. The primary purpose of the runaway advertisement may have 2  Because the jail lists do not generally provide the same level of detail as the runaway announcements and, in many instances, do not give the owner’s identity, they are not prioritized here. However, they do represent an important source for a statistical analysis of enslaved runaways in the colony more broadly (Geggus 1985, 114).

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had less to do with recapturing the individual in question than repeatedly reinscribing ‘slave ownership’ among a predominantly ‘slave-owning’ readership who knew that the institution of slavery was always—and was becoming increasingly—controversial. Only a small proportion of runaways led to the publication of this type of advertisement. Many fugitives returned to their ‘masters’ or were recaptured before an advertisement was considered necessary (Le Glaunec 2009, 24; Prude 1991, 129). Many masters did not have easy access to the newspaper offices in Port-au-Prince and Le Cap in any case, while others chose not to publicize such disappearances for a number of reasons, including a lack of legal documentation regarding their purchase in the first place. Still others will have registered the disappearance with a local notary but not before the wider public. These advertisements thus document the relatively small number of ‘owners’ of enslaved runaways who chose and were able to place advertisements in the local, colonial newspapers ostensibly in order to facilitate the recapture and return of individuals who were legally their property. Most of the advertisements relating to theatre-makers are, unsurprisingly, for personal domestic servants, although in some cases they may feature enslaved individuals whom the theatre-makers had purchased in order to sell them on at a profit or as part of some other business transaction. Although it appears to have been proportionally more common for enslaved people to run away from plantations, enslaved domestic servants, who were mostly Creole (i.e. born in the Caribbean) and often of mixed racial ancestry, also ran away. Indeed, they may have had more opportunities to do so as they enjoyed more freedom of movement and more opportunities to make a new life for themselves. The fact that For Sale advertisements for enslaved domestics sometimes note that the individual in question has never run away suggests that marronage was common within that group.

Theatre Directors The French-born director of the theatre in Port-au-Prince, François Saint-­ Martin (who died in 1784),3 is probably best-known to theatre researchers as promoter, exploiter and possibly lover and fiancé of Saint-Domingue’s 3  Saint-Martin was the assumed name of a man formerly called La Claverie. See Moreau de Saint-Méry’s account of the curious incident in Léogane that led to the change (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 460–61).

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most famous performer of colour, known as ‘Minette’. Saint-Martin is perhaps to be credited for having, as Moreau de Saint-Méry noted, put ‘le préjugé aux prises avec le plaisir’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 329) (prejudice head to head with pleasure) by encouraging Minette to perform onstage at a time when the stage was otherwise entirely white. However, his theatrical innovation was motivated not by an enlightened view on social relations in the colony, but above all by an urgent need for new performers at a time when it was difficult to recruit them from France (Clay 2013, 222). Certainly, Saint-Martin appears to have had no qualms about identifying himself as a ‘slave-owning’ man of the theatre, as is clear from the following announcement: Une Mulâtresse nommée Sophie-Elizabeth, est maronne. Ceux qui en auront connoissance sont priés d’en donner avis au sieur Saint-Martin, directeur de la comédie, au Port-au-Prince, à qui elle appartient. (AA 2 December 1777, 581) A mulâtresse called Sophie-Elizabeth has run away. Those who recognize her are asked to contact Sieur Saint-Martin, director of the theatre in Port-au-­ Prince, to whom she belongs.

The advertisement is relatively short, which may suggest that Saint-­Martin thought that ‘Sophie-Elizabeth’—a name chosen by her enslavers—would be easy to find and identify. Given the lack of detail, we must ask ourselves a number of questions and speculate on some of the answers. SophieElizabeth was almost certainly Saint-­Martin’s domestic servant, perhaps responsible for cleaning, sewing and laundry. How old was she, and for how long had she been in Saint-Martin’s service? She may well be the same mulâtresse called Sophie whom Saint-­Martin bought for 3000 livres from a man called Bretton des Chapelle on 26 November 1774 (Fouchard 1988e, 139). Following her flight, did she remain in Port-au-Prince, perhaps finding employment in the local markets or serving visitors in the port? According to Geggus, ‘light-skinned females had by far the best chances of evading capture’ (Geggus 1996, 271). As a woman of mixed racial ancestry, she may have been pale-skinned and better able to pass as a free person. Sophie-Elizabeth may have had access to papers—authentic or forged—that allowed her some freedom of movement and facilitated her escape. Crucially, we must ask ourselves if, when and how

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Sophie-Elizabeth was returned to Saint-Martin and what punishment she may have received. On the subject of punishments, the slave code originally written in 1685 in relation to the (Lesser) French Antilles, known as the Code Noir, remained, in theory at least, the point of reference for the regulation of master-slave relationships in the Caribbean throughout the eighteenth century.4 According to Article 38, slaves who ran away for a month or more were to have their ears cut off and be branded on the shoulder with a fleur de lys; a second offence of the same duration was punishable by cutting the enslaved person’s hamstring (partly to restrict physical movement) and branding a fleur de lys on their other shoulder; third offences were, in theory, subject to the death penalty. Article 42 also permitted masters to punish slaves as they saw fit by chaining them up and flogging them (although they were prohibited from torturing them or mutilating their limbs—a fine distinction indeed). Although the details of the Code Noir were often ignored by ‘slave owners’ in Saint-Domingue, marronage was certainly considered a crime—a kind of self-theft of valuable ‘property’.5 From the point of view of the fugitive, however, it was, of course, a form of self-liberation and a powerful means of disrupting the unequal power relations that dominated life in the colony. Two pages before his advertisement about Sophie-Elizabeth in the very same edition of the Affiches américaines, Saint-Martin announced that the new theatre in Port-au-Prince, built by François Mesplès (who is discussed in the ‘Concealed Contributors’ chapter), would open on 1 January 1778 with a special performance of the drame lyrique, Henri IV ou la Bataille d’Ivry by Durosoy and Martini. At the same time that Saint-Martin was thinking about Sophie-Elizabeth, he was also thinking, in particular, about his upcoming production of Henri IV ou la Bataille d’Ivry. The work had appeared along with a number of other theatrical works featuring the popular French king, Henri IV (1553–1610), following the death in 1774 of Louis XV, who had not wished to be associated with Henri, and the accession to the throne of Louis XVI, who did.6 More specifically, it was performed in Paris by the Comédie Italienne whose rivals at the 4  Additional slavery protocols were developed in 1723 and 1724 for France’s colonies in the Indian Ocean and Louisiana, respectively (see White 2019, 28–30). 5  See Moreau de Saint-Méry 1784–1790, I,119, and Moitt 2001,  16, 102, 105, 133, 137–39, 175, for examples of punishments meted out for marronage. 6  For more on this trend, see Brenner (1931).

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Comédie-Française responded with a production on a similar theme: Collé’s La Partie de chasse de Henri IV.7 Durosoy’s drame lyrique is set against the backdrop of the Battle of Ivry in March 1590—a decisive victory for Henri IV and his allies over the Catholic League—but is above all a sentimental piece about patriotism and virtue, particularly that of the exaggeratedly generous and thoughtful king. It was first performed in Paris in August 1774, and the first of 11 documented performances of the work in Saint-Domingue was in January 1776. For Saint-Martin, the choice was no doubt a patriotic one that aimed to please the crowds. One of the main characters in the play is the young Eugénie whose father allows her to choose her husband. Out of an extreme sense of honour, Eugénie rejects the man whom she loves because he and his father have sided with the Catholic League. It is a deeply sentimental work, and many tears are shed by its male and female characters. The mistakes of the rebellious father and son are attributed to their impecunity and are therefore forgiven by the generous king. Indeed, the themes of poverty and hunger run through the work—the king is said to give his bread to the hungry peasants, while labourers are content to work under him (II.5). This is of course an idealized portrait of Henri IV’s France (although, in a well-­ known anecdote, Henri IV is reported to have said that he wished every labourer in France were able to have a hen in their roasting pot on Sundays), just as it is a deeply flattering one of Louis XVI’s France (Francalanza 2013, para 20–21). Indeed, it appears that Durosoy’s antihierarchical and rather unmonarchical Henri actually displeased the young Louis XVI (Francalanza 2013, para 25). In Saint-Domingue, the discrepancies between the positive theatrical allegory and the harsh realities of local life were even greater, and Henri IV’s thoughtful respect for all who serve him in Henri IV ou la Bataille d’Ivry is starkly opposed to Saint-­ Martin’s efforts to force Sophie-Elizabeth to return to him against her will. A more elusive advertisement was printed in the local press in the name of the ‘Directeur du Spectacle’ in Port-au-Prince in June 1784: Une Mulâtresse, nommée Sophie, sans étampe, âgé de 20 à 22 ans, marronne depuis environ deux mois. Les personnes qui en auront connaissance sont priées d’en donner avis au Directeur du Spectacle en cette ville. (SAA 12 June 1784, 376) 7  For more on this rivalry and the reception of both works in metropolitan France, see Francalanza (2013).

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A mulâtresse, called Sophie, no brand, aged 20 to 22 years, absent for about two months. People who recognize her are asked to let the director of the theatre in this town know.

The identity of our protagonist is unclear. It is possible that Sophie is the same person as Sophie-Elizabeth from the 1777 announcement—both are described as mulâtresses. If so, she has not acquired a fleur de lys or other identified mark of punishment in the meantime. If Sophie was between 20 and 22 years of age in 1784, she would have been about 14 years old when she ran away in 1777 (but only around 11 if she is also the same Sophie whom Saint-Martin purchased in 1774). Her flight appears to have been successful to the extent that she has already been missing for two months.8 What has she been doing during this time, where and with whom? And why is the theatre director not named? We know that Saint-­Martin wrote his last will and testament on 9 June 1784 and that he died ten days later (Camier 2018b, 224, 218). Did someone other than the ailing SaintMartin submit this advertisement on his behalf and not name him, perhaps out of some kind of superstition regarding his imminent death? A fortnight later, Mesplès, who was Saint-Martin’s universal legatee and executor, published a notice in the same newspaper announcing the sale of Saint-Martin’s property, including his ‘Nègres cuisiniers, postillon & domestiques’ (SAA 26 June 1784, 403) (slave cooks, postillion and domestics). From this we learn that Saint-Martin ‘owned’ at least five enslaved people. Fouchard notes that Sophie was sold at the barre du siège royal in Port-au-Prince in 1785 and later worked in the service of Mesplès’s widow (Fouchard 1988e, 139n3). She must, then, have been recaptured at some point. Saint-Martin’s opposite number at the theatre in Le Cap appears to have been even more deeply involved in chattel slavery. Jean-Baptiste Le Sueur Fontaine (1745–1814) is well-known to theatre researchers as the seemingly successful director of the colony’s biggest theatre from the early 1780s to 1791 (and who later enjoyed a successful career in New Orleans, notably as editor of the Moniteur de la Louisiane newspaper).9 Fontaine appears, sometimes identified by name, sometimes by job title, in ­numerous  Eddins defines a successful flight as one lasting more than six months (Eddins 2019, 6, 15).  He calls himself director of the theatre as early as 1780 in an advertisement for the sale of some women’s footwear and various pieces of furniture (AA 9 May 1780, 139). Jean-Baptiste is sometimes difficult to distinguish from another Fontaine who became music director of the theatre in Le Cap, who Fouchard suggests is probably Jean-Baptiste Fontaine’s brother. 8 9

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theatre announcements in relation to subscription and special performances, and occasionally also as a performer. There is also evidence of his involvement in other business and entrepreneurial activities. He features in a number of newspaper advertisements selling or renting out various items and properties (including enslaved people) on his own behalf or sometimes that of other individuals. One example has Fontaine advertising the lease of a furnished house and six enslaved people as well as some opera scores (SAA 30 November 1785, 534). In June 1780, we read the following announcement under the For Sale rubric: Samedi prochain, 1er juillet, à la requête du Sieur Fontaine, Directeur de la Comédie, il sera vendu à la Barre du Siege Royal du Cap une Négresse nommée Rosalie, âgée d’environ 22 ans, connue pour excellent sujet, très-bonne cuisiniere & bonne blanchisseuse, ayant un Négrillon10 âgé de 5 ans, qui a eu la petite vérole. (AA 27 June 1780, 204) Next Saturday, 1 July, at the request of Sieur Fontaine, Director of the Theatre, will be sold at the barre du siège royal in Cap a négresse called Rosalie, aged approximately 22 years, known to be an excellent subject, very good cook and good washerwoman, with a négrillon aged five, who has had smallpox.

It is not explicitly stated that Rosalie and her son ‘belonged’ to Fontaine, but this is likely. Whatever the case, the advertisement demonstrates that Fontaine was directly involved in the trade of human beings about whom some important details are provided: Rosalie’s given name, her approximate age, her supposed character (the fact that she is described as ‘excellent sujet’ indicates that she had not been a runaway), her skills and—heartbreakingly—her five-year-old son. No reason is given for the sale. Later the same year, a notarial document drawn up by Bordier jeune, whom Socolow describes as ‘the longest practicing notary in Cap Français’ (Socolow 1996, 280) dated 4 November 1780, provides evidence of Jean-­ Baptiste Fontaine, who is described as a ‘comédien en cette ville’ (actor in this town), purchasing an enslaved mulâtresse called Judith from a free mulâtresse called Zabeau Bellanton.11 The document notes that Fontaine:

 A term used for male children of African ancestry.  I am grateful to Camille Cordier, who sent me copies of the notarial documents cited in this chapter. 10 11

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a declaré parfaitement connaître avoir vu et visité lad. mulatresse en etre content et satisfait et en reconnaît en possession pour par lui en jouir faire et disposer en toute propriété et comme de chose lui appartenante. (ANOM 7DPPC Bordier jeune 5973, 4 November 1780) has declared to know perfectly, having seen and visited the said mulâtresse, to be content and satisfied with her and acknowledges that she is in his possession on his behalf that he may benefit, use and dispose of her in full ownership and as something that belongs to him.

Although this is fairly standard wording for such transactions and thus reflects a legal formula more than a report of real events as they took place, the image of Fontaine visiting Judith, whose age is given as around 20 years, in order to inspect her is nonetheless a powerful one. Judith’s price is recorded as 3300 livres—a sum that, we learn, is offset against a larger debt owed by Bellanton to Fontaine.12 Details of a substantial loan made by Fontaine, again described as an actor, to Bellanton and the new repayment plan appear in a document from 26 December 1778 lodged with the same notary (ANOM 7DPPC Bordier jeune 5971, 26 December 1778). Here we read that the 13,884 livres are to be repaid, free of interest, in four equal instalments at three-monthly intervals (on 28 February 1779, 29 May 1779, 29 August 1779 and 29 November 1779). Socolow has observed that such loans on the part of free coloured traders, who were mostly female, were generally made in order to purchase stock from wholesalers or to undertake renovations on their property, while King speculates that Fontaine may have been Bellanton’s silent business partner (Socolow 1996, 285; King 2001, 82). Interestingly, Socolow also notes that in 1782 Bellanton lent money to others on similar terms (Socolow 1996, 288). In the case that concerns us, it would appear that part of Bellanton’s debt to Fontaine was still outstanding nearly a year after it was supposed to have been paid off. Fontaine seems to have accepted Judith in lieu of a cash payment, probably with a view to selling her on to someone else. Meanwhile, it has been noted that women of colour, particularly those based in Le Cap, were ‘quite active’ in the market for the rental of female slaves and that most slaves owned by women of colour were female (Rogers and King 2012, 364). 12  According to Fouchard, the average price of an enslaved person oscillated between 1907 livres in 1784 and 2099 livres in 1788 before reaching 2500 livres in 1791 (Fouchard 1988b, 99–100). The average price of an enslaved domestic would have been higher than this.

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It is clear that both Fontaine and Zabeau Bellanton played an active role in the local slave trade within the city of Le Cap. Although Bellanton, a free woman of mixed racial ancestry, could not sign her own name, she was a prominent and successful local businesswoman.13 According to King, she ‘seemingly achieved success through her own entrepreneurship and not as a gift or inheritance from anybody’ (King 2001, 81). Bellanton is described in both notarial documents cited above as a ‘confiseuse’ (a maker and seller of sweetmeats such as jam or jelly, or a confectioner), and Rogers notes that Bellanton ran her business ‘avec une petite dizaine d’esclaves cuisiniers, pâtissiers, confiseurs ou apprenti confiseurs’ (Rogers 2003, 45) (with nearly ten enslaved cooks, pastry-makers, confectioners or apprentice confectioners). Indeed, Bellanton is noteworthy for having been involved in around 20 financial transactions recorded in notarial documents—18 of them to do with the purchase and sale of enslaved people— relating to a total sum of 107,632 livres (Rogers 2003, 45; King 2001, 81). With regard to income from slavery, Rogers has suggested that Bellanton may have made more money from hiring out her slaves than from selling them.14 Perhaps the most sobering lesson that we learn from Fontaine’s association with Bellanton is that seemingly innocuous professional designations such as ‘actor’ or ‘confectioner’ can also, in reality, mean local slave trader. Indeed, in Bellanton’s case, the local slave trade appears to have been her primary business occupation. Socolow has noted that in one transaction in 1782 Bellanton split up a mother and child, and even stipulated that the purchaser of the two-year-old (a free black woman) could under no circumstances oblige Bellanton to sell her the mother as well (Socolow 1996, 287, 289). King comments that Bellanton ‘operated her business in what seems to have been a heartless and abusive fashion, even by the standards of the time’, trading in particularly vulnerable individuals, mostly obtained ‘outside normal channels’ (King 2001, 82, 83). Returning to Fontaine, the last advertisement featured in the For Sale section of the Affiches américaines on 2 October 1781 reads as follows:

13  According to Geggus, only one in four mulâtresses who used notaries could sign their name (Geggus 1996, 271). Bellanton may also have lent her financial support to Fontaine’s appointment as director of the theatre—see Camier (2007, 87). 14  Rogers notes that the 17 occasions on which Bellanton sold enslaved people between 1778 and 1782 are related to her anticipated departure for metropolitan France (Rogers 2003, 45). Her need to pay off her debt to Fontaine may also be interpreted in this context.

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Une Négresse âgée de 20 à 22 ans, avec un petit Mulâtre dont elle est accouchée il y a quinze jours, ayant beaucoup de lait, bonne couturière & blanchisseuse, à vendre ou à louer. Il faut s’adresser à M. Fontaine, Directeur de la Comédie. (AA 2 October 1781, 388) A négresse aged between 20 and 22 years, with a little mulâtre, to whom she gave birth a fortnight ago, having lots of milk, a good seamstress and washerwoman, for sale or hire. Contact M. Fontaine, Director of the Theatre.

Although it is possible that Fontaine was acting as an intermediary for someone else, it is likely that he is the ‘owner’ of the unnamed négresse. Fouchard suggests, moreover, that Fontaine may well have been the father of her child who, unlike the mother, is described as being of mixed racial ancestry. According to Fouchard, this kind of announcement was not uncommon and offered a convenient way of putting bastard children out of sight and out of mind (Fouchard 1988b, 129–30). The fact that Fontaine does not identify himself as the ‘owner’ of the négresse may also be a strategy to distance himself from her—and, if Fouchard’s suggestion is correct, his own child—publicly. In November 1782, Fontaine issued the following short runaway advertisement in which his ownership of the (male) runaway and his role as theatre director are both made explicit: Un Negre nommé Zéphyr, taille d’environ cinq pieds un pouce, un peu trapu, étampé CHINON,15 ayant toujours des papiers à la main & même des bons, sous prétexte de les porter pour son maître. Ceux qui le reconnoîtront, sont priés de le faire arrêter & d’en donner avis au Sieur Fontaine, Directeur de la Comédie, à qui il appartient. (SAA 13 November 1782, 438) A nègre called Zéphyr, about five foot one inch tall, a bit stocky, branded CHINON, always with papers and even vouchers to hand on the pretext of carrying them for his master. Those who recognize him are asked to have him detained and to inform Sieur Fontaine, Director of the Theatre, to whom he belongs.

From this, we can glimpse, among other things, Zéphyr’s intelligence and resourcefulness in using paper documents as a means of circulating more freely and, perhaps, of more long-term escape (we are not told how long he has been missing) and survival. He may even have escaped, as some  Chinon was the name of the previous director of the theatre in Le Cap.

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runaways did, to the Spanish part of the island, where he was less likely to be returned to his ‘master’. Fontaine’s name is associated with another enslaved man called Phaëton, who is the object of several advertisements that together allow us to reconstruct a little more of Phaëton’s biography. In December 1783, SAA published the following announcement: Phaëton, nation Congo, âgé d’environ 27 ans, taille de 5 pieds 5 à 6 pouces, étampé DALIGRAND, est parti maron depuis environ 12 jours. Il a appartenu jadis à M. Daligrand, habitant à Plaisance, près le Pilate. Ceux qui en auront connaissance, sont priés de le faire arrêter, & de l’adresser à M. Durozier, Comédien, ou à M.  Fontaine, Directeur de la Comédie au Cap. (SAA 31 December 1783, 758) Phaëton, of the Congo nation, aged about 27 years, five foot five or six inches, branded DALIGRAND, ran away about 12 days ago. He formerly belonged to M. Daligrand, a planter in Plaisance near to Pilate. Those who recognize him are asked to have him detained and sent to M.  Durozier, actor, or M. Fontaine, Director of the Theatre in Le Cap.

African-born Phaëton fits the most common profile of the young man who ran away alone. The name of Phaëton’s former owner, a planter, is provided (and branded onto Phaëton’s body), and the details about Daligrand’s plantation in the parish of Plaisance suggest that Phaëton may be thought to have returned (or be returning) there—some 50 km away. The name of Phaëton’s new owner is not absolutely clear.16 The wording suggests that it is the actor-singer, Durozier (or Durosier), who was described in the press as ‘première Basse-Taille du Spectacle du Cap’ (SAA 5 April 1783, 176) (lead baritone at the Cap theatre),17 and that Durosier’s better-known employer, Fontaine, was offering to act as intermediary in the case of a sighting. Again, it is significant that both Fontaine and Durosier are explicitly identified in their public role as men of the theatre. Phaëton had probably worked as a domestic servant on Daligrand’s plantation before being sold to Durosier. Between the Zéphyr advertisement and the first Phaëton one, Fontaine performed with Durosier in Coquelay de Chaussepierre’s parodic comedy, Monsieur Cassandre, ou les effets de l’amour ou du vert-de-gris (on a double 16  Le Glaunec notes that enslaved individuals often ran away following a change of master (Le Glaunec 2005, 215). 17  He later joined the troupe in Port-au-Prince.

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bill with Grétry or Favart’s La Rosière de Salency) on 6 March 1783. Durosier played the comical role of Mme Cassandre, who is described in the play’s preface as being between 40 and 45 years of age, seven and a half months pregnant and very large but still attractive. Fontaine played the sentimental prison jailor. The second act of the work takes place inside a prison, which is described as ‘la plus affreuse de toutes celles qui ont été vues sur aucun Théâtre’ (the most frightful of any that have been seen on any stage). The work makes light of life in prison and even of death, adopting a tone that is strongly parodic. Did Fontaine and Durosier make any kind of mental connection between the parodic prison of their theatrical work and the genuinely frightful prisons in which fugitives and alleged fugitives were kept if they were caught? Did this comic portrayal act as a kind of safety valve for the actors and audience alike, a means of defusing any residual pangs of guilt that they might have felt when confronted with the real prisons and lock-ups of Saint-Domingue? Or did they somehow manage to compartmentalize theatrical prisons and real prisons, theatrical suffering and real suffering? By July 1784, Phaëton, who must have returned or been captured in the meantime, is clearly listed in the following advertisement as ‘belonging’ to Fontaine, who may have bought him from Durosier in the meantime: Un Negre nommé Phaëton, grand, maigre, étampé DALIGRAND, appartenant à M.  Fontaine, Directeur du Spectacle; ledit Negre va ordinairement dans les quartiers du Dondon, de Plaisance, de la Grand’Riviere ou de la Marmelade. (SAA 28 July 1784, 474) An enslaved man called Phaëton, tall, thin, branded DALIGRAND, belonging to M. Fontaine, Director of the Theatre; the said nègre normally goes to the Dondon, Plaisance, Grand’Rivière or Marmelade neighbourhoods.

The advertisement confirms that Phaëton is a regular runaway and one who managed to travel considerable distances to a range of surrounding areas in the North Province on numerous occasions.18 We know from the previous advertisement that he had formerly lived in Plaisance—he may also have lived in the other places mentioned. It seems likely that Phaëton was seeking to be reunited with family or kin from whom he had been separated as a result of his successive sales.  These are considerable distances for him to travel, ranging between 20 and 50 km.

18

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Phaëton was clearly determined to escape as he features in another advertisement two months later. Here we also learn details of the horrific punishments that he was enduring, almost certainly as a result of his earlier marronage: Phaéton, grand, maigre, étampé DALIGRAND, est parti marron le 20 du courant, avec deux nabots & une chaîne aux deux pieds; ceux qui en auront connaissance, sont priés de le faire conduire à M. Fontaine, Directeur du Spectacle du Cap. (SAA 29 September 1784, 630) Phaëton, tall and thin, branded DALIGRAND, ran away the 20th of this month with two iron rings and a chain on both feet; those who recognize him are asked to have him taken to M. Fontaine, Director of the Theatre in Le Cap.

Although it comes as no surprise to learn that a theatre director ‘owned’ slaves in colonial Saint-Domingue, details such as the rings and chains that Phaëton now wears on his feet make that knowledge visceral and difficult to ignore. Debien notes that the ‘nabot’, which he describes as ‘un gros anneau de fer de six, de huit ou même de dix livres pesant que l’on rivait à froid à un pied’ (Debien 1974, 433) (a large steel ring weighing six, eight or even ten pounds, that was cold-riveted to the foot), seems to have been the harshest punishment that was inflicted on (male) runaways and unique to Saint-Domingue. It is possible that Fontaine personally ordered Phaëton’s harsh punishment; certainly the advertisement cited above shows that he had no qualms about sharing these details with the whole of the newspaper-­ reading public.

Actors Several (other) actors also published advertisements concerning enslaved runaways. All those that I have found are for people associated with the theatre in Le Cap, although it is unclear whether this reflects a higher level of ‘slave ownership’. The majority of runaway advertisements were submitted by men, and Fouchard notes that female ‘slave owners’ who submitted advertisements were mostly widows, as is the case for French-born Mme Marsan (?1747–1807) (Fouchard 1988b, 292). Arguably the most famous actor resident in the whole colony, Marsan enjoyed a very successful career in Le Cap throughout the 1780s, before fleeing to New Orleans during the Haitian Revolution.19 She features prominently in  For more on Marsan and her career, see Prest (2019b).

19

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advertisements for upcoming performances at the playhouse in Le Cap, where she was its recognized star and where she played an extraordinarily wide range of singing and spoken roles in both serious and comic works. In addition to French repertoire, Marsan also performed in local works, notably as Thérèse in Clément’s parody, Jeannot et Thérèse (a work that is discussed in more detail in the ‘Mitigated Portrayals’ chapter) in which the dialogue is written in an early form of Haitian Creole and for which she wore blackface for a performance in 1784 (Prest 2021, 60). A sense of Marsan’s star status can be gleaned from the following announcement in which she is the only named performer (alongside two named beneficiaries): Les Comédiens du Cap donneront mardi prochain 14 du courant … une représentation du BARBIER DE SEVILLE … dans laquelle Mde Marsan remplira le rôle de Rosine. Cette pièce sera suivie du DEVIN DU VILLAGE, Opéra, dans lequel ladite Dame Marsan fera le rôle de Colette. Le mardi 21 … une représentation de LA BELLE ARSENNE … dans lequel Mde Marsan remplira le rôle de la Belle Arsenne. (AA 7 November 1780, 353) The Actors of Le Cap will give next Tuesday, the 14th of this month … a performance of the Barber of Seville … in which Mme Marsan will play the role of Rosine. This work will be followed by the opera Le Devin du Village, in which the said Mme Marsan will play the role of Colette. On Tuesday 21st … a performance of La Belle Arsène… in which Mme Marsan will play the role of la Belle Arsène.

In addition to playing the female lead in Favart and Monsigny’s La Belle Arsène, Mme Marsan played—among many other roles—that of the captive French woman, Roxelane, in Favart’s opéra-comique, Les Trois sultanes, on several occasions in the 1780s. In a conversation in II.5 with the Turkish Emperor, Suliman, Roxelane compares French customs with those of Turkey. Although it was customary for Europeans to criticize Eastern and specifically Muslim forms of slavery in this and other ways— particularly in the context of the polygamous seraglio—some elements of the comparison will have been particularly difficult to swallow when the work was performed in Saint-Domingue. Specifically, Roxelane proudly observes in this scene that, unlike in Turkey, there are ‘point d’esclaves

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chez nous’ (no slaves in our country) and that in France ‘tout citoyen est roi sous un roi citoyen’ (every citizen is king under a citizen king). The claim that there are no slaves in France is no mere passing comment but one that evokes a much-repeated mantra based on the ‘Freedom Principle’ according to which any enslaved person who set foot on French soil supposedly became free (Peabody 1996, 3). As Peabody has shown, freedom upon arrival in (metropolitan) France was not as straightforward as the maxim would suggest, and of course the notion goes straight to the heart of the unsustainable tension between France’s still expanding slave trade and its long-held principles of freedom. If it was relatively easy not to pause at this meaningful line in Favart’s work during performances in Paris (it may have caused more of a stir during any performances in the port towns of Bordeaux and Nantes), the same cannot be said for performances in Saint-Domingue. If the line was retained in the colony, it will have been delivered on several occasions by Marsan, who knew perfectly well that there were slaves in France—or at least in France’s colonies—and who was herself an enslaver.20 In December 1788, the following advertisement appeared in AA: Paris, âgé d’environ 18 ans, de la taille de 5 pieds 2 pouces, étampé CHAPUISEAU, au dessous M, est parti marron le 14 du courant: en donner des nouvelles à madame veuve Marsan, actrice attachée au spectacle de cette ville, à qui il appartient. (SAA 27 December 1788, 1044) Paris, aged around 18 years, five foot two inches tall, branded CHAPUISEAU, underneath M, ran away the 14th of this month: send information about him to Mme Widow Marsan, actress at the theatre in this town, to whom he belongs.

Here too, Marsan’s affiliation with the local theatre and her ‘ownership’ of the runaway are made explicit. Marsan’s maiden name was Chapuiseau (or Chapuzeau), so she appears to have used this to brand her enslaved servants.21 With regard to the M beneath Chapuiseau, runaways were 20  The slave trader, Kaled’s pointed comment in scene 7 of Chamfort’s Le Marchand de Smyrne about French people selling nègres must have been even more difficult to overlook when performed in Saint-Domingue, despite its oriental setting. 21  We also find an enslaved runaway claiming to belong to M. Marsan and branded ‘Marsan’ in the jail list published in SAA 26 January 1788, 709. Although Mme Marsan’s husband had died in October 1787, it is perfectly possible that an enslaved runaway might still have given his name three months later.

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sometimes branded with the letter M for marron—and R for révolte or révolté—so this may suggest that Paris had run away before (Fouchard 1988b, 186). The documented performances in which we know that Mme Marsan participated that are closest to this time period are both in collaboration with the visiting performers, Louis-François Ribié (known as César Ribié) and Claude-Augustin Jaimond, whose first tour of Saint-­ Domingue lasted from June 1787 to March 1788. On 6 February 1788, Marsan performed the title role in Arnould’s pantomime L’Héroïne américaine (on a double bill with Taconet’s La Mort du bœuf gras), while a benefit performance for Mme Marsan on 8 March 1788 featured Ribié and Jaimond in a performance of another three-act pantomime: Ribié’s Richard cœur de Lion, which is discussed in the ‘Concealed Contributors’ chapter. It is Marsan’s participation in L’Héroïne américaine that is especially interesting for the present discussion. The story on which this work is based has a long and interesting history, of which only the details that are most relevant to the present discussion are outlined here.22 The oldest surviving written source for the story is that told by Richard Ligon in his History of the Island of Barbadoes (1657), which features an (already) enslaved American Indian woman called Yarico, who saves a young Englishman from the local Indian ‘savages’ and is then betrayed by him. It became popularized in Britain and beyond when Richard Steele published his version in The Spectator in 1711. In Steele’s version, which begins in the Americas, Yarico is a free American Indian who is sold by her English lover into slavery when they arrive in Barbados. Its split location and invocation of both American Indians and Caribbean forms of slavery has led to ongoing confusion—or perhaps, flexibility—surrounding Yarico’s racial ancestry and how this should be rendered in stage versions of the story, particularly in relation to her skin colour. Stage versions include, in the French tradition, Chamfort’s La Jeune indienne (1764) (in which the story is relocated to colonial Charlestown, present-day Charleston) and Arnould’s three-act pantomime, which was first performed at the Théâtre de l’Ambigu-Comique in Paris in March 1786 and, in the English tradition, George Colman the younger’s hugely successful three-act comic opera, Inkle and Yarico (1787).23 The work with which we are concerned here is Arnould’s pantomime, L’Héroïne américaine, which took as its  For more on this, see Price (1937) and Felsenstein (1999).  See Thomasson (2021) for details of Inkle and Yarcko plays performed in Sweden.

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direct source the version of the story as told in the abbé Raynal’s Histoire philosophique (also known as Histoire des deux Indes) (Raynal 1770, V, 197–98).24 Arnould’s work is noteworthy for culminating in Yarico’s rejection of Inkle, after she has intervened to save his life a second time, and in her consenting to marry the Indian chief instead. In a playful advertisement for the first performance in Saint-Domingue of L’Héroïne américaine on 1 August 1787, Ribié responds to the suggestion that the work is merely his Le Héros américain (which he would perform, alongside Mme Marsan, in Le Cap in January 1788) under another name (SAA 28 July 1787, 866). He claims that the subject is absolutely new. Here Ribié acknowledges L’Histoire philosophique as the ‘new’ work’s source but does not explicitly name Arnould (who was co-director of the Ambigu-Comique in Paris, where Ribié had previously performed) as its author in any of the announcements. Although Ribié seems to imply that he is the author of L’Héroïne américaine by his use of the indefinite subject pronoun—‘on a suivi le plus qu’il a été possible ce sujet historique … les changements qu’on s’est permis étoient nécessaires’ (866) (one has followed the historical account as closely as possible … the changes that one has allowed oneself were necessary)—he stops short of making any specific claims to its authorship as has sometimes been suggested.25 Moreover, the special editions of the work that he published in Port-au-Prince and Le Cap and which he advertised as being available for purchase do give Arnould as the work’s author on the title page and even include details of the première at the Ambigu-Comique (Ferrier 2021, 67n10). Béatrice Ferrier provides a useful and detailed account of Ribié’s documented performances of the work in Saint-Domingue: three in Cap-­ Français (two in August 1787 and one in February 1788) and, according to the Port-au-Prince edition of the play, which includes a cast list, an additional performance in Port-au-Prince in October 1787.26 Mme Marsan is only named in the local press as playing the female lead role in the third performance in Le Cap, on 6 February 1788. Although we might reasonably assume that Marsan also took the role in the two performances in Le Cap in August 1787, the records suggest that she may have been 24  According to Felsenstein, Raynal’s source was Ligon rather than Steele (Felsenstein 1999, 236n1). 25  Fouchard, who did not know about the preservation of the versions published in Saint-­ Domingue, writes as though the work were by Ribié (Fouchard 1988e, 212–13). 26  The Port-au-Prince edition mentions only one performance in Le Cap in August 1787.

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away from Saint-Domingue or absent from the stage for some other ­reason at that time.27 The lead role of Jarika (as she is called here) requires considerable flexibility and skill as well as the ability to convey a wide range of emotions without recourse to a spoken text, relying instead on the actor’s physical abilities. It is impossible to know for certain how Marsan prepared for such a role, and the question of the extent to which actors kept their own emotions at bay or actively drew on them has, of course, been a matter of considerable theoretical debate. The debate was famously rekindled in France and beyond when in the 1770s Diderot argued in his Paradoxe sur le comédien that, when seeking to move an audience, actors should not themselves experience the emotions that they were portraying.28 As I have discussed elsewhere, the question of how actors in Saint-Domingue prepared for the performance of an emotionally charged role was addressed briefly in the local press in relation to performances by Mme Marsan (in Le Cap) and Minette (in Port-au-­ Prince), both compared with performances in Paris by Mme Dugazon, of the title role in Dalayrac’s opéra-comique, Nina. An anonymous commentator wrote: On dit que Mme Dugazon est effrayante dans ce rôle, qu’elle l’a étudié pendant plusieurs mois dans les maisons de force qui, à Paris, renferment les folles. La Dlle Minette n’a pas eu ces modèles, il a fallu qu’en peu de jours elle tirât tout d’elle-même; mais Mme Marsan, au Cap, est dans le même cas, & elle a joué cette pièce sous mes yeux avec une vérité qui m’a fait mal. (AA 10 March 1787, 123) It is said that Mme Dugazon is frightening in this role, that she studied it for several months in mental institutions in Paris in which mad women are locked up. Mlle Minette did not have these models; in only a few days she had to draw it out from within herself. But Mme Marsan in Le Cap is in the same situation, and she performed this work before my own eyes with a truthfulness that hurt.

According to this account, Dugazon’s supposed method (it is far from certain that she really did spend time in Parisian mental institutions when preparing the role) is based on immersion and observation, while Minette 27  Mme Marsan is not named as a participant in any performances in Le Cap between 24 February 1787 (when she sang the role of Eurydice in Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice) and 14 January 1788 (when she played Chester in Ribié’s Le Héros américain). 28  For more on acting theories in the period, see Leichman (2016) and Marie (2019).

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and Marsan, by contrast, had to base their performances on what they carried within them drawing, we assume, on their personal life experiences and imagination. None of these methods necessarily requires a personal emotional investment on the part of the actor in order to create an emotional response in their audience.29 However, each (and any) method does require some kind of process of reflection on the issues at hand. In the case of Jarika in L’Héroïne américaine, one of the key issues was slavery. We know, from her diary, that the actor, Frances Maria Kelly, who performed the role of Yarico in the early nineteenth century in the English version of the story by George Colman, did so explicitly out of sympathy for the ‘ill used African’, whose experiences she portrayed in a ‘Brown Sherry complexion’ (Gibbs 2014, 3). This being the case, it seems likely that she will have brought genuine emotion to bear in her performance of the role. Clearly, however, this was not Marsan’s motive or that of Mme Bourgeois, who performed it in Port-au-Prince.30 And, although the question of the actors’ personal emotional experience of preparing and performing the role of Jarika is intriguing,31 it is the emotional effect of their performance on the wider audience that is ultimately more important.32 We know that audiences responded with emotion to Marsan’s performances, and this will surely have been no exception. The fact that L’Héroïne américaine is a pantomime is significant. Broadly speaking, the acknowledged emotional effects of pantomime on its audience were understood in terms of the genre’s relationship to language: for many, pantomime, as a text-free form, offered in place of verbal  Interestingly, the advice given to Minette to improve her performance was not that she should observe and then imitate living subjects, but rather that she should familiarize herself with the literary sources for the opera (Prest 2019b, 186). 30  Bourgeois’s participation in L’Héroïne américaine is not recorded in the newspapers, only in the cast list of the Port-au-Prince edition of the work. 31  There is evidence to suggest that the actor, Jack Bannister, who originally played the role of Inkle in Colman’s work in London, was uncomfortable playing such a remorseless character and that it was his discomfort that led to the creation of a happy ending in which the lovers are reunited. It does also appear that Bannister, who was primarily a comic actor, was not a good match for such a role in any case as he soon gave it up and played Inkle’s dramatic foil, Trudge, who is both more comical and more loyal than Inkle, instead (Felsenstein 1999, 24–27). 32  Three accounts of emotional responses from male audience members who saw Colman’s comic opera performed in Britain, including a four-line poem by Robert Burns (who saw it performed in Dumfries in 1794), are presented in Felsenstein (1999, 33–34). 29

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language a more ‘natural’ and intense form of bodily communication that was universal and thereby, it could be argued, more powerful and more egalitarian. Following his personal experience of hearing—or rather, seeing—a performance of Schiller’s The Robbers in German (a language with which he was unfamiliar) during a trip to Mannheim in 1787, during which he found himself having to focus on the actors’ bodily gestures and movements rather than their speech, Louis-Sébastien Mercier (author of one of the deserter works discussed below) proposed a different view of pantomime. He argued that, rather than communicating directly and more or less indiscriminately with all audience members, silent theatre invites individual spectators to become actively involved in the performance by, effectively, writing their own script for it in their heads (a process that sets it apart from the act of looking at a painting—a form with which pantomime is sometimes compared) (Robert 2015). This model still allows scope for a collective response as individuals wrote their own (separate) scripts in response to the same performance at the same time and in the same space (although, as Robert reminds us, Mercier shifted from a more collective vision of pantomime to a more individual one in the course of the Revolution) (Robert 2015, 195–96). Mercier asserted that spectators are moved more by their own creations than those of others—another explanation, according to his logic, for the emotional impact of pantomime (Robert 2015, 191). Whatever the genuine effects of pantomime upon individuals and groups, even pantomime’s detractors agreed both that the genre was popular and that it affected its audience. The relative accessibility of pantomime owing to the fact that no particular linguistic skills are required to understand it, coupled with the fact that each individual was, according to Mercier, free to write the script of their choice, is especially significant in the context of a multilingual and intensely hierarchical space like Saint-Domingue. Paradoxically, we are obliged to base our analysis of L’Héroïne américaine on its textual traces: the scene-by-scene summaries published in Saint-Domingue and France. The work is set ‘en Amérique’ (in America), which could indicate anywhere in the Americas, although the Raynal source clearly locates it in Barbados. It features an English sea captain, Inkle, on a mission to capture and enslave local people. In the Paris edition of the work, the opening scene features Inkle, accompanied by some soldiers, leading ‘deux Femmes Caraïbes enchaînées’ (two Carib women chained together) out of a forest and towards the sea. In the two Saint-­ Domingue editions, the captives are described as ‘deux sauvages Caraïbes

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enchaînés’ (two Carib savages chained together)—an alteration, along with the others discussed below, that makes its way into the English translation of the work by Samuel Chandler that was published in Philadelphia in 1787 (which suggests that it was based on one of the Saint-Dominguan versions).33 The plot is driven partly by the resistance on the part of the local population to being enslaved by the English and ends with the triumph of the sauvages over their would-be enslavers. It is thus not just a work about slavery but an anti-slavery work. As such, it seems an odd choice for performance in Saint-Domingue, even at the instigation of visiting performers who may have enjoyed more leeway than locally based performers with regard to their choice of repertoire.34 One wonders if L’Héroïne américaine underwent anything similar to the process described by Moreau de Saint-Méry (in relation to living authors trying to have their works performed) whereby a work that met with the troupe’s approval was then passed to the juge de police for censorship (Moreau de Saint-­ Méry 1797–1798, I, 368).35 In addition to its broad anti-slavery message, the pantomime features specifically the temporary enslavement by the English of Jarika (III.3) and her resulting horror and distress at the sight of her chains (III.4). It thus invites the audience to empathize with Jarika and to rejoice when she is freed. This impulse is even stronger in Colman’s comic opera, which premiered on 4 August 1787 at the Haymarket Theatre in London (only three days after the premiere in Saint-Domingue of Arnould’s pantomime), and which reached an estimated audience of ‘around one million’ in the decade that followed (Worrall 2016, 1). The year 1787 was ‘a pivotal moment of antislavery momentum’ in England, featuring the establishment of the London Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and it is clear that part of the play’s purpose was precisely to promote abolition (Gibbs 2014, 3). This is made explicit in The Theatrical Register for a set of performances in York in 1788, and when the work was performed in Edinburgh circa 1795, it was subtitled Or, the Slave-Trade Exposed (Worrall 2016, 21). One wonders, then, how the work was received when it was  Chandler’s English translation is reproduced in Felsenstein (1999, 236–46).  An announcement in the Gazette de la Martinique (7 August 1788) indicates that the work was also performed there (Camier 2004, 52). 35  In Moreau de Saint-Méry’s theatre questionnaire we read ‘Qui censure les pièces qu’on veut faire jouer? … Le lieutenant général de police’ (ANOM F3 160 fol. 17–18) (Who censors the plays that they want to perform? The Lieutenant General of the Police). See Moreau de Saint-Méry (1797–1798, II, 205) for a note indicating that there was no censorship in Saint-Marc. 33 34

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performed in Jamaica in 1788 (Hill 1992, 80). Gibbs has noted that, in the English version, Yarico is re-identified as African, rather than as Native American (or, as Raynal puts it, ‘Indienne’) in order to support the play’s anti-slavery thrust (Gibbs 2014, 2). However, Worrall’s account includes evidence of Yarico figured as Native American, with tawny or reddish make-up, unlike her female companion, Wowski (absent from the French version of the work), who was often figured as black despite also being Native American (Worrall 2016, 37, 40). As Worrall notes on several occasions, in the English tradition, colour was mostly used to signify class rather than racial ancestry, anyway. What is most important, perhaps, is the instability of Yarico’s racial identity in her performance history. Returning to the French version performed in Saint-Domingue, the portrayal of the horrors of enslavement intersects with a ‘love triangle’ between Jarika and her two suitors: the perfidious Englishman, Inkle (with whom she falls in love, whom she protects and by whom she is later betrayed) and the principled ‘savage chief’ whom she eventually chooses to marry after he has spared Inkle’s life. A third element of the performance was particularly important in Le Cap, which featured a particularly high number of soldiers among its audience (Connors 2021): the inclusion of various military battles and technical manoeuvres.36 Several aspects of the work are thus noteworthy: it is significant that L’Héroïne américaine required Saint-Domingue’s most famous actor, Mme Marsan, to act out an individual’s experience of enslavement, notably in III.4, where she had to perform Jarika’s horror at realizing that she has been enslaved with the complicity of her lover, and in III.1 when Jarika realizes that the chains from which Inkle has been freed are the same ones that had been put on her in the earlier scene. Given that Marsan herself ‘owned’ at least one enslaved domestic, it is difficult to reconcile her theatrical role with her social one as the author of the runaway announcement cited above. It is also significant that such an affecting performance of Jarika’s emotions will have reached, in the course of the three performances in Le Cap, a relatively large audience—and, indeed, that the work, which also features the triumph of the sauvages over the Europeans, should have been performed in the colony at all. Do the relatively minor alterations to the Paris edition that we find in the Saint-Domingue versions provide any clues with regard to this surprising choice of repertoire? In addition to the  These were probably performed by (or with) members of the local military.

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change from ‘femmes caraïbes’ (I.1 and III.9) to ‘sauvages’ (I.1 and III.8), Ferrier has noted the complete suppression of one scene (III.7), which reads: Une troupe de Femmes sauvages arrive. Elles semblent craindre les suites du combat qui se prépare; elles regardent au loin, & annoncent par leur différens mouvemens l’impression de crainte ou d’espérance que fait sur elles le combat dont le bruit se fait entendre dans le lointain; peu-à-peu ce bruit augmente[,] les combattans s’approchent, & les femmes se retirent. A troop of savage women arrives. They seem to fear the outcome of the battle that is being prepared; they look into the distance and convey by their various movements an impression of the fear or hope that the battle, the sound of which can be heard in the distance, has on them. Gradually the noise becomes louder, the fighters come closer, and the women withdraw.

Ferrier’s suggestion whereby the changes were made in order to avoid portraying something that would have been remote to a Parisian audience but a bit too close for comfort to a Saint-Dominguan audience is convincing (Ferrier 2021, 79–82). Certainly, the shift from ‘femmes Caraïbes’ to ‘sauvages Caraïbes’ helps to conjure up images of semi-imaginary savages (noble or otherwise), while keeping connections with the local enslaved population, who were mostly people of African descent, at arm’s length.37 This is a feature of what Dillon has termed ‘intimate distance’, whereby colonial Europeans sought to maintain intimacy with the metropole at the same time that they sought to create distance from certain groups, notably enslaved people, with whom they shared the colony (Dillon 2014, 16, 56–57). However, as we have seen, there is plenty that remains in L’Héroïne américaine to resonate uncomfortably with a predominantly ‘slave-­ owning’ audience, and the shift may in fact have more to do with the sex—and associated vulnerability—of the characters. The resexing of the characters from female to male (or possibly mixed) in I.1 and III.8 may well signal an attempt to reduce audience sympathy for such characters. This would make sense of the elimination of the scene, outlined above, in 37  This might usefully be compared with a similar shift in emphasis and terminology when Radet and Barré’s La Négresse, ou le pouvoir de la reconnaissance was recast in Saint-Domingue in 1788 as Les Créoles africaines, ou les effets de l’amour. This change appears to have been made in order to ensure distance between the work’s virtuous heroine, who is to marry her beloved Frenchman after the play’s close, and the négresses (the majority of whom were enslaved) in Saint-Domingue (Prest 2021, 46–48).

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which a group of vulnerable women express their fear and anxiety at some length. Nonetheless, the choice of work remains perplexing, even when one considers that it was made on the part of a visitor to the island rather than a long-term resident.38 One explanation for why the work might have been considered acceptable for such an audience despite its overtly anti-slavery message lies in the fact that the enslavers in L’Héroïne américaine are identified as English.39 We do not, of course, have to look far for evidence of the French considering the English to be their historic and ongoing enemy and rival. If the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) was not a living memory for everyone by this time, the American War of Independence (1775–1783), in which France had fought against the British, sometimes using troops from Saint-­ Domingue, was a vivid memory for most. This long-standing opposition extended into contemporary comparisons of their respective systems of slavery and the treatment of enslaved people. Nor do we have to look very far for anti-slavery viewpoints being expressed in relation to the practices of another nation rather than the author’s own. Miller notes that, in what he identifies as ‘the first significant attack in French literature on the slave trade’—Montesquieu’s Lettres persanes (1721)—we find both ‘a leap forward’ and ‘a diversion’ because Montesquieu focuses not on the ‘French’ Caribbean but on the gold and silver mines of America, thereby linking the evils of slavery with the Spanish (Miller 2008, 64). The British, too, were inclined to condemn Spanish (as well as French) slavery. In a subtle account of D’Avenant’s masque, The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (1658), Dillon has argued that the work’s portrayal of the Spanish roasting an ‘Indian’ prince serves to ‘indicate the justness of the English presence in the New World’; as she explains, ‘only the act of 38  According to the French Atlantic Theater website, L’Héroïne américaine was performed more than 100 times in Bordeaux before 1794, including 45 times in 1787. Given Bordeaux’s close links with the transatlantic slave trade, this too is puzzling: https://frenchatlantictheater.host.dartmouth.edu/index.html, consulted 29 December 2021. 39  It is also something that was highlighted when the English version of the play transferred to Philadelphia in the 1790s where its anti-slavery message, which came hot on the heels of Saint-Domingue’s 1791 slave revolts and ongoing revolution, was less welcome than in 1787 London. In the various Philadelphia productions from the 1790s outlined by Gibbs, Yarico is refigured as Native American, as in Raynal’s text and earlier sources. Interestingly, the version performed at Lailson’s Circus in Philadelphia in 1792 was called The American Heroine and is described as containing ‘military evolutions and fights’ (Gibbs 2014, 4). The direct influence of Arnould’s version seems clear. As Gibbs notes, 600 refugees from Saint-­ Domingue moved to Philadelphia that very year (Gibbs 2014, 3).

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witnessing Spanish cruelty generates the identity of the Englishman as rightful occupant of the New World’ (Dillon 2014, 81). Voltaire’s five-act tragedy, Alzire, ou les américains (which was performed in Saint-Domingue on several occasions), is also set in colonial-era Peru.40 Of this work, Miller writes ‘perhaps most important in Alzire is the fact of Voltaire’s talking so much about slavery while eliding and avoiding the transatlantic trade in Africans going on under his nose and supported by his investments’ (Miller 2008, 73).41 Although both The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru and L’Héroïne américaine feature the theme of human sacrifice on a spit, D’Avenant portrays this as an injustice on the part of the Spaniards, whereas Arnould portrays it as just retribution on the part of the sauvages for Inkle’s betrayal of Jarika. In D’Avenant’s work, the comparison between European nations is made explicit by the fact that the Spanish are seen torturing English mariners (as well as Native Americans) and by the subsequent defeat of the Spanish by the English—something that, as D’Avenant himself acknowledged, is not historically accurate (Dillon 2014, 82). In L’Héroïne américaine, there are no French forces to defeat the evil English; rather, opposition to the English and to English forms of slavery is represented by the local sauvages. The fact that the enslavers and betrayers in L’Héroïne américaine are all English will thus have provided some welcome distance between what is portrayed onstage and what was going on in a lived reality nearby. It is more difficult to agree entirely with the conclusion that in Le Cap ‘all the spectators … unanimously support the savages’ cause’ (Ferrier 2021, 86). Certainly, the work invites the audience to do so, but it seems less certain that this will have been the case in practice. Members of the Saint-Dominguan theatre audience watching L’Héroïne américaine may have been able to tell themselves that enslavement as practised by the (Catholic) French was less cruel than that practised by the perfidious (Protestant) English and therefore to have rejoiced at the defeat of the latter; however, it would have been difficult for them to convince themselves that their own variety was free from cruelty and not also worthy of resistance and defeat by the ‘savages’. It would surely have been particularly difficult to do this when performing the experience, whatever the 40  Interestingly, the French parody of L’Héroïne américaine, which was performed in Paris only two weeks after the work’s première, is called L’Antre magique, ou le Péruvien triomphant de l’Héroïne américaine (Ferrier 2021, 66n5). 41  For a reading of Alzire in its colonial context, see Ligier-Degauque (2010).

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degree of sympathy or empathy involved. The fact that the work ends happily, or, rather, nobly with Jarika agreeing to marry the noble savage rather than the man she inexplicably loves, may have an important role to play here.42 The pantomime’s satisfactory outcome works to mitigate the resonances between Jarika’s experiences of slavery and those of the enslaved population in Saint-Domingue. The fact that Jarika’s experience as an enslaved woman is so short-lived may have allowed audiences and performers in Saint-Domingue’s playhouses to engage with—but then quickly dismiss—that experience. We turn now to another member of the troupe in Le Cap, the actor and firework maker, Henri Dubuisson, who was praised for his ‘ton vrai & naturel’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 364) (true and natural tone) in the role of the noble father.43 In November 1779, Dubuisson, who was living in the house belonging to Chinon, onetime director of the theatre in Le Cap, advertised for the sale of a pregnant, unnamed 16-year-­ old négresse who, readers of the newspaper were told, had been in Saint-­ Domingue for six years and was an excellent seamstress (AA 16 November 1779, 370). We must wonder if Dubuisson, who does not identify himself by his profession in this instance, is the father of the young woman’s unborn baby. A few months later, a notarial document dated 8 March 1780 provides details of Dubuisson, who, like Fontaine, is here identified as a local actor, purchasing an enslaved woman from a local mutton butcher called Antoine La Caze. The woman, Victoire, is described as a ‘négresse de nation Ibo’ (négresse of the Ibo nation), aged around 25 years and branded ‘Menot au cap’ (ANOM 7DPPC 5972 Bordier jeune, 8 March 1780). As was the case for Fontaine above, the document’s almost identical formulaic language conjures up the image of Dubuisson personally inspecting Victoire before agreeing to buy her, having ‘déclaré parfaitement connoitre lavoir vue et visitée en etre Content et Satisfait et se reconnait en possession pour par lui et les siens en jouir faire et disposer comme chose lui appartenante’ (declared to know perfectly, having seen and visited her, to be content and satisfied with her and he acknowledges that she 42  By contrast, in Inkle and Yarico, the governor of Barbados ‘saves Yarico from slavery and shames Inkle into marrying her’ (Gibbs 2014, 2). 43  For evidence of Dubuisson’s prominence as an actor, see the announcement in SAA 5 June 1773, 262, in which his participation in several roles is highlighted. Dubuisson also arranged the Chinese fireworks for a major event that took place on 15 February 1784 to mark the end of the American War of Independence the year before. See AA 11 February 1784, 104 and 18 February 1784, 118–19.

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is in his possession on his and his inheritors’ behalf that he may benefit, use and dispose of her as something that belongs to him). Dubuisson posted more advertisements for runaways than any other actor in Saint-Domingue, perhaps because he was also involved in other labour-intensive businesses. In 1786, for instance, he announced that he owned a ‘manufacture de charbon’ (charcoal processor) and was seeking the custom of goldsmiths in particular (SAA 5 April 1786, 177). Between March 1784 and December 1786, Dubuisson posted five advertisements, each of them describing him as an actor and three of them explicitly identifying him as the ‘owner’ of the runaway or runaways in question. The man named Michel (whom we met at the beginning this book) and who is described variously as being five feet tall and five foot three inches tall and branded AF features particularly prominently. He is reported to have run away twice with someone called Janvier, who is described as being of small stature or five feet tall and also branded AF, first in October 1784— as noted in the announcement cited in the Introduction to this book (SAA 3 November 1784, 716)—and then again in December 1786 (SAA 13 December 1786, 580). He is also reported to have run away alone once between those dates, in March 1785 (SAA 30 March 1785, 152). From this, we learn that Michel, like Phaëton, was a determined individual, although clearly he was returned to his master on at least two occasions. On Michel and Janvier’s second documented attempt at escaping, they are reported to have taken with them four oars. Were they planning to sell the oars or to use them to travel somewhere by water or even to set themselves up in a business of some kind, such as transporting goods or people from visiting ships to the quay? Did they—or an associate—have access to a rowing boat? During this period, we know of three benefit performances organized by Dubuisson in Le Cap: the first, on 19 June 1784, featuring Voltaire’s Zaïre and Guillemain’s Les Bonnes gens (with Mme Delozide performing the lead roles in both works); the second, on 6 November 1784, featuring Grétry and Sedaine’s Aucassin et Nicolette and one on 24 December 1785, featuring Molière’s Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and Rousseau’s Le Devin du village. Of these works, the most significant in the context of slavery and ‘slave ownership’ is Zaïre, of which the performance was separated from an announcement about an unnamed runaway by under two months. Even if he chose not to dwell on the contradictions between his choice of theatrical repertoire and his enslaved runaways, it is clear that Dubuisson

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was thinking about slavery as a theme in the theatre and about his own slaves at much the same time. The five-act tragedy, Zaïre (1732), was one of Voltaire’s most popular works. Miller has called Voltaire ‘the philosophe with by far the most vexed relationship to the slave trade’ (Miller 2008, 71). While he commented on the cruelty of transatlantic slavery, Voltaire advocated for its reform without really questioning the principles that underpinned it or his own investment in that trade via the Compagnie des Indes. Set in Jerusalem at the time of the Crusades, Zaïre tells the touching story of the love between the captive, Zaïre (who was born a Christian but raised a Muslim), and the young sultan, Orosmane, who is proposing to liberate Zaïre and make her his official Queen. Meanwhile, the Christian former captive, Nérestan, is seeking to buy Zaïre’s liberty and that of her female companion, Fatime, and ten imprisoned knights. One of the central themes of the play is the interplay between enslavement and freedom. Another major theme is displacement from one’s native land, culture and religion. Although, having fallen in love with Orosmane, Zaïre is no longer seeking her freedom and a return to France, the other French captives welcome Nérestan as their liberator and hero. The enslaved knight, Châtillon, speaks vividly of their experience of enslavement and of how this was the conscious work of the enslaver, Orosmane’s father: Pour nous, tristes jouets du sort qui nous opprime, Nous, malheureux Français, esclaves dans Solyme, Oubliés dans les fers, où longtemps sans secours, Le père d’Orosmane abandonna nos jours. (II.1) For us, sad playthings of a destiny that oppresses us, We, unhappy French people, slaves in Solyma, Forgotten in our irons, where, for a long time without help, Orosmane’s father left us to live out our days.

Voltaire is not, of course, describing the kind of enslavement experienced by millions of African and African-descended people in the context of transatlantic slavery. There is no Middle Passage and no gruelling work on the plantations, and captives taken in war were more commonly granted a degree of respect that was not extended to people captured during slave raids. Crucially, slavery here is something inflicted by barbarous Muslims— as they were depicted—on Christians.

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We know that contemporaries sometimes cross-referenced these very different set-ups in their own minds. Writing in 1782, Girod-Chantrans, for instance, likened plantation life in Saint-Domingue to the systems of governance in place in Muslim countries in the Near and Middle East: Chaque propriétaire vivant ici sur son bien, ou son fondé de procuration, peut être regardé comme un petit sultan. L’économe de l’habitation, le raffineur, l’écrivain, tous personnages blancs sont, si l’on veut, ses visirs. Les commandeurs, gens de confiance, choisis parmi les negres créoles, faits pour suivre & diriger les travaux, aux ordres des blancs, sont des especes de cadi. (Girod-Chantrans 1785, 130) Every proprietor living here on his own land or with power of procuration can be regarded as a little sultan. The plantation manager, the [sugar] refiner, the steward, all the white people are, if you like, his viziers. The slave drivers, people of confidence, chosen from among the Creole nègres, made to follow and direct the work under the orders of the whites, are types of cadi.

As Hoffmann, Dobie and others have observed, it was common in the eighteenth century to orientalize enslaved Africans and transatlantic slavery (Hoffmann 1973; Dobie 2001, 2010). As with Montesquieu’s Lettres persanes, this was a means of talking about colonialism—and even transatlantic slavery—without actually doing so and a means of considering slavery through a ‘soft-focus lens’ (Dobie 2010, 10). Above all, perhaps, it was a way of eliding French involvement in the slave trade. But such an ambiguous strategy was easier to uphold in metropolitan France than in the Caribbean colonies. The fact that the oriental analogy is made by a visitor to the colony trying to make sense of what he saw seems significant. Most importantly, unlike Voltaire and others, Girod-Chantrans (who was Swiss) does not deny the horrors of transatlantic slavery in his account. He continues, dropping the analogy: Il ne reste plus ensuite que la vile populace, negres & négresses, destinés sans distinction aux travaux les plus rudes & à des châtimens barbares pour les moindres fautes. (Girod-Chantrans 1785, 130) There remains, after that, just the vile populace, nègres and négresses, destined without distinction for the hardest kinds of labour and for barbarous punishments for the slightest of faults.

Chantrans’s account demonstrates the tenuousness of using such an analogy as a distancing device for people living in the colonial Caribbean. And

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the sense of oppression and abandonment, as well as the physicality of the chains in Zaïre, will certainly have resonated with the experiences of enslaved people in the Caribbean—something that will have been much easier to keep at arm’s length in 1730s France, when the work was written and premiered, than in 1780s Saint-Domingue. While the time and location of Voltaire’s work will have provided welcome distance for slave-­ owning theatre-goers and practitioners in Saint-Domingue, Voltaire’s audience is explicitly invited in this play to empathize—or at least sympathize—with the experiences of enslaved French people. In this way, the enslaved characters of Zaïre are not ‘others’ but, like many among the Saint-Dominguan audience, French people living away from home. The very idea that French people could be enslaved must have been troubling for the French-born audience even when the play’s principal focus was on the human qualities of love and virtue that could be shared by Christians and Muslims alike. It is interesting to ask ourselves what audience members of African descent might have made of the notion of enslaved French people. Camier and Dubois have examined the way in which, in February 1793, in the midst of the slave uprisings when discussions about slavery were very much at the forefront of people’s minds (slavery was abolished in Saint-Domingue at the end of that same year), a free black man named Jolicœur referred, in a petition reproduced in the local newspaper, to Voltaire’s tragedy (Camier and Dubois 2007). In the article, Jolicœur, who claims to have seen the play performed more than once, uses it to argue that an enslaved woman belonging to him named Zaïre deserves— along with her three black children—to be freed not, interestingly, because slavery was fundamentally wrong, but because she was ‘un modèle de vertu’ (MGPFSD 5 February 1793, 323) (a model of virtue). In response to Zaïre’s personal suffering, which he reports has increased since the revolution began, Jolicœur notes that he has found himself on more than one occasion using the words spoken by Orosmane in IV.2 of the play: ‘ Zaïre, vous pleurez?’ (Zaïre, you’re weeping?). However, the reasons for their tears are very different: Voltaire’s Zaïre cries because Orosmane is abandoning her, whereas Jolicœur’s Zaïre reportedly sheds tears because she is unjustly enslaved. Dubois has speculated that Jolicœur may have been the father of Zaïre’s children, that Zaïre might have participated in the preparation of the petition and that the two of them might therefore have discussed Voltaire’s play together (Dubois 2021, 111–12). What Jolicœur’s intriguing use of Voltaire’s play confirms is the crucial point that audience

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members in Saint-Domingue applied the content and arguments of theatrical works to their own situations, including, specifically, in relation to slavery. That Voltaire’s Zaïre portrayed a different form of slavery in a different location and during a different time period was no obstacle to Jolicœur’s goal of using Voltaire’s eponymous heroine to try to convince the people of Saint-Marc of Zaïre’s virtue and to accept her as a free woman. As Camier and Dubois have noted, Jolicœur’s goal was to avoid a tragic outcome for his Zaïre (her ongoing suffering and the possibility of her suicide—the latter reinforced by her identification in the article as Ibo, an ethnic group that was thought to be more prone to suicide than some others) by invoking the tragic outcome of Voltaire’s (Camier and Dubois 2007, paras 87, 92).44 One wonders why exactly Dubuisson elected to put on this work in 1784 and how the actor, Mme Delozide, prepared for the role of an enslaved French woman while living in French slave colony. We do not know who performed the role of the enslaved knight, Châtillon, whose account of his experience of slavery was cited above, but the actor in question will surely have had to consider, however briefly, the condition of enslavement as he spoke his text. Given that Dubuisson is described by Moreau de Saint-Méry as excelling in the role of the noble father, it is likely that he played the role of the imprisoned—and suffering—hero, Lusignan, who later turns out to be the father of both Zaïre and Nérestan. It was not only white theatre-makers who ‘owned’ enslaved people who ran away. In the jail list for Port-au-Prince, published in the Affiches américaines on 4 February 1790, we read about an enslaved individual called Isidore ‘se disant appartenir à la Dlle Minette’ (64) (claiming to belong to Mlle Minette). No further information about Isidore is provided. We know that Minette was a descendant of enslaved people on her mother’s side and also that her mother, a free woman, owned a house with a slave hut (Camier 2005, 4638). We also know that the geographer, Louis Alexandre Longuet, left two young enslaved women to Minette in 1786, whom she may have kept on as domestic servants or sold on to others (Rogers and King 2012, 382, 382n). Based on a sample of notarial records, King 44  A runaway advertisement submitted by a wigmaker in Le Cap for a woman of African ancestry (although she is labelled ‘Congo’ rather than ‘Ibo’) called Zaïre, formerly belonging to Zabeau ‘Mulâtresse libre’ (i.e. Zabeau Bellanton) was published in SAA on 22 June 1776, 300b. Her age in 1776 is given as around 20 years, which would make her approaching 40 years (the given age of Jolicœur’s Zaïre) in 1793. However, Zaïre was a relatively common name for enslaved women, so the match is far from certain.

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estimates that the free coloured population of Saint-Domingue ‘owned’ approximately 30% of enslaved people in the colony; he also demonstrates how the free coloured population tended to follow different patterns in ‘slave ownership’ (notably with regard to ethnicity, place of birth and sex, as well as occupation and the likelihood of manumission) from the white population (King 2001, 81–120). The work in which we know Minette performed that is closest in time to Isidore’s arrest, La Répétition interrompue, is discussed in the ‘New Citizens’ chapter. But it is worth noting here some of the roles that Minette performed in Port-au-Prince in the 1780s that are of relevance to this chapter. Memelsdorff provides a subtle reading of Minette’s participation as Célimène in performances of Dalayrac and Desfontaine’s L’Amant statue, and the particular significance of the work’s flute-playing ‘statue’ (who is really Célimène’s lover in disguise), which also echoes and rewrites her performance as, notably, the animated statue, Galatée, in Rousseau’s Pygmalion (Memelsdorff 2021, 284–85). Memelsdorff speculates that one or more of the flautists who will have played in performances of L’Amant statue in Saint-Domingue may have been enslaved or formerly enslaved—something that will have brought added resonance to the work’s presentation of mechanized animation, particularly in the context of a society that continued to question whether or not enslaved people were actually human in the same way that white people were, complete with a soul. As Memelsdorff points out, Célimène is particularly moved by the teasing suggestion that her statue has a soul (Memelsdorff 2021, 288–89). More overt links with slavery are found in Piis and Barré’s opéra-­ comique in vaudevilles, Les Voyages de Rosine, in which Minette performed in December 1784. The performance was on a double bill with another opéra-comique, Blaise et Babet by Boutet de Monvel and Dezède, at a benefit event organized by Minette herself. Minette’s advertisement in the press emphasizes the novelty of Les Voyages de Rosine, its success in France and the authors’ ‘riant génie’ (laughing genius). We cannot be sure how sincere Minette’s claims to be able to laugh at a work that features slavery, a desert island and a fear of cannibals, as well as female sexual coercion, really are, but they do appear to confirm that, rhetorically at least, audiences and performers were sometimes supposed to take pleasure from comic portrayals of these most serious of issues. We know from the same advertisement that Minette played the role of Lucile cross-dressed as a man in Les Voyages de Rosine. The work takes place in Turkey and features

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Osmin’s seraglio. Rosine tells of how she was captured at sea and sold to Osmin. She describes her situation as ‘esclavage’ (slavery), and the seraglio as ‘prisons bannales’ (I.1) (banal prisons), but her main preoccupation is monogamous love as the women in the seraglio vie with each other for Osmin’s attentions. Much is made of the Muslim context, and the mores of Turkey are contrasted with those of France. Act I ends with Rosine vowing to escape in order to remain faithful to her beloved. Act II takes place on an island with palm trees, inhabited by some (French) people who have been shipwrecked. The older islanders sing of ‘cette isle sauvage’ (this savage island), and the solution to their woes is to drink, whereas the younger islanders must go out to hunt (and also drink). They all regret the lack of women on the island, and Dolban sings specifically of his beloved Rosine and refuses to drown his sorrows. There is, of course, one woman on the island, although she is disguised as a man: Lucile, lover of Valère. Another woman is spotted rowing towards the island: it is Rosine. She describes the islanders as ‘sauvages’ (savages) and ‘antropophages’ (anthropophagi, i.e. cannibals). She is invited to help repopulate the island in a scene that is, to modern readers, quite sinister owing to the implicit sexual coercion involved (II.5). In an interesting reversal of the situation in Act I, Rosine agrees to choose one husband from the many men who surround her, and she is initially drawn to Lucile, who reminds her of her former lover, Dolban. Having learned the truth about Lucile’s identity and fearing for her future on the island surrounded by so many man, Rosine is preparing to leave with Lucile and Valère when Dolban arrives and the lovers are reunited. Enslavement is presented as the purview of Muslims, while French people are seen to be changed by living on a desert island and in the absence of women—a situation that resonates with genuine fears about degeneration in Saint-Domingue and other tropical locations. Les Voyages de Rosine is perhaps more of a commentary on the benefits of monogamy (a supposedly French or European phenomenon) as distinct from the kind of polygamy practised by Turks or, under exceptional circumstances, by French people stuck on a tropical island away from home. The tone of the work is kept light, but the dual presentation of female sexual coercion—first the prospect of Rosine having to submit to Osmin and then that of her having to choose at least one ‘husband’ from among the shipwrecked islanders—is potentially disturbing. As with many works performed in Saint-Domingue, the audience is not given much of an opportunity to reflect too deeply on the implications of what is performed,

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and the work ends cheerfully with a gesture towards the all-male parterre of French theatres, which is metaphorically described as an island of men and the hope that Venus (i.e. some women) will join them soon—an invocation of male-female liaisons of the kind that were expected to arise in the playhouse in Saint-Domingue as in the metropole.

Instrumentalists One example of an instrumentalist who we know was associated with the theatre advertising for the return of a runaway is a man named Schubert, who organized three documented benefit performances in Port-au-Prince and Saint-Marc in 1785 and 1787. In his advertisement, Schubert identifies himself explicitly as a theatre musician and provides quite a detailed account of the enslaved girl’s physical attributes as well as (as is customary) her approximate age and her supposed ethnic group or geographical origins: Angélique, Arada, âgée d’environ 14 ans, ayant sur chaque joue un bouton de la grosseur d’une noisette, coupée en croissant, louche de l’oeil gauche, ayant sur le ventre des marques en fleurs, marronne du 2 du courant. En donner avis au Sieur Schubert, Musicien attaché au Spectacle, dans la maison de M. Faure, Inspecteur de Police. (AA 14 June 1787, 316) Angélique, of the Arada nation, aged around 14 years, with a crescent-­shaped mark the size of a hazelnut on each cheek, a squint in her left eye, and flower marks on her stomach, ran away the 2nd of this month. Please contact Sieur Schubert, musician working at the theatre, at the home of M.  Faure, Police Inspector.

Angélique’s body is the site of a number of marks. The flower shapes on her stomach are almost certainly country marks from her earlier life in Africa (she is identified as Arada i.e. sold by the king of Ardra in West Africa, although this designation was not necessarily accurate) and the crescent marks on her face may also be country marks. How Schubert knew of the stomach marks in such detail is a more sinister question. While we know that slavers often subjected their potential purchases to rigorous and intrusive examination (and that this was alluded to in the standard wording of notarial documents as seen above), the precise image of the talented Schubert examining young Angélique’s body—or having intimate knowledge of it for other reasons—draws our attention to the links

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between theatre, music, enslavement and sexual abuse. Was Angélique born with an eye condition (her squint) or did it arise as a result of physical abuse at the hands of her enslavers? And for how long had she ‘belonged’ to Schubert? More immediately, did Angélique go into hiding, try to blend in and/or seek some kind of employment or shelter elsewhere? Was she found? As a young, black woman new to the colony, she was extremely vulnerable to recapture and sexual exploitation. Interestingly, nearly three months after Schubert’s announcement was published, he organized a benefit performance of Grétry’s extremely popular and enduring opéra-comique, La Caravane du Caire, in which Ottoman-type enslavement of captured Europeans is a major theme. The cast features four enslaved Europeans—the French couple, Saint-Phar and Zélime, as well as a French woman and an Italian woman—and a chorus of slaves. It also features the somewhat comical character of Husca, who is a slave merchant and leader of the caravan. As was the case with Voltaire’s Zaïre, the work presents the suffering of Europeans who have been unjustly enslaved overseas. In the opening scene, the joy of the chorus of free travellers in the caravan is contrasted with the suffering of the chorus of enslaved travellers (although the unnamed French slave adopts a more positive outlook). As with Zaïre and especially L’Héroïne américaine, attention is drawn to the physicality of the chains that bind the enslaved people: indeed, Saint-Phar’s first stage direction even before he begins to sing is ‘montrant ses fers’ (I,1) (showing his shackles). II.5 features the Pasha visiting a slave market and selecting a number of male and female slaves for purchase. Somewhat bizarrely, in this same scene one female slave (probably the same one as in the opening scene) celebrates her life as a slave partly drawing on the linguistic slippage between real enslavement and the metaphorical ‘enslavement’ to love, which is the other main theme of the work.45 Predictably, the Pasha falls in love with Zélime, but at the end of the work, he releases Saint-Phar (who had earlier seen off the enemy Arabs) from his chains and reunites him with his long-lost father and with Zélime. The deserving French couple are thus freed by the Pasha, who is presented as a reasonable man and a friend of the French. 45  Miller notes that the metaphorical concept of political slavery in Enlightenment discourse became ‘an obstacle to the Enlightenment’s consideration of real slavery’ (Miller 2008, 65). The same might be said of love as slavery in many theatrical works of the period.

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One of the subtitles sometimes given for the work is ‘ou l’heureux esclavage’ (or happy slavery). Certainly, the work ends happily for the protagonists; they are happy because they have been reunited but also because they have been freed. With the exception of the one female slave who appears not to mind her condition too much, the theme of the unhappiness of enslaved people runs through this work and is highlighted by the repeated use of, and reference to, shackles. It is above all the use of music and dance, exotic costuming and sets and other distancing (or distracting) devices, such as the avaricious Husca and especially the happy ending, that maintains a light tone and render the work’s portrayal of slavery less powerful (and less accurate—as Wolff points out, actual European captives were usually freed only as a result of a financial transaction of some kind) than it might otherwise have been (Wolff 2016, 394). A tragedy such as Voltaire’s Zaïre (or even a pantomime such as Arnould’s L’Héroïne américaine) invites reflection and empathy in a way that La Caravane du Caire does not.

Deserter Works The final section of this chapter is dedicated to an analysis of theatrical works performed in Saint-Domingue that deal specifically with the theme of desertion. The terms ‘désertion’ and ‘déserteur’ are generally associated with members of the military: the 1762 Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française writes that désertion ‘se dit principalement des soldats qui abandonnent le service sans congé’ (is used mostly for soldiers who abandon service without leave). But they are sometimes used with reference to the enslaved population as well. Moreau de Saint-Méry cites, among others, an ordonnance from 17 March 1721 relating to the maréchaussée, which mentions ‘les Negres Esclaves de ce quartier en désertent tous les jours’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1784–1790, II, 726) (the slaves from this area desert [it] every day). A few months later, on 23 December 1721, an ordonnance used the same terminology when writing about sailors (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1784–1790, II, 799). Another in 1780 writes of ‘matelots déserteurs’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1784–1790, VI, 51) (deserter sailors), while in the revolutionary period, Polverel referred in a proclamation from 31 October 1793 to ‘de nouvelles désertions d’ateliers’ (Fouchard 1988b, 279, 356) (more workshop desertions). Most significantly, perhaps, Moreau de Saint-Méry’s account of Macandal, the enslaved runaway and alleged poisoner, who is discussed in the ‘Mitigated

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Portrayals’ chapter, refers to ‘sa désertion’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 652) (his desertion). This indicates that conceptually there was an overlap between members of the military who opted to leave their service without permission from their superiors and members of the enslaved population who left their master’s service without their permission. Both acts were seen as mutinous and considered crimes deserving of severe punishment. Punishments for enslaved runaways were outlined above; the death penalty was reintroduced as the standard punishment for military desertion in France in 1715, although it was not always implemented in practice, and on 12 December 1775 a royal ordonnance was promulgated retaining the death penalty only in the most severe cases (desertion in times of war and taking up arms against one’s own country) (Corvisier 1964, II, 694–700). Where military desertion was understood to threaten the security of the state or colony, desertion by enslaved people posed a threat to economic stability and success as well as the sociopolitical order. In terms of the number of recorded performances, the most popular deserter work in Saint-Domingue was Sedaine and Monsigny’s three-act opéra-comique, Le Déserteur. Indeed, with over 30 recorded performances (on one occasion it is not clear if the work referred to is this one or Mercier’s drame of the same title, which is discussed below) in Le Cap, Port-au-Prince and Saint-Marc between 1770 and 1789, as well as one performance in Fort-Dauphin by a group of amateurs in 1786, it appears to have been the most popular work in the colony after Favart and Monsigny’s opéra-comique, La Belle Arsène (TSD). The emphasis in the advertisements is on spectacle—on several occasions it is described as ‘orné de tout son spectacle’ (decorated with all its spectacle)—and sometimes one or other spectacular element is emphasized, usually the décor or the fact that it is a work for a large orchestra. Sometimes a particular performer is listed, including Mme Marsan as the character Louise. One announcement emphasizes the performance’s military pomp (AA 26 February 1785, 95), and the performance in Fort-Dauphin is interesting owing to its reliance on amateur actors. The advertisement for a performance in January 1789 mentions a new ending, which is intriguing given that the ordinary ending features an extended celebration of the king’s goodness. No indication is given about the nature of the new ending, and it seems likely that the author of the advertisement, a French actor called Suin, is merely trying to draw in a crowd with the promise of novelty. Significantly, no claims to move the audience in any particular way are made.

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Despite its title, Sedaine and Monsigny’s Le Déserteur is not really about desertion. The plot is driven by a bad joke that goes wrong, and Alexis ‘deserts’ because he thinks that his beloved has married someone else. Much of the opera takes place in jail, where we meet Montauciel, who sings about deserting in order to drink (II.3) and about being in jail in order to learn to read. Although the prospect of Alexis’s execution is raised and at least one modern critic highlights the pathos that is found in some scenes (Feilla 2016, 45–46), the dominant tone of work is light, which ensures that the spectator never really fears for Alexis’s life or considers what it would be like to be a real deserter.46 The king, who happens to be passing through the military camp, pardons Alexis, and the chorus sings ‘Vive le roi’ (Long live the king). If anything, the work will have had the effect of defusing the qualms that audience members in Saint-­ Domingue might have had about real-life deserters and prisoners nearby. Mercier’s five-act drame, also called Le Déserteur, offered a very different experience for the audience. Feilla has called the work one of the ‘bestsellers of the French revolution’, and with its emphasis on the experience of the oppressed, it is easy to see why it was popular at that time (Feilla 2016, 16). There are no records of it being performed in Saint-Domingue after 1786, but it was quite popular in the colony in the preceding years. We know of 15 or 16 recorded performances (as indicated above, on one occasion it is unclear if the work in question is Mercier’s or Sedaine’s) in Le Cap, Port-au-Prince, Saint-Marc and Léogane, between 1770 and 1786 (TSD). Indeed, it should be noted that Mercier’s Le Déserteur appears to have received its world premiere in Saint-Domingue (and his L’Habitant de la Guadeloupe, likewise, seems to have been premiered in Saint-Domingue in July 1785). The work, sometimes referred to in the press as Le Nouveau déserteur in order to distinguish it from Sedaine’s opera, was performed twice in Le Cap in December 1770, where it will have been given in its original version in which the dénouement features the deserter character, Durimel, being executed off-stage.47 Marchand has described this version as ‘un drame amer et revendicatif’ (a bitter and political drama) with Mercier resolutely taking the side of the little 46  According to Feilla, a pantomime ballet version of this work by Maximilien Gardel was the most popular version of Sedaine’s Déserteur during the Revolution (Feilla 2016, 48). 47  I am grateful to Logan Connors for alerting me to the implications of the 1770 performances for the ending of the work. For more on the different versions performed in France, see Marchand (2016) and Aggéri (2003).

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people—an idea to which we shall return below (Marchand 2016, 89, 90). Mercier’s concern for ordinary and ill-fated people is evident from his writings, in which he mentions the writer’s obligations towards the ‘malheureux’ (unhappy) and the ‘opprimés’ (oppressed) (Davies 1974, viii)— terms that certainly apply to the enslaved population in Saint-Domingue and that were sometimes used to describe them, particularly by visitors to the colony. Mercier’s goal was not only to portray people’s suffering to the theatre audience, but also to make that portrayal, in the form of the drame, accessible ‘à la multitude’ (Davies 1974, vii) (to the multitude). In Saint-­ Domingue, Mercier, then, would have wanted soldiers from humble backgrounds to have felt well-represented in his play; logically, he would also have wanted the work to be accessible to the enslaved domestics in the corridors and boxes of the various playhouses, although he made no comment about his work being performed in the colony. Nor did he engage with the question of slavery in his L’Habitant de la Guadeloupe, which is set in France. A notice in the press for the performance in Le Cap on 9 March 1773 indicates that Mercier’s Le Déserteur was to be performed ‘avec les nouvelles corrections que l’Auteur y a faites, en ôtant au dénouement tout ce qui avoit paru révolter la sensibilité des Spectateurs’ (SAA 6 March 1773, 106) (with the new corrections that the author has made to it, by removing from the ending everything that appears to have revolted the spectators’ sensibility). As far as we know, these ‘corrections’ were not in fact made by Mercier, but rather by Joseph Patrat, who initially modified the work for performance before a military audience in Brest in 1771. In this version, Durimel’s life is spared by a personal intervention from the military commander following special pleading on the part of a young officer called Valcourt. What is even more intriguing is the suggestion of an offended audience. As we have seen, the original version of the play appears to have been appreciated in Saint-Domingue as it was performed twice in quick succession in Le Cap and once each in Saint-Marc and Léogane. We do know that the original ending met with widespread complaints in France (where it was published in 1770) and indeed Italy (Marchand 2016, 94). One person commented that the dénouement ‘laisse l’âme dans un état pénible … c’est, en quelque sorte, le spectacle de la vertu punie; et cette espèce de dénouement ne satisfait ni la raison, ni la sensibilité’ (Marchand 2016, 90) (leaves the soul in a troubled state … it is, in a way, a spectacle of virtue punished; and this kind of ending satisfies neither our reason nor our sensibility). Paradoxically, these complaints testify to the (partial) success

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of Mercier’s strategy, which was precisely to make his audience feel uncomfortable when faced with such injustices onstage (or on the page) in the hope that they would do something about similar injustices in real life. He spelled this out quite explicitly in his essay, Du théâtre, published in 1773: ‘Pourquoi essuyer ces larmes qui coulent? Non, que plutôt l’indignation vertueuse demeure dans l’âme … que cette blessure, que la main du poète aura faite au spectateur ne se ferme pas tant qu’on verra subsister une oppression réelle’ (Marchand 2016, 91) (why wipe away these tears that flow? No, instead let righteous indignation remain in the soul … may the wound that the poet’s hand opens up in the spectator remain open for as long as any real oppression persists). Although Mercier complained about adaptations that spared the protagonist’s life, he later acknowledged that his strategy had not worked (Marchand 2016, 90). But not before the work had been performed in its original form in Saint-Domingue. We have no fewer than four announcements that mention an upcoming performance of Le Déserteur in Le Cap on 16 December 1777 (postponed from 2 December). Each of them makes the same claims: that the work has not been performed there for seven years, that it will be given in the author’s corrected version and that the ending will be like the engraving included in the published edition. According to the information provided in the Affiches américaines, the work was last performed in Le Cap as recently as 1774, so seven years is an exaggeration no doubt aimed at whetting the audience’s appetite. Similarly, the claim to be using the author’s (but probably Patrat’s) updated version is not, as we have seen, new. What is new is the reference to the dénouement being like the engraving that appears at the front of the play. If this is a reference to the frontispiece from the original 1770 edition (and reproduced at the front of Davies 1974), it features the critical moment when St Franc is unable to proceed with the execution himself and reveals to the soldiers his identity as Durimel’s father. The scene does not feature directly in the play—rather, it is narrated by Valcour in III.8. But what is important for this benefit performance, organized by the actor, Mlle Thibaudot, is that she is trying to entice the audience in with promises of authenticity and novelty. An announcement for a performance of Le Déserteur in Port-au-Prince on 10 February 1778 claims to be a local première. This may in fact be true if the ambiguously described Déserteur work, supposedly a drame in three acts and in prose, performed in Port-au-Prince in 1775, was Sedaine’s opera (which is in three acts but is not strictly a drame) and not Mercier’s drame, which is in five acts. Here the attribution is clear, and we read that

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the version in question is ‘corrigé par l’auteur, tel qu’il se joue présentement à Paris, & tel qu’il n’a point encore paru dans la colonie’ (AA 3 February 1778, 34) (corrected by the author as it is currently being performed in Paris and such as it has never yet been seen in the colony). We have already suggested that the updated version prior to 1782 (or thereabouts) will have been Patrat’s, not Mercier’s, and that no version of the play was performed in Paris until 1782 (it was, however, performed in Brest, Dijon, Lyon, Montpellier, Bordeaux and Nantes before that date). But accuracy in these announcements was less important than the rhetorical appeal of an improved version of a popular work. In February 1780, the actor Mlle Leroy announced a performance of Le Déserteur in Le Cap ‘avec les corrections du cinquième Acte’ (AA 22 February 1780, 55) (with the corrections in the fifth act), while later the same year a performance was announced in Saint-Marc ‘du Déserteur corrigé’ (the corrected Déserteur) alongside the observation that ‘on n’a jamais représenté sur ce Théâtre que le Déserteur mourant, & non avec sa grace, suivant les correction qui y ont été faites’ (AA 15 August 1780, 259) (we have only ever performed on this stage the deserter dying and not with his pardon according to the corrections that have been made to it). Although this does not prove that the Saint-­ Dominguan audience necessarily preferred the new ending, it confirms both that the first version, in which the deserter dies, was performed there and that the (or a) new version was adopted across the colony from 1773. Back in metropolitan France, Mercier’s Déserteur finally had its Paris première at the Théâtre Italien in June 1782. This marked the creation of a new reworking of the dénouement, this time by the author, in which Durimel is saved not by the whims of special pleading but by the announcement of a formal edict abolishing the death penalty for deserters, echoing, if slightly exaggeratedly, the 1775 edict mentioned above. There is no mention in either of the two announcements for performances in Saint-­ Domingue that post-date this performance of a new (new) ending. Given that Mercier’s Déserteur was premiered in Saint-Domingue, we should not dismiss outright the possibility that his reworked ending reached the colony before it reached Paris or even metropolitan France more broadly (although it seems more likely that Patrat’s reworking was passed off in the colony as Mercier’s own). This particular concern over a work’s ending supports my earlier suggestion that one reason anti-slavery plays in which the Saint-Dominguan audience was invited to sympathize quite deeply (if only temporarily) with enslaved individuals were performed in the colony was that they had

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positive outcomes. But this also raises the question of how Mercier’s original version of Le Déserteur, in particular, was received in a colony where military desertion—and especially desertion on the part of the enslaved population—was a matter of considerable concern. Even Patrat’s updated ending did not undo the work’s evident sympathy for the oppressed. In the play, the deserter, a Frenchman named Durimel, has been working for Mme Luzere and her daughter, Clary, in Germany, close to the French border, for ten years. He has not told them about his history—something that is only revealed when news arrives of the imminent arrival of Durimel’s former regiment and Durimel fears that he may be recognized. As he explains to Mme Luzerne in I.4, he fell under the command of a particularly harsh and inflexible colonel: ‘son plaisir étoit d’accabler de son autorité tous ses subalternes’ (who took pleasure in crushing all his subalterns with his authority). Durimel speaks of how his soul was ‘ployé … sous son joug de fer’ (weighed down under his yoke of iron) and that one day, when pushed to the limit, he unthinkingly raised his arm against his superior. As he puts it ‘je reconnus bientôt quel étoit mon esclavage’ (I soon realized my state of slavery). Imprisoned, he seized the opportunity to run away and in a single day was, as he puts it, pursued, denounced, a deserter, condemned to death, a stray and a fugitive. It is clear that the audience is invited to sympathize with Durimel and to condemn the colonel’s unjust abuse of authority. It is also clear that Durimel’s account of his experience of this abuse resonates with the experiences of enslaved people at the time. If we are to condemn all who push individuals to the point of revolt and who seek to recapture and punish those who have run away from unbearable situations, then clearly this applies to planters and ‘slave owners’ as well as to military officers. The play also features (unbeknownst to either of them at the outset) Durimel’s father, the military officer, St Franc, who, since hearing the news of his son’s desertion, has been deeply moved by the plight of all deserters whom he deems ‘plus dignes de pitié que de mort’ (II.1) (more worthy of pity than death). He notes that ‘lorsque le soldat déserte, c’est le plus souvent la faute des Chefs. Ils ne se mettent pas assez à la place du malheureux qui se trouve engagé’ (when a soldier deserts, it is usually the fault of the commanders. They do not empathize sufficiently with the unfortunate individual who finds himself enrolled). Even the swaggering character of Valcour (to whom we shall return briefly below) recognizes that many soldiers have been forced to join the army and have to be kept ‘sous le fouet de la discipline’ (under the disciplinary whip). Again, the

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resonances with the enslaved population, whose coercion and suffering were even more extreme, are clear. Mercier invites his audience to empathize with such people in a way that the military officers whom St Franc mentions do not. In order to empathize deeply with that experience, the audience must be shocked and outraged by the deserter’s execution. Indeed, Mercier wrote ‘je fis le Déserteur uniquement pour rendre la peine de mort contre la désertion, odieuse, exécrable’ (Davies 1974, xv) (I created Le Déserteur solely in order to make the death penalty for desertion odious, execrable). A slightly different—and more heroic—reading of this outcome is offered by St Franc, who claims that in dying, Durimel will act as a counter-­ example to possible deserters, thereby bringing increased order and stability to the state (IV.4). Although St Franc is a sympathetic and noble character, his ultimate acceptance of the need for military order in the name of the homeland is out of step with the thrust of the play more generally. It is, however, a viewpoint that might have appealed to many among the audiences in Saint-Domingue as it would have allowed them to argue that enslaved people should not run away (thereby justifying attempts at their recapture) while agreeing that ‘slave owners’ should not treat their ‘property’ too harshly (something that can easily be projected onto others). We know that the work was generally well-received at the première, which took place in Le Cap on 4 December 1770, and that this was followed by a second performance in the same town two weeks later. But it is perhaps the enslaved domestics overhearing the work as they moved between the corridors and loges who will have responded in a way that most closely resembles Mercier’s ideal spectator. Their horror at the prospect of an unfair execution and their identification with its victim will have been close to the surface in any case. Wherever they were in the playhouse at that particular moment, they will surely have been able to hear the menacing sound of the drum in V.7 (distant at first but then louder) followed by six gunshot. Indeed, their experience of overhearing the sounds of an execution rather than seeing it matches that of the onstage portrayal of Mme Luzerne and Clary, who, likewise, overhear an execution that takes place away from them. Interestingly, Le Déserteur also features a scene in which Valcour has put in place all the necessary requirements for Durimel to run away again, and the resonances with the preparations of many enslaved fugitives are noteworthy:

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Au bout du sentier qui mène à une porte de derrière, deux de mes gens affidés sont tous prêts avec une chaise de poste. Ils sont instruits de ce qu’ils doivent faire. (Il présente un papier) Cette sauve-garde servira, en mon nom, de passeport. (V.4) At the end of a path leading to a back door, two of my associates are ready with a post-chaise. They have been told what they have to do. (He produces a piece of paper) This safeguard will work in my name as a passport.

Although, clearly, enslaved people did not normally have access to a postchaise or the support of two soldiers, they did benefit from the help of others and, as we saw with Zéphyr, they did make use of paper documentation to facilitate their escape and mobility. One final aspect of Mercier’s Déserteur deserves comment here: the portrayal of sexual coercion in II.6. Valcour’s predatory designs on Clary are part of his characterisation as a young, impetuous soldier (although he supposedly demonstrates his worth later in the play by offering to help Durimel escape). However, his persistent and unwelcome physical overtures to Clary (he seizes her hand and has to be pushed away) are quite sinister to a modern reader, as indeed they are to Clary herself and, no doubt, to many women, in particular, in the theatre audience. This must have been particularly resonant for any enslaved women present who were, as Moitt puts it, ‘assaulted by males of all ethnicities in the French Antilles’ (Moitt 2001, 99). Clary makes her feelings plain, while Mme Luzere bravely and firmly points out to Valcour that his behaviour is dishonourable and cowardly, but the scene ends on a regretful note with Mme Luzere pointing out that one of the worst aspects of the war is having to receive soldiers in her home. Her words and those of Valcour, who comments ‘on n’a jamais fait tant de bruit pour si peu de chose’ (never has such a fuss been made for something so insignificant), suggest that rape is to be expected. The title of another work performed in Saint-Domingue suggests support for the deserter figure, albeit in a very different form: the one-act pantomime Arlequin déserteur délivré par les poissardes was given up to four performances (the advertisements are imprecise) by the visiting Troupe des Grands Danseurs in quick succession in September 1786. One performance was in Le Cap, and the others were in Fort-Dauphin. Although I have been unable to find a copy of this work, we know from other Arlequin works that it will have been light-hearted, witty and intensely physical rather than serious and reflective. Another work

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performed in Saint-Domingue that deals with desertion is Le Comte de Waltron ou La Discipline militaire du Nord, a French-language version by Henri J.  Eberts of the five-act drame originally written in German by Heinrich Ferdinand Möller and set in a military camp. We know of only one recorded performance during a benefit event organized by Fontaine, the theatre’s music director, in Le Cap on 8 January 1785 (AA 5 January 1785, 7), featuring an unnamed amateur in the title role. The theme of desertion is secondary here, although it is worth noting that the colonel understands the desertion of two soldiers from Waltron’s company in the following terms: ‘un homme injuste réduit deux braves soldats au désespoir’ (II.1) (an unjust man reduces two decent soldiers to despair). Although a more nuanced account of what happened is provided in III.1 (where we learn that a corporal, citing his close ties to Waltron, is more directly to blame and is to be subjected to physical punishment), it is significant both that the colonel acknowledges that desertion may occur as a result of unjust behaviour among officers and that he equates désertion (desertion) with désespoir (despair). The main theme of the play is the strict application of military rules regarding insubordination, which are the grounds for Waltron being condemned to death (Waltron himself being one of strictest proponents of such rules). Although Waltron, as a nobleman and military officer, has little in common with the enslaved population in Saint-Domingue or even with the majority of soldiers stationed there (who would have identified more closely with the two deserters), some elements do resonate with the situation in Saint-Domingue. The character of De Wille comments on the difference between military and civil mores, noting that ‘dans l’état civil, toute faute n’est pas un crime, s’excuse facilement; mais dans l’état militaire, il n’y a pas de milieu entre désobéir et mourir’ (III.1) (in civilian life, not every fault is a crime, is easily pardoned; but in the military, there are no half measures between disobeying and dying). The same might be said of the state of slavery. Indeed, part of the pathos of the play is invested in the sight of Waltron’s chained hands, which feature prominently in the stage directions on several occasions: he enters the Council of War ‘les fers aux mains’ (III.2) (irons on his hands), although he is permitted to unlock these himself until he is condemned to death and puts them back on again (III.3). Waltron’s wife comments on his ‘chaînes’ which she calls ‘les entraves du crime autour de ces mains victorieuses’ (III.4) (the shackles of a criminal around those victorious hands). At the beginning of IV.4, Waltron appears ‘les fers aux mains’, as he does again in

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V.3. Waltron dictates his final wishes in V.1, which include a series of generous and charitable bequests, and the following line: ‘je relève mes vassaux de toute servitude personnelle’ (I relieve my vassals of all personal servitude). Although the kind of servitude that Waltron had in mind was obviously not the same as that practised in Saint-Domingue, the idea of his goodness being evidenced by his choice to free his vassals on his death is interesting—all the more as this does not feature as part of Waltron’s will in the German version of the play (Möller 1777).48 This change will have had particular resonance in Saint-Domingue, where we know that ‘slave owners’ sometimes freed one or two enslaved domestic servants in their wills. As this is used in the play as evidence of Waltron’s personal virtue, it is an indirect acknowledgement of the unfairness of personal servitude of any kind (and of course Waltron’s pardon presumably means that his vassals were not freed after all). Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the advertisement for Le Comte de Waltron emphasizes its spectacular, military elements, complete with a suggestion of ‘authenticity’: Le Comte de Waltron offre une foule de tableaux & de situations neuves & intéressantes qui n’avoient pas encore été mis sur la Scène jusqu’aujourd’hui; entr’autres le Conseil de Guerre, tel qu’il se tient dans les Troupes Allemandes. Le Sieur Fontaine, ayant vu donner la Pièce en France … ne négligera rien de tout ce qui peut contribuer à son succès par l’appareil & la pompe militaire dont elle est susceptible. (SAA 5 January 1785, 7) Le Comte de Waltron offers a plethora of tableaux and new and interesting situations that had not been put on stage until today: among these, the Council of War as it takes place among German troops. Sieur Fontaine, having seen the play performed in France … will overlook nothing with regard to the set and military pomp to which it lends itself and that could contribute to its success.

Thanks to the colony’s interest in matters military and to its evident enjoyment of theatrical renderings of military themes and especially exercises, theatre audiences in Saint-Domingue were also exposed to works that resonated with the experiences of enslaved people, especially runaways, who represent a more extreme type of desertion.49  My thanks to Seán Allan and Tom Smith for discussing the German text with me.   For more on using military sources to study theatre in Saint-Domingue, see Connors (2023). 48 49

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According to its author’s preface, the three-act drame, Henriette (sometimes subtitled ou l’amante déserteur) by the female actor-playwright known as Mlle Raucourt, was inspired by a pantomime ballet that she had seen in Germany three years earlier and came in the wake of public outcry at the excessive amounts of money that had been spent putting on Le Comte de Waltron at the Comédie Française (where Raucourt was a regular performer). Henriette was put on in Saint-Domingue in Le Cap by the actor, Durosier, in February 1784, when it appeared on a double bill with a performance in blackface of Clément’s Creole parody, Jeannot et Thérèse (a work that is discussed in the next chapter). Henriette does not present a case of real military desertion—rather, Henriette, a countess, disguises herself as a soldier in order to observe her lover in his military camp; when she mistakes his sister for a rival, she ‘deserts’ and is on the verge of being executed when the truth is uncovered. The work is interesting for the various attitudes displayed in it towards military desertion. When the countess arrives in the camp, she and her lackey pass themselves off as soldiers who have deserted the allies’ army as a result of ill-treatment. The sergeant receives this news with the comment ‘C’est bien fait’ (II.2) (You did the right thing). However, when the disguised countess then deserts the local Prussian army, attitudes are much less forgiving. She appears onstage in chains (III.1) and is very nearly executed. The most significant line in the work in the context of the Saint-Dominguan audience’s capacity for sympathy or empathy comes at a moment of high drama when an officer brings the despairing Commander—who is Henriette’s would-be lover and who has just been informed of her disappearance from her home—a letter from the unidentified deserter (who the audience knows is Henriette). The Commander has no time for the unfortunate deserter, but the General, who happens to be Henriette’s father, urges him to take a more sympathetic approach: ‘Lisez, mon ami, c’est un infortuné. Vous avez des chagrins: comment n’êtes-vous pas sensible aux malheurs d’autrui?’ (III.13) (Read it, my friend, he’s an infortunate man. You have your own sorrows: how can you not be sensitive to the troubles of someone else?). In terms of the plot, the willingness to consider the fate of another person from a lower social status and read his (or, in fact, her) letter is important because this is how the Commander and General learn the truth of Henriette’s situation just in time to save her from execution. More broadly, the ability of humans—and specifically here of theatre audiences—to identify with the plight of those who are less fortunate than themselves, and of an inferior social status, is crucial to our attempt to understand how public

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theatre worked in Saint-Domingue. It is not a question that we can answer with any certainty or precision, but we do at least know that a number of works were performed—by ‘slave-owning’ people—that implicitly, and sometimes even explicitly, invited audiences to think more about the human suffering that was going on around them.

Conclusion This chapter has confirmed that theatre directors, actors and musicians ‘owned’ enslaved individuals, that some of those individuals rebelled against their status by running away and that many theatre-makers displayed their ‘slave ownership’ and wish to recapture their human property in public by publishing an advertisement to that effect, often identifying themselves as people of the theatre.50 Although this is not in and of itself surprising, our readings of jail lists, For Sale advertisements, notarial documents and especially runaway advertisements have allowed us to uncover overlooked details about enslaved individuals who otherwise do not make it into the record. The documents help to make ‘slave ownership’, the suffering of enslaved individuals and their will to escape an integral part of Saint-Domingue’s theatre history, rather than its uncomfortable backdrop. Sophie, Rosalie and her five-year old son, Judith, the unnamed négresse and her two-week old son, as well as Zéphyr, Phaëton, Paris, Michel, Janvier, Isidore and Angélique are now part of the story of theatre in Saint-Domingue (and for this reason they are each included in the index to this book). Our investigation has also allowed us to uncover further details about ‘slave owners’, whom we otherwise know only in their more positive role as theatre-makers. Some individuals such as Fontaine and Dubuisson appear to have been quite deeply involved in the local slave trade in the town of Le Cap. Furthermore, our examination of some of the theatrical repertoire put on and performed by the various theatre-makers who submitted runaway advertisements and/or traded in human beings has highlighted a deep tension between their theatrical and social lives: on the one hand, they participate in a variety of theatrical works that seem to condemn human slavery and sometimes invite sympathy with enslaved individuals, yet they 50  According to Fouchard, a notice published by a performer in Le Cap named Charpentier in the Avis Divers on 28 August 1765 asking for the return of ‘Sophie’ is the only reference we have to Charpentier having been director of the playhouse there (Fouchard 1988e, 18n1).

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are also ‘slave-owning’ people who go to some lengths to capture runaways and to perform their ‘ownership’ of other human beings in the public space of the newspaper. While one would not, of course, expect a complete overlap between any individual’s theatrical and social roles, this tension does reflect a deeper—and I suggest unsustainable—tension within colonial society more generally, which found itself having to justify and defend slavery as humanitarian and abolitionist sentiment spread in the course of the eighteenth century. We have suggested that lighter works, including opéras-comiques and various types of spoken comedy, may have served the purpose of defusing unwelcome discomfort with regard to the treatment of enslaved people by depicting jolly prison scenes and short-term enslavement at the hands of the English or the Ottoman Turks. The positive outcome of the majority of these works will also have contributed towards the neutralization of their potentially difficult scenes. It appears, too, that military figures in theatrical works provided an opportunity to explore some issues arising around slavery in an indirect—and thus more palatable—way. It is also clear that theatre audiences—and indeed theatre performers— in Saint-Domingue were at times invited to sympathize and even to empathize with enslaved characters and other individuals whose oppression and plight resonated with the local enslaved population. Two examples stand out: Jarika in L’Héroïne américaine (a role performed by Mme Marsan who submitted an advertisement for the return of Paris) and Durimel in Mercier’s Le Déserteur, particularly in the early performances that used Mercier’s original ending in which Durimel is executed. The fact that such an ending was felt to be uncomfortable and inappropriate confirms both that audiences were sensitive to accounts of injustice and that they did not really wish to see such things portrayed in the theatre in ways that brought them too close to home. It is impossible to know how any enslaved domestics (our mitigated spectators) present in the playhouse may have responded to performances of these two works in particular or how they felt watching their ‘masters’ be moved by those same performances. What we do know is that many visitors to the island were shocked by the practices of slavery that were increasingly called into question in Europe and, more discreetly, in local playhouses. In the next chapter, we turn to an examination of the portrayal of slavery and related issues in works that were composed in the Caribbean in order to ascertain the extent to which these reflect local concerns more closely or accurately.

4

Mitigated Portrayals: Enslaved Figures in Creole Repertoire

This chapter is concerned with the small—but highly significant—tradition of Creole theatre in Saint-Domingue. Creole theatre is understood here to consist of works written and set in the contemporary Caribbean. One (Les Veuves créoles) is set in Martinique and the remainder are all set in Saint-Domingue. These works are of interest as they represent a largely overlooked theatre tradition and portray (what claims to be) local life; more specifically, they are of interest here because they feature black and enslaved characters. As we have seen, French theatrical portrayals of enslaved people tend to present forms of slavery that are different from the kind on which the wealth of Saint-Domingue—and of metropolitan France—depended. Instead of featuring African people enslaved by French people in the context of the transatlantic slave trade, French theatrical works feature American Indians enslaved by the English, Christians enslaved by Muslims or Muslims enslaving other Muslims or unspecified forms of slavery in ambiguous locations.1 Enslavement in French works imported to Saint-Domingue tends to be short term and to culminate in 1  Sylvie Chalaye identifies Le Chapelier’s law of 1791, which loosened the tight regulation of France’s theatres thereby opening up the range of repertoire performed, as the moment that marked the arrival of the enslaved African—rather than non-African slaves or free black characters—on the French stage (Chalaye 1998, 109). She identifies Olympe de Gouges’s Zamor et Mirza, ou l’heureux naufrage, later renamed L’Esclavage des noirs, as the first French play to present enslaved Africans (Chalaye 1998, 90).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Prest, Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22691-5_4

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liberation, at least for the protagonists. The presentation of the suffering of enslaved people can be poignant, but it is not, ultimately, devastating. The trappings of slavery—notably the chains used to bind enslaved people—feature more as symbolic accessories or stage properties than as the instruments of torture and control that they were on a daily basis for thousands of people in the colony. This is not, of course, surprising. What is surprising, perhaps, is that so many works performed in Saint-Domingue did feature enslaved characters at all. One question that is asked in the present chapter is how Creole works presented enslaved people and their enslavers to an audience, the majority of whom were themselves ‘slave-owning’. Another is the extent to which the enslaved spectators outlined in the ‘Mitigated Spectators’ chapter may have identified with the enslaved characters that were supposed to portray them in these Creole works. The works are all broadly comic and are clearly not intended to portray enslaved people—or the other characters who appear in them—in a way that we would today recognize as being realistic. The characters in Creole works are, however, intended to be recognizable in some way to the local audience. As will be seen, claims to authenticity and accuracy with regard to the portrayal of black characters in these works were common. These will be treated with due scepticism, not least because our black characters were portrayed by white actors, sometimes in blackface make-up.2 The actors who performed in blackface ranged from the star of the theatre in Le Cap, Mme Marsan, to a series of unnamed amateurs, one of whom is tantalizingly referred to as ‘Sieur B’ (AA 28 January 1784, 60), who specialized in such imitations. Although it is an actor’s job to portray something that she or he is not, local notions of ‘black performance’ were inevitably mediated by contemporary racist views, and no doubt rendered in the comic genre by the use of racial stereotypes. On the other hand, as I have outlined elsewhere, blackface performance in Saint-Domingue, while undeniably racist, does not appear to have embraced the grotesque mockery that characterized American minstrelsy or Cuban blackface (Prest 2021).3 Although the primary claim that is made in relation to blackface performance in Saint-Domingue is one of authenticity, I argue that the principal purpose underpinning blackface 2  One notable exception to this is the performer of colour, Lise, who performed the black role of Thérèse in Les Amours de Mirebalais, discussed below. 3  For more on Cuban blackface, see Lane (2005). For a comparison of Cuban blackface and American minstrelsy in the context of colonial-era Caribbean theatre, see Lane (2023).

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performance in the colony’s Creole works was the wish to control theatrical portrayals of black behaviour particularly when exploring potentially controversial subjects. An important feature of several of the works examined here is their use of the Creole language. The claims in press announcements in Saint-­ Domingue to have chosen actors who spoke ‘authentic’ Creole are plausible as we know Creole was not the exclusive purview of the enslaved and freed population. Some members of the white population in Saint-­ Domingue will have spoken more Creole than others—as was the case for the enslaved population as well (African-born people only learned Creole when they arrived in the colony). But plenty of them will have been fluent in the language. Indeed, Girod-Chantrans noted that Creole was not only the language of the people of colour ‘mais même des blancs domicilés dans la colonie, qui le parlent plus volontiers que le françois, soit par habitude, soit parce qu’il leur plait davantage’ (Girod-Chantrans 1785, 191) (but also that of the white people living in the colony, who speak it more readily than French, either out of habit or because they like it more). It should also be noted that the Creole language was by no means fixed at this time and varied between different locations in the colony (as it still does to a degree in Haiti today). The Creole that is used for the dialogues in Jeannot et Thérèse is the language commonly spoken in the region of Le Cap—an early form of Kreyòl. One name dominates the announcements for upcoming performances of Creole repertoire: an actor and author called Clément. Camier has confirmed that he is not Claude Clément (as originally suggested by Fouchard) or the merchant Jean-Joseph Clément or his brother Jean-Baptiste (Camier 2021b, 92). It is possible that Clément was born in Saint-Domingue; certainly he had a long career in the colony, performing in Port-au-Prince (where he was co-director of the theatre from 1762 to 1767), and briefly in Saint-Marc in 1767 before he returned to Le Cap, where he had performed in the 1750s and where he remained up to the revolutionary era, when he disappears from the record (Camier and Hazaël-Massieux 2003, 140–41). According to Moreau de Saint-Méry, it was Clément who publicly welcomed people of distinction, such as the Spanish commander Galvez or Prince William Henry (son of George III and future William IV), to the playhouse in Le Cap (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 366).4 Although this means, as Camier suggests, that he was something of 4

 The texts of some of these welcome speeches are in ANOM F3 160.

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an establishment figure, his public persona is also humorous and witty, with something of the jester about it that leaves room for elements that do not necessarily support the colonial viewpoint. Indeed, as Camier observes in relation to Clément’s choice of musical melodies (or timbres) for his Creole parody, Jeannot et Thérèse—and specifically his decision to replace some of Rousseau’s music, consciously written in the ‘new’ style, with that of the ‘old’ style, notably by Rousseau’s musical enemy, Rameau—Clément was clearly indulging in ‘a bit of mischief’ (Camier 2021b, 100). With reference to Clément’s Creole works, Moreau de Saint-Méry writes of ‘quelques petites pièces à qui les circonstances & les singularités ont donné le succès du moment, le seul qu’il eût en vue’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 367) (a few minor works that met with passing success, the only kind he had in mind, thanks to their context and singularities). We know of seven works written by Clément, each of them broadly comic, many of them featuring significant amounts of music. In chronological order of performance, they are Jeannot et Thérèse (?1758), which we understand to be the same work as Les Amours de Mirebalais; Harpiminis ou la passagère du Port-Margot (1772); Le Pommier ou la ruse du village (1773); Lundi du Cap ou les recouvrements (1779); Le Retour d’York ou la fête grenadière (1782); Figaro au Cap-Français (1785) and Julien et Suset (1788). Of these, three are Creole parodies of French works: Jeannot et Thérèse is a parody of Rousseau’s intermède, Le Devin du village (or, more accurately, a Creole adaptation of its patois parody, Les Amours de Bastien et Bastienne); Harpiminis is a parody of Voltaire’s spoken tragedy, Sémiramis; and Julien et Suset is a parody of Dezède’s Blaise et Babet, whose music Clément retained.5 Unfortunately, it appears that none of Clément’s works was published, and we have the text of only one of them, Jeannot et Thérèse, in manuscript form.6 For the other works, I have mined the newspaper announcements for clues, which I have then fleshed out with reference to what is known about the lives of enslaved people in Saint-Domingue and related  For more on Harpiminis, see Prest (2022).  As Camier notes, there are two main manuscripts: the most complete, held at the National Archives in Kew, gives the 1783 version of the work, revised by the author. The other, held at the Library Company of Philadelphia is an earlier version from the 1770s. A third manuscript, also in Philadelphia, contains only the beginning of the work (Camier 2021b, 94–95). Camier is currently preparing an edition of Jeannot et Thérèse complete with its variants and musical score. Here, all quotations from the work are taken from the edition found in Camier and Hazaël-Massieux (2003). 5 6

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theatrical works. I focus on the works by Clément that we know feature ­prominent black and enslaved characters (it is likely that the other works by Clément that are set in Saint-Domingue featured enslaved domestics in non-­speaking roles): Figaro au Cap-Français, Jeannot et Thérèse and Julien et Suset. Alongside these, I examine four anonymous works: a three-act comedy written and set in Martinique and performed at least twice in Saint-Domingue, called Les Veuves créoles (for which we have a published text); a one-act comedy called Le Mariage par lettres de change ou le Négociant du Cap, which I suggest may be the same work as Clément’s Figaro au Cap-Français; a two-act comedy called Les Nègres de place ou le commerce de nuit and a two-act pantomime called Arlequin mulâtresse protégée par Macanda. I examine works featuring enslaved domestics first, followed by those that feature enslaved people associated with life on the plantations, although the division is somewhat porous. Within each section, the works are examined in chronological order with the exception of Arlequin mulâtresse protégée par Macanda, which is discussed before Jeannot et Thérèse as our knowledge of the story of Macandal will inform our understanding of the earlier work. We begin, then, with local theatrical portrayals of domestic servants.

Les Veuves créoles (Anonymous, 1768) Of the handful of local plays featuring domestic servants that will be examined here, we have the text of only one: Les Veuves créoles, an anonymous three-act comedy written and set in Martinique, published in 1768 and performed in Saint-Domingue in 1769 and 1779.7 The announcement for the 1769 performance notes that ‘l’objet de cette Piece est une peinture de mœurs de nos Colonies’ (SAA 1 May 1769, 130) (the goal of this work is to paint the ways of our colonies), which clearly indicates that what is portrayed is intended to be familiar to a local audience, albeit with the customary comic twists.8 Three well-to-do Creole widows, one young (i.e. still of marriageable age), the others old (i.e. in their 40s) are courted by the dishonest Frenchman, Fatincourt, who is passing himself off as a chevalier while seeking to marry into wealth in order to pay off his debts and  All references to the play are to Prest (2017b).  The advertisement also claims that the work had been performed in Paris the previous year, but there is no evidence to support this, and it is probably a ruse intended to attract an audience. 7 8

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return to metropolitan France. Fatincourt has befriended Monsieur de la Cale, who is the brother of the two older widows and the uncle of the younger one. The names of the main characters are carefully chosen to reflect aspects of their personality or lifestyle: Fatincourt is ‘fat’ (conceited), while one of the Creole widows is called Mme Sirotin, which evokes syrup and, by extension, sugar production. La Cale’s name is the most significant of all since it is the term for the hold of a (slave) ship—the area in which enslaved people suffered the Middle Passage.9 The symbolism of this space and the term used to designate it runs deep. A Haitian folk song called ‘Sou lan mè’ (on the ocean), which describes the Middle Passage, includes the line ‘Yo lage n anba kal batiman’ (Rasin Kanga de Wawa, 1996) (they threw us into the hold of the ship), while Senegalese writer Mohamed Mbougar Sarr’s award-winning short story about the experiences of a surgeon on board a slave ship is called La Cale and features scenes in the ship’s hold. De la Cale’s name clearly associates him with the transportation of enslaved people across the Atlantic. The cast list of Les Veuves créoles also includes ‘un domestique blanc’ (a white domestic servant) and ‘plusieurs domestiques noirs’ (several black domestic servants). The former is called Ducoulis, and he is the butler of one of de la Cale’s clients. Ducoulis drives the plot by mixing up two letters and delivering them to the wrong recipients before realizing his mistake and swapping the letters back round. The black domestic servants probably come closer than any other theatrical characters seen in Saint-Domingue to the lives of their off-stage counterparts. They serve in de la Cale’s house in the commercial port town of Saint-Pierre, Martinique. When de la Cale summons his family and household in order to announce the (incorrect) news of his having been awarded the Croix de Saint-Louis, he calls: ‘Antoine, Jean-Baptiste, venez-ici: Madame Grapin, Rosalie, tout le monde, Thomas, Ursule, venez tous ici’ (II.7) (Antoine, Jean-Baptiste, come here: Madame Grapin, Rosalie, everybody, Thomas, Ursule, everyone come here). In the next scene,  Specifically, enslaved people were transported from Africa on a temporary structure called an entrepont. As Forrest explains: ‘Carpenters would insert another deck, an entrepont between the actual deck and the bottom of the hold, that doubled the ship’s capacity and allowed slaves to be chained on two separate levels during the crossing. Only then was the vessel transformed from the innocent cargo vessel it had appeared to be into a négrier, a ship specially designed to transport its human cargo’. For the journey back to Europe the entrepont was removed from the vessel and ‘all trace of its use as a slave ship was destroyed’ (Forrest 2020, 98–99). 9

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another enslaved domestic, Victoire, is asked by Mélite to fetch some water, while Marie-Rose is rudely asked by Madame Sirotin—in a single line of Creole—to fetch some vinegar. This gives us a total of six enslaved servants: Antoine, Jean-Baptiste, Thomas, Ursule, Victoire and Marie-Rose. The stage direction that follows conveys a sense of the energy brought to the stage by these characters: Les Domestiques accourent: l’un apporte un pot à l’eau, l’autre une carafe à vinaigre, l’autre une serviette; un autre ôte le col à M. de la Cale. The servants rush round: one brings a jug of water, one a carafe of vinegar, and one a napkin; another removes M. de la Cale’s collar.

Clearly de la Cale does not need to be waited on by so many different people simultaneously. According to Moreau de Saint-Méry, visitors to Saint-Domingue were surprised by the number of domestic servants that individuals employed: Cette foule d’esclaves qui attendant les orders & même les signes d’un seul homme, donnent un air de grandeur à celui qui leur commande. Il est de la dignité d’un homme riche, d’avoir quatre fois autant de domestiques qu’il lui en faut. (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 11) This swarm of slaves who wait for the orders and even the gestures of a single man lend an air of grandeur to he who orders them about. It is a matter of dignity for a rich man to have four times as many domestics as he needs.

There is a hint of satire in Moreau de Saint-Méry’s account and more than a hint in the portrayal of this phenomenon in Les Veuves créoles. As I have suggested elsewhere, it seems significant that Madame Sirotin speaks in gallicized Creole at a moment of (comic) urgency, thereby revealing her familiarity with the language as well as her heightened emotion (Prest 2017b, 23). Towards the end of the scene, de la Cale instructs ‘les nègres’ to ‘allez-vous en, vous autres, à ce que vous faisiez, & dites ce que vous venez d’entendre’ (go away, you others; go back to what you were doing and spread the word about what you have just heard). The domestic servants were summoned by de la Cale not to wait on him but rather to hear his news in order that they can pass it on to others. Although these are silent— or silenced—roles in the text of the play, their ability to speak and spread news off-stage is of value to de la Cale. The black domestics, then, have a

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voice even if it is not one that is shared with the theatre audience. Moreover, we cannot assume, as de la Cale does, that they share his news in the way that he wanted or expected. What the enslaved domestics had just heard included the words of the letter that de la Cale believes is for him; but also the words of de la Cale’s own sister, Mme Grapin, who queries that news at some length, beginning with ‘cela me paroît bien surprenant’ (that seems very surprising to me). Their version of events when retelling them in the community, particularly among fellow enslaved domestics, might well have been more in line with Mme Grapin’s view than de la Cale’s. We learn in III.6 that the news has indeed spread, but we cannot be sure that de la Cale’s interpretation of the compliments he has since received is correct. On the contrary, his evident vanity invites us to interpret these in an ironic fashion. The domestics may thus be understood to contribute to the satire of de la Cale—something that they may well have conveyed when appearing on stage and listening to the news and to Grapin’s response to it. At the end of this scene, Jean-Baptiste is asked to find de la Cale a boat to take him to the Governor’s Residence in Fort-Royal (now Fort-de-­ France), while in III.6 Jean-Baptiste is rudely asked to bring de la Cale his uniform and, in III.9, to take it away again. All of de la Cale’s requests to Jean-Baptiste are preceded by abrupt exclamations: holà for the boat and the removal of the uniform and hé for the request to fetch the uniform. Jean-Baptiste must be de la Cale’s personal valet and the single character in the play who most resembled the enslaved domestics outlined in the ‘Mitigated Spectators’ chapter. Other types of enslaved worker are in the background to the play: de la Cale mentions Mme Grapin’s nègres, as well as her property and passenger boats in II.2, and there is also a passing reference to her nègres in III.3. Meanwhile, as a plantation owner, Mme Sirotin will have been responsible for the forced labour of many enslaved people. These difficult details are dealt with lightly in the play and are likely to have succeeded in the stated goal of providing local flavour. But their presence is important nonetheless.10

10  In a recent university adaptation of the play, renamed Des Veuves créoles and performed in Martinique in 2022, directed by Karine Bénac, the performance is framed by the enslaved character of Marie-Rose who speaks her mind to the audience. A video recording is available on the Manioc website: http://www.manioc.org/fichiers/V22054, consulted 10 August 2022.

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Figaro au Cap-Français (Clément, 1785) and Le Mariage par lettres de change (?Clément, 1785) We know the titles of two local one-act comedies featuring a Figaro character, both performed in Le Cap in the first half of 1785: Figaro au Cap-­ Français, by Clément (performed on 10 February 1785) and Le Mariage par lettres de change ou le Négociant du Cap (performed on 7 May 1785), for which no author is given. The announcement for this second work describes it as a: Comédie en un acte, dans laquelle un Amateur connu pour imiter parfaitement les gestes & le langage des Negres, remplira le rôle de Figaro, sous le costume d’un valet negre, avec un divertissement et des couplets créoles. (SAA 4 May 1785, 203) One-act comedy in which an amateur, known to be able to imitate perfectly the gestures and the language of nègres, will play the role of Figaro, in the costume of a black valet, with a divertissement and some couplets in Creole.

As Laurence Marie has noted, the character of Figaro was well-known to the theatre audiences of Saint-Domingue by this time: Beaumarchais’s Le Barbier de Séville, in which the scheming Figaro helps his social superior, the Count, win the hand of Rosine, was a feature of the repertoire from 1776 onwards, and Framery and Paisiello’s operatic version of the same play was premiered in Saint-Domingue in December 1784 (Marie 2022a, 283). News of the public première of Beaumarchais’s sequel, performed under the title La Folle journée ou le Mariage [or Les Noces] de Figaro in April 1784 (following a private performance in September 1783), will have reached Saint-Domingue some two or three months later. A series of articles in the local Saint-Dominguan press beginning on 7 August 1784 report on the evolving story of Beaumarchais’s successful but controversial play in France, thereby generating interest in upcoming performances of the work in Saint-Domingue. Our two local plays may in fact be one and the same, for they are both described as one-act comedies, were both performed in Le Cap and both feature a Figaro character. We know that Clément sometimes updated his own works, so it is possible that Le Mariage par lettres de change ou le Négociant du Cap is the new title for Figaro au Cap-Français, and I shall proceed on that basis in what follows. What is important is that it was put on during the hiatus between Figaro’s public première in metropolitan

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France and its eagerly awaited première in Saint-Domingue, which took place on 11 June 1785.11 We can be sure that Figaro au Cap-Français drew on and sought to maintain the interest of an audience that was impatient to see a different work. We must therefore ask ourselves what was known about La Folle journée ou le Mariage de Figaro in Saint-Domingue in early 1785. In the news from France section of the AA on 7 August 1784 (500–501), readers were told about the long-awaited premiere of Beaumarchais’s new play in Paris. The article highlights the crowded playhouse, the success of the play and also the difficulties its author had obtaining permission to have it performed owing to ‘des sorties qu’il a faites sur les différens états distingués de la société’ (his rebukes concerning different strata in society). The article concludes, supportively, that Beaumarchais succeeded by demonstrating that ‘il n’attaquait que les abus & ne nommait personne’ (501) (he was only attacking the abuses and did not name anybody). Subsequent articles report on a number of aspects relating to the work, including Beaumarchais’s dismissive response to female spectators who allegedly wanted to watch Le Mariage de Figaro from trellised boxes (i.e. without being seen) and the promise of more Figaro works to come (AA 4 September 1784, 569–70), as well as the ongoing controversy and the fact that the hugely popular play had not yet been printed and could not therefore be performed outside Paris (AA 2 October 1784, 637–38).12 Interestingly, this same piece also mentions the boulevard theatres putting on their own Figaro plays, and it is no doubt in a similar spirit that our play was created in Saint-Domingue. Mention is also made of Beaumarchais’s philanthropic project to support poor nursing mothers funded in part by the income generated by Le Mariage de Figaro (AA 20 November 1784, 751–751a and AA 4 December 1784, 791).13 Most readers will not have been aware of the fact that Beaumarchais, with the help of his agent in Le Cap, M. Carabasse, ‘made Saint-Domingue a major node in the smuggling operations of his company, Rodrigue Hortalez’ during the American Revolution (Burnard and Garrigus 2016, 209).

11  Given that this was under three months after the publication of the authorized version of the play at the end of March 1785, it seems likely that the version performed in Saint-­ Domingue that day was one of the unauthorized versions. For more on the performance and publication history of Le Mariage de Figaro, see Brown (2002), chapter five. 12  The reality was, of course, somewhat more complicated, as Beaumarchais only wanted his work to be performed in the provinces under certain conditions (Brown 2002). 13  It also includes details of an extra piece of text to be included in a performance in aid of nursing mothers but not in the printed edition of the play (SAA 12 February 1785, 75).

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These articles generate interest in the play while saying very little about the character of Figaro himself—something that will have left the characterization of our local Figaro, who is a black valet, more open. Were the Figaro of Le Mariage par lettres de change ou le Négociant du Cap as outspoken about social inequalities as Beaumarchais’s character in La Folle journée ou le Mariage de Figaro, this would have been highly controversial—even more so than in metropolitan France—given Figaro’s blackness and status as an enslaved or formerly enslaved man. Clément’s Figaro was probably more like the Figaro of Beaumarchais’s earlier play, Le Barbier de Séville, in character and plot function: he may have helped his social superior and (former) master who, we assume, is the merchant of the Creole play’s subtitle, to marry the person of his choosing rather than outwitting his master in a story of conflicting erotic interests (as in Le Mariage de Figaro). In Le Barbier de Séville, Figaro is living as a free agent who helps the Count following a chance encounter—a relationship that might have been rendered in a Saint-Dominguan context as that between a domestic servant who is now living as a free individual, perhaps without official documentation, and his former master. He will not have had to protect his own wife from the unwelcome overtures of his master—something that, while highly topical in Saint-Domingue, is unlikely to have been considered sufficiently amusing for the theatre audience in Le Cap to enjoy as a central plot device. Above all, he will surely not have vocalized metropolitan Figaro’s more outspoken comments on the injustices of the class system, notably in the monologue in V.3. Nor will he have expressed the sentiments hinted at in the lines from III.5 in which Figaro, in response to the Count’s attempts at pigeon-holing him as a devious valet, asks how many seigneurs surpass (or even meet) the expectations of their reputation—a riposte that, as Beaumarchais himself notes in his (first) preface to the published version of the play, regularly produced a murmur from the expensive seats in the loges. Marie has suggested that Le Mariage par lettres de change ou le Négociant du Cap is an adaptation of Philippe Poisson’s one-act verse comedy, Le Mariage fait par lettre de change (1735), which is set in an island in Canada—then a French colony—and features a rich merchant, Cléon, and his valet, Frontin (Marie 2022, 284).14 Cléon has fallen in love with Hortance, but is also committed to marrying an unknown wife who is being sent over from France in an arrangement made entirely by letter,  CÉSAR also lists an unpublished Mariage par lettre de change by d’Alençon, from 1723.

14

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specifically by lettre de change (promissory note). As Frontin observes, Cléon treats his future French wife like a commodity that can be returned if it is not up to scratch. The plot is thin and improbable: Hortance turns out to be the unknown wife, while a previous fiancée, thought to have drowned in a shipwreck, who appears unexpectedly, turns out to be the former lover of Cléon’s friend, Philinte. The notion of a marriage arranged by promissory note does, no doubt, owe a debt to Poisson, whose comedy will also have provided material for the portrayal of the successful merchant. However, the role of the servant, Frontin, in Poisson’s comedy is minimal: he acts as expositor at the beginning and introduces the final divertissement at the end. By contrast, the emphasis in the advertisement for Le Mariage par lettres de change ou le Négociant du Cap is on Figaro who must, surely, have driven the plot or at least have provided its energetic focus, as the Figaro character does in Le Barbier de Séville.15 What, then, are the implications when an ingenious white barber cum valet in a European context becomes an ingenious black valet in the context of colonial Saint-Domingue? In a sense, our black Figaro (if our suppositions are correct) is the perfect servant, who helps his master achieve his marital goals. But the dependence of the merchant-master on his black domestic may also have been slightly troubling for some in a slave colony. Moreover, Figaro’s intelligence—and especially his cunning—is potentially problematic: ‘slave owners’ in Saint-Domingue wanted capable domestics, but they were afraid of domestics who might use their capabilities against them. This circle may have been squared by the farcical tone of the work and above all by the fact that Figaro was played not by a black actor, enslaved or free, but by a white actor in disguise. Although there is no explicit mention of blackface make-up, we are told that the actor in question assumed other elements of blackface performance, including gesture, language and costume. Blackface performance in  local works in Saint-Domingue allowed the white population to control theatrical portrayals of black behaviour and to fashion it in ways that they found entertaining and, more importantly, non-threatening (Prest 2021). Although it is claimed that the amateur (a term that simply indicates that the person was not a regular member of a troupe) playing the role is known for the ‘accuracy’ of his imitation, we can be sure that it was the 15  Another possible influence is Beaumarchais’s own Les Deux amis ou le négociant de Lyon or even Le Négociant de Bordeaux à Paris by Dampierre de la Salle, both performed in Saint-Domingue.

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unthreatening nature of his performance that was more important. Had accuracy been the primary goal, the troupe could have employed a black performer; instead, they chose an amateur (possibly the same amateur who performed some or all such roles discussed below) who impersonated the bodily movements and speech of black people as seen and heard by white people. The work clearly featured some Creole verse in the final divertissement, but it appears that the main language of the work (which was otherwise written in prose) is French. Our black valet is only superficially related to the real enslaved domestics who will have glimpsed and overheard him from the corridors and boxes of the theatre in Le Cap. He offered a happy portrayal of the relationship between master and (enslaved) servant in a world that was set explicitly in Cap-Français, but also very remote from it.

Arlequin mulâtresse protégée par Macanda (Unknown, 1786) Turning now to non-domestic slaves and plantation life, we begin with an especially intriguing local work: the two-act pantomime called Arlequin mulâtresse protégée par Macanda, put on by the white, Creole actor and theatre director, Acquaire.16 The work has sometimes been attributed to Acquaire, but there is no indication in the announcements that he is its author—only that he arranged for it to be staged at his benefit performance. Acquaire spent his whole life in the colony and performed regularly throughout the 1770s and 1780s, mostly in his hometown of Port-au-Prince, where he became director of the theatre in 1787. We know of only one proposed performance of Arlequin mulâtresse protégée par Macanda, in Port-au-Prince on 21 March 1786, on a double bill with Mailhol’s four-act comedy, Ramir. The three announcements in the press, each of them slightly different, reveal little about the pantomime, whose text we do not have. In the first announcement, it is described simply as ‘une grande Pantomime en deux actes’ (AA 4 March 1786, 113) (a grand pantomime in two acts); in subsequent announcements on 11 and 18 March, it is called ‘une Farce-Pantomime’ (126, 137) (a farce-pantomime). 16  It is possible that the locally composed work, Arlequin restaurateur chez les halles, featuring the visiting French funambulist nicknamed ‘le petit diable’ (SAA 23 August 1786, 436) may have been set in Saint-Domingue as well.

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We can approach Arlequin mulâtresse from two main angles: first, what we know about Arlequin works, especially pantomimes, and second, what we know about Macanda or, rather, Macandal, who was a real-life figure with very specific resonances in colonial Saint-Domingue. Arlequin is understood as a theatrical forerunner of Figaro, whom we examined briefly above: both are valet figures who usually outwit their masters or other rivals. Arlequin (Arlecchino in Italian and Harlequin in English), whose origins lie in the Italian commedia dell’arte tradition, is best-known for his costume featuring a colourful geometric pattern, perhaps to suggest clothing made of rags or patches, and his wooden bat (or ‘slapstick’), which can be used to beat people or, sometimes, to perform magic. Another important part of his costume is his black mask, usually a half-mask, which may originally have been a marker of class, denoting the tanned skin of a labourer (O’Brien 2014, 404), but which assumed new significance in the age of the transatlantic slave trade. Arlequin is characterized by his wit and resourcefulness, and often by his love for Colombine. He often finds himself in conflict or competition with another man, or in another difficult situation from which he must escape. Arlequin is frequently transformed into something or someone else; sometimes he transforms others or even inanimate objects using magical powers granted to him by a superior magical being. Alongside the extremely physically agile Arlequin of pantomime and other genres that prioritize physicality—and sometimes song—over text, some Arlequin figures appeared in more literary works as well. We have records of no fewer than 23 works featuring Arlequin in their title being performed in Saint-Domingue (TSD). These range from spoken dramas for which we have the complete text, such as Marivaux’s one-­ act prose comedy, Arlequin poli par l’amour, to unattributed works, such as Arlequin musicien, many of which will only ever have existed as outlines or summaries on which to base semi-improvised performances. Many of the Arlequin pantomimes were put on by visiting performers who specialized in such works, including the conjurer, Pinel, and his troupe, which included his wife, in 1785–1786 and Alexandre Placide, who performed in Saint-Domingue with members of the Danseurs du roi in 1789, before going on to manage theatres in Charleston between 1794 and 1812 (Sodders 1983). Pinel was in Port-au-Prince in Spring 1786, where he and his wife performed the pantomime Arlequin magicien, which they had previously put on in Le Cap in October 1785. It appears that they had originally planned two performances of the work in Port-au-Prince but

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that only one of them took place (on 3 March 1786). The work is described as a ‘Pantomime à machine[s]’ (machine pantomime or pantomime with machines), featuring Mme Pinel as Colombine and ‘Arlequin des Sauteurs’ (a reference to a performer who specialized in acrobatics) in the lead (AA 18 February 1786, 86). It also featured ‘un Paillasse nouvellement arrivé de France’ (AA 25 February 1786, 100) (a clown recently arrived from France).17 This rendering of a magical Arlequin story almost certainly provided inspiration for Acquaire’s local magical Arlequin work, which was supposed to be performed some two to three weeks later. We cannot be sure that the version of Arlequin magicien performed in Saint-Domingue was the extant one published in 1739, but we can be confident that it will have been along broadly similar lines. The published Arlequin magicien features a fairly standard love plot, with Arlequin and Colombine mutually in love, but threatened by Arlequin’s rivals, Pierrot, Mezzetin and Scaramouche (who, although complicit in their plot to undo Arlequin, are also rivals with each other for Colombine’s recognition). The work features a doctor who is Arlequin’s former master and a magician.18 In the prologue, the doctor agrees to help Arlequin in his quest to overcome his three rivals and summons a demon from hell who grants Arlequin special magical powers. The doctor then conjures up a magic wand for Arlequin. Arlequin’s supernatural powers are clearly very effective: in the course of his interactions with his rivals, Arlequin’s head is cut off by Pierrot, but he is still able to speak and then disguise himself as a woman, a feudal lord, a monkey and a dog. Returning to Arlequin mulâtresse protégée par Macanda, its subtitle indicating that Arlequin was protected by something highlights a common trope in French pantomime whereby Arlequin (or another figure) traditionally benefitted from the intervention of a frightening but benevolent (at least to him) being with magical powers. Numerous Arlequin works performed in France feature the words ‘Arlequin protégé par’ in their title or subtitle, including Arlequin protégé par la fortune, Arlequin protégé par la magie, Arlequin protégé par le diable boiteux, Arlequin 17  A paillasse was a costumed clown or fool character, who often beats a drum in order to attract the audience’s attention. 18  The doctor claims to have recently returned from America, where he was among the ‘Toupinamboux’ and the ‘Margajats’. The Tupinambá were south American Indian people who lived on the East Coast of present-day Brazil; the term Margajat can also mean the people of Brazil (as well as rascals or tricksters or, when describing language, gibberish).

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protégé par Nostradamus, Arlequin protégé par Plutus, Arlequin protégé par Vulcain and Arlequin protégé par le diable. In Bomier’s Les Deux génies, ou Arlequin protégé par Oromaze (1815), for instance, Oromaze, who is described as ‘génie du bien’ (I.16) (the good genie) intervenes when Arlequin is in difficulty, giving him a blue feather which, when placed on his helmet, will enable him to beat his rival, Arthur (who is himself protected by a talisman) in combat. It is less common for Arlequin to feature in the feminine form in the title of a work (other examples include Arlequin, fille malgré lui, Arlequin bohémienne and Arlequin sultane favorite) but quite common for him to be transformed into (or to disguise himself as) a woman in the course of a work. Indeed, feminized titles seem to refer precisely to Arlequin’s temporary disguises or transformations: in Arlequin sultane favorite, he is disguised as a woman for only a small portion of a much longer work. In Arlequin, fille malgré lui, the situation is more prolonged and more complex as both Arlequin and Colombine, who is here mutually in love with a character called Léandre, move back and forth between male and female roles: when wearing a ring given to Léandre by a frightening but ultimately sympathetic magician in the work’s prologue, Arlequin takes on the form of Colombine; Colombine, similarly, looks like Arlequin when she wears another such ring.19 In one noteworthy scene (III.2), Arlequin appears as himself, while Colombine also appears as Arlequin alongside him. It seems likely, then, that Arlequin only appeared disguised as—or magically transformed into—a mulâtresse for part of Arlequin mulâtresse. The most intriguing aspect of the title of Arlequin mulâtresse protégée par Macanda is the reference to Macandal—a real person who had been an enslaved worker on a plantation in Limbé, in the Northern Province of Saint-Domingue. Like so many others, he suffered a life-changing injury working on the plantation and had to have his hand cut off after it became caught in a mill. Macandal was then given the job of animal keeper and ran away. As a fugitive, Macandal was linked at the time with the fatal poisoning of over 6000 people, both white and black, in Saint-Domingue between 1757 and 1758, when he was publicly executed in Cap-Français. In order to better understand this figure, we shall draw on two contrasting accounts of his life: first, that of Caribbean historians, Burnard and Garrigus, which is the most nuanced and the most accurate to date, and second, that of Moreau de Saint-Méry, which is less accurate and less  Pierre-François Biancolelli’s version is reproduced in Rubellin (2005, 39–81).

19

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nuanced, but which takes us closer to what Acquaire and the majority of his audience thought they knew about this legendary figure. Burnard and Garrigus set the Macandal affair alongside a slave uprising known as Tacky’s Revolt in Jamaica (1760), emphasizing the importance of both events having taken place during the Seven Years’ War. The authors draw our attention to contemporary testimony from an enslaved witness indicating that Macandal’s plan was not in fact to poison the white population but rather to use magic powders to make them free their enslaved workers. When enough black people had been freed, they could then take on the white population. Burnard and Garrigus argue that a naval blockade caused a food crisis, concluding that ‘the poisoning victims were probably killed by spoiled flour, not by a network of African poisoners’ (Burnard and Garrigus 2016, 103). They also argue that one reason Macandal, who may have been from West Central Africa (rather than West Africa), was seen as particularly frightening by the colonists was that ‘his spiritual practices differed from those of other accused Africans, by including Christian symbols’ (Burnard and Garrigus 2016, 103). Specifically, they see Macandal as ‘a charismatic leader in a Congo-influenced tradition, part of a fundamental shift in the black culture of Saint-Domingue. He was a nganga in the Congo tradition or a healer, diviner, or judge who made minkisi objects out of spiritually charged materials and helped nonspecialists to use them’ (Burnard and Garrigus 2016, 111). Moreau de Saint-Méry’s account is more hyperbolic: Pendant sa désertion il se rendit célèbre par des empoisonnemens qui répandirent la terreur parmi les nègres, & qui les lui soumit tous. Il tenait école, ouverte de cet art exécrable, il avait des agens dans tous les points de la Colonie, & la mort volait au moindre signal qu’il faisait. Enfin dans son vaste plan, il avait conçu l’infernal projet de faire disparaître de la surface de Saint-Domingue tous les hommes qui ne seraient pas noirs, & ses succès qui allaient toujours croissans avaient propagé un effroi qui les assuraient encore. La vigilance des magistrats, celle du gouvernement, rien n’avait pu conduire jusqu’aux moyens de s’emparer de ce scélérat, & des tentatives punies d’une mort presque soudaine, n’avait servi qu’à terrifier encore plus. (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 652) During his desertion he became famous by the poisonings that spread terror among the nègres and which made them all submit to him. He gave public ­lessons in this execrable art, he had agents all over the colony and death came at his slightest bidding. Ultimately in his great plan he had devised the infernal project to make all men who were not black disappear from the surface of Saint-­

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Domingue, and his successes, which grew and grew, had made widespread a fear that ensured their continuation. The vigilance of the magistrates, of the government, nothing had been able to lead to the means of capturing this villain and attempts, punished by an almost immediate death, had only served to terrify people even more.

Moreau de Saint-Méry goes on to tell of how one day Macandal was participating in a calenda on another plantation in Limbé and became ‘privé de sa raison’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 652) (deprived of his reason) as a result of all the tafia he had drunk and perhaps also of the dancing. He was arrested, managed to escape but was recaptured and condemned to be burned alive on 20 January 1758. Macandal, who had repeatedly claimed that he would manage to escape capture by assuming different physical forms, eventually found himself chained to a stake that was rotten. In his agitation, Macandal pulled up the stake and tumbled over the pyre to cries of ‘Macandal sauvé’ (Macandal is saved). Chaos ensued and Macandal was eventually tied to a plank and thrown back into the fire. According to Moreau de Saint-Méry, Macandal became a shorthand term for poison or poisoner, and it was believed by many enslaved people that Macandal did not die in January 1758. A heroic version of Macandal’s story was retold in the Mercure de France in 1787, one year after Acquaire’s pantomime (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 653). It is not difficult to see how Macandal’s dramatic story might have appealed to theatre-makers, and one particular element of Moreau de Saint-Méry’s account has obvious resonances with Arlequin pantomimes: Macandal’s claims to be able to transform himself into other forms when needed and specifically that he would become a fly in order to escape the flames of his pyre (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 652). This is precisely the kind of improbable metamorphosis that Arlequin regularly undergoes in order to escape from a tight spot. But we must also ask ourselves why the theatre audience in Saint-Domingue might have wanted to see a work that ran the risk of reminding them of the exceptional power and intimidating authority of an enslaved African runaway. O’Brien’s reading of Georgian pantomime may help us understand this choice. For him, pantomime offered ‘an excellent means of containing political content, invoking contemporary issues in the culture and in the state for the purpose of domesticating them in a world of myth and fantasy’ (O’Brien 2014, 391). The time lapse of around 20  years between Macandal’s alleged reign of terror and the performance of this work will also have

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helped defuse its sinister implications for the white population in particular. It no doubt also helped to cement Macandal as a legendary figure. If, as is likely, Macandal’s plot function was similar to that of Oromaze, mentioned above, he may have given Arlequin a macandal (a small bound object—or fetish—with supernatural power) that he used to turn him into a mulâtresse. Most importantly, Macandal will have been domesticated and contained by his presentation here as a force for light-hearted entertainment. But what are we to make of Arlequin’s appearance not just as a female character but specifically as a mulâtresse? And how would the mulâtresse’s specificity as a female character or type have been referenced onstage? Was the mulâtresse conceived of in primarily racial terms, perhaps using Arlequin’s mask to emphasize colour, or was she understood primarily in terms of her sexual allure and clothing? As O’Brien has noted, Arlequin’s black mask became increasingly racialized in European works in the course of the eighteenth century. O’Brien highlights a British work called Harlequin Mungo or a Peep into the Tower (1787) in which Harlequin is enslaved but ‘wins the daughter of a West Indian planter’ (O’Brien 2014, 403–04). The pantomime ends with the highly unusual prospect of an interracial marriage. For O’Brien, Harlequin Mungo was ‘designed to engage the possibility of miscegenation in a way that would blunt its force’ by drawing on the stereotypes, timelessness and repetition inherent in the pantomime genre (O’Brien 2014, 405)—that is by making it so familiar as to be unremarkable. Another British work, Furibond or Harlequin Negro (Drury Lane, 1807), can convincingly be read as a response to Britain’s decision to withdraw from the slave trade that year, but no such anti-­ slavery message can be assumed in the case of Arlequin mulâtresse. Given the close association in colonial writings of the mulâtresse with sexual desirability and alleged sexual deviancy, it seems likely that this was the primary way in which the role featured here—something that will have been rendered by costume and stage play. One of the stage directions in Arlequin, fille malgré lui is ‘Arlequin, habillé comiquement en Colombine’ (II.3) (Arlequin comically dressed as Colombine). The humour and interest of Arlequin being transformed into a lavishly dressed woman of colour in Arlequin mulâtresse would thus have been related to that of his portrayal as a hyper-sexualized figure who was a common object of desire for the white heterosexual male audience. Arlequin, fille malgré lui features a number of allusions to what Colombine-as-Arlequin lacks (i.e. a penis)

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despite her convincing imitation of his behaviour,20 while the doctor’s misdirected overtures to Arlequin-as-Colombine are a source of easy humour. It seems likely that similar opportunities and effects were exploited in Arlequin mulâtresse as well. Arlequin’s transformation into a mulâtresse will have been made possible thanks to the powers of Macandal, probably by means of a talisman or fetish. The situation needing to be resolved would have been set up in Act I; Arlequin may have been granted his additional powers by Macandal in the same act (as in Les Deux génies, ou Arlequin protégé par Oromaze) or possibly in a prologue (as in Arlequin magicien and, via the figure of Léandre, in Arlequin, fille malgré lui). He will certainly have used them successfully in Act II.  Although magic was a sensitive topic in Saint-­ Domingue, particularly for the white population, the ways in which Arlequin works drew on frightening figures with occult powers in order to ensure that the well-matched couple could be united may have made this form highly appropriate for containing the Macandal legend.21 A comparison with Arlequin, fille malgré lui, in which the female character whom Arlequin temporarily resembles is also the young woman (Colombine) whose marriage to an appropriate suitor (Léandre) is the ultimate goal of the work (and the justification for the magician’s intervention) raises an intriguing possibility: that Arlequin mulâtresse might have culminated in the prospect of a mulâtresse marrying an ‘appropriate’ suitor. If this was the case, then we must ask ourselves what might have been considered an appropriate suitor? Is it conceivable that the work might have presented (and implicitly condoned) an interracial marriage between a Léandre figure and a mulâtresse figure? The possibility should not be ruled out. A public letter dated the day after the proposed performance, published in the local newspaper, makes it clear that things did not go according to plan: Au Rédacteur M.  Divers obstacles m’ont empêché de faire donner la Pantomime d’Arlequin Mulâtresse, protégée par Macanda. Il est de toute justice de convenir que dans la Farce qui a été jouée à mon bénéfice, il n’y a qu’une ou deux situations prises dans le programme qui m’avait été remis; les Acteurs, 20  One manuscript version of the work has these innuendos crossed out (Rubellin 2005, 43–44). 21  See Adams (2023) for a discussion of the resonances of magical practices in Dutch Harlequinades when they were performed in colonial Suriname.

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qui devaient être chargés des rôles n’ont pu s’en acquitter. J’ai été obligé de les donner précipitamment à d’autres; les airs choisis pour les scènes faisaient contraste avec ce qui se passait au Théâtre, parce que tout était changé & a été plus mal qu’on ne le peut imaginer. Vous m’obligerez infiniment, M. de publier cette Lettre, pour m’excuser auprès du Public de lui avoir montré une bêtise aussi informe que celle qui a été représentée hier. J’ai l’honneur d’être, &c. Au Port-au-Prince, le 22 Mars 1786. Signé, Acquaire. (SAA 25 March 1786, 158) To the editor Sir, Several obstacles prevented me from putting on the pantomime Arlequin Mulâtresse, protégée par Macanda. It is entirely fair to admit that in the farce that was performed for my benefit, there were only one or two situations taken from the programme that I had been given. The actors who were supposed to have taken the roles were unable to perform them. I was obliged to give them in haste to others; the music chosen for the scenes contrasted with what was happening on stage because everything had been changed and was worse than one can imagine. You will oblige me greatly, Monsieur, by publishing this letter so that I may excuse myself to the public for having put on such an incoherent mess as the one that was performed yesterday. I have the honour to be etc. Port-au-­ Prince, 22 March 1786. Signed Acquaire.

Both the original cast of Arlequin mulâtresse and the replacement cast are something of a mystery. The letter seems to confirm that Acquaire, who we know could sing, was an accomplished dancer and had performed the lead role in other pantomimes around this time, did not cast himself in the physically demanding role of Arlequin. The fact that the original actors for this work were unavailable suggests that they were not regular troupe members and must have been amateurs or, more probably, visitors. This hypothesis is supported by the presence in the colony at this time of Pinel and Mme Pinel as well as the troupe of acrobats whose upcoming performance is mentioned at the end of the first advertisement for Arlequin mulâtresse. In the AA of 18 February 1786 (the edition in which Arlequin magicien was first advertised) we find two further clues as to what might have happened. In the article, which reports on another benefit performance for Acquaire that had taken place on 7 February that year, we learn that Acquaire had brought a substantial audience into the playhouse under what turned out to be false pretences, with the performance falling far short of what was promised in the handbills that had been widely circulated. Among other things, the article reports that the dances were

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minimal and performed with reduced numbers, the supposedly flamboyant décor was disappointing and there were calls for the performance of On fait ce qu’on peut et non pas ce qu’on veut, which opened the ball that followed, to be stopped. It would seem, then, that Acquaire had a habit of promising more than he could deliver. Moreover, the article ends with an observation about working with Pinel, noting, with regard to another benefit performance on 14 February, that: Les tours d’esca[r]motage que le Sieur Pinel devait faire entre les deux Pièces qui ont composé le Spectacle que la Dlle Langlois a donné à son bénéfice Mardi dernier, n’ont pu avoir lieu, parce que la plupart des Acteurs ont refusé de paraître en scène en même-temps que le Sieur Pinel. (AA 18 February 1786, 87) The magic tricks that Sieur Pinel was supposed to perform between the two works that made up the performance that Mlle Langlois gave for her benefit last Tuesday could not take place because most of the actors refused to appear on stage at the same time as Sieur Pinel.

It seems likely, then, that, in the wake of Arlequin magicien, Acquaire invited Pinel and the acrobats to devise—and then perform in—a localized Arlequin work for his benefit on 21 March. However, between the agreement being made (the first advertisement for Arlequin mulâtresse protégée par Macanda appeared in the press on 4 March) and the performance, the visitors had left Port-au-Prince, owing partly to the bad feeling that had arisen between the regular troupe members and Pinel during preparations for Mlle Langlais’s performance on 14 February. But why exactly did others not want to appear alongside Pinel? Was he a difficult person with whom to work, or were some people afraid to participate in his tricks for practical or even superstitious reasons? Perhaps the prospect of performing a play about a dead magician with a live magician was too close to the bone. Finally, it is worth noting that the reference in Acquaire’s public letter to his having been given a programme suggests that Arlequin mulâtresse protégée par Macanda did exist in outline—something that is supported by the existence of pre-selected music. The fact that the replacement performers were inadequate would seem to confirm that the roles required specialist skills—those of Pinel and his troupe. The version of Arlequin mulâtresse protégée par Macanda that was ultimately performed was clearly an unsatisfactory and incoherent hybrid, barely resembling the work as planned at all. However, this does not detract from the fact that Acquaire

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planned—and seemingly had in his possession—an Arlequin pantomime that referred to one of the most famous enslaved people in Saint-­ Domingue’s history or that the pantomime was intended to show, albeit in an attenuated way, some aspects of his much-feared occult practices.22

Jeannot et Thérèse (Clément, ?1758) Nine performances of Jeannot et Thérèse (including the one of Les Amours de Mirebalais discussed below) in five different locations were announced in the local press, the first on 3 January 1773  in Léogane. However, if Clément’s account in AA 15 January 1783 is to be believed, the work was originally written and performed in 1758, before the local newspapers were set up. This would place Jeannot et Thérèse in the immediate aftermath of Macandal’s execution. Jeannot et Thérèse is a Creole adaptation of Les Amours de Bastien et Bastienne (1753)—a patois parody by Marie-­ Justine Favart and Harny of Rousseau’s Le Devin du village (1752). While Rousseau wrote both the text and the music of the source work, both parodies rely heavily on existing melodies and could be classified as opéras-­ comiques in vaudevilles. The diverse generic attributions of Jeannot et Thérèse (and of another Creole parody, Julien et Suset—see below) in Saint-Domingue are revealing of different attitudes held in different parts of the colony (Camier 2021, 104–05). Whereas in Le Cap (in the Northern Province) and in Saint-Marc (in the Western Province), the work is referred to as a ‘parodie nègre’ (black parody), in Léogane and Port-au-Prince (also in the Western Province, but in the southern part of it) and Les Cayes (in the Southern Province) it is labelled an ‘opéra Créole’ (Creole opera), a ‘parodie Créole’ (Creole parody), a ‘parodie en Créole’ (parody in Creole) and a ‘parodie … traduite en Créole’ (parody translated into Creole). This distinction between the adjectives nègre and créole, which is also made when writing of the dances that round off the work, reflects different attitudes towards black people and social integration in different areas of the colony: while the term nègre enforces notions of difference based on skin colour and, by implication, enslavement, the term créole suggests something shared and more inclusive. Fouchard, similarly, notes that in the northern parts of Saint-Domingue, people were more concerned about 22  John C. Cross’s pantomime, King Caesar, or the Negro Slaves (premiered at the Royal Circus in London in 1801) also features the Macandal story. See also the Haitian drama, Mackandal, by Isnardin Vieux (1917).

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interracial marriages than in more southern towns such as Port-au-Prince (Fouchard 1988b, 240). As we saw in the ‘Mitigated Spectators’ chapter, this distinction between north and south is also reflected in the more inclusive seating policies of the southern playhouses. Clément, for his part, humorously labels the work an ‘opuscule Négro-Dramati-Lyrique’ (AA 15 January 1783, 19). The stage directions, which are written in French even though the dialogue is in Creole, situate Jeannot et Thérèse in a particular type of location in Saint-Domingue: ‘le théâtre représente dans le fond un morne établi en place à vivres, au pied de ce morne paraît d’un côté la case de Thérèse et de l’autre côté celle de Simon’ (the set features at the back a hill that has been turned into a provision ground; at the foot of the hill there is on one side Thérèse’s hut and on the other side Simon’s). The peculiarity of this location and the special theatrical set that it requires is emphasized in the advertisement for an upcoming performance in Port-au-Prince, which notes that the production will be ‘orné d’une decoration analogue au genre, représentant une place en vivres, avec la hutte de Papa Simon’ (SAA 6 February 1781, 53) (enhanced with a set suitable for the genre, featuring a provision ground and Papa Simon’s hut). The term ‘morne’ is thought to be Creole in origin and describes a hill or mountain, usually on an island or coastal region. It had more specific connotations as well. Hills and mountains were associated in Saint-Domingue with coffee production. As Combrink puts it ‘these were typically small-scale plantations, comprising just a few cheap acres of land, which were unsuitable for growing sugar, and just a few slaves (the average in 1789 was 40 enslaved people per plantation, but most plantations had fewer than 25)’ (Combrink 2021, 28). More specifically, coffee production was associated with the emerging class of free people of colour. Trouillot notes: Pushed out of the towns and the big plantations … Saint-Domingue’s gens de couleur occupied the hills and mountains where the provision grounds gave them a first chance at wealth. … In late eighteenth-century Saint-­ Domingue, where there were freedmen, there was coffee. (Trouillot 1982, 353–54)

If the mornes were good for growing coffee, they were also good places for runaways to hide, for they provided cover and were relatively inaccessible. Several advertisements for enslaved runaways highlight the significance of the mornes. The explanation provided for a man named Adonis having run

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away is ‘parce que ce Negre habite les mornes depuis peu…’ (AA 21 May 1766, 188) (because he’s been living in the hills for a short time). Of three runaways, it is noted that ‘on croit qu’ils se retirent dans les crêtes des mornes de Mrs. Milleau & Fouché’ (SAA 15 May 1769, 152–138 [sic]) (it is believed that they retreat to the top of the hills belonging to Messieurs Milleau and Fouché); one runaway is known to be ‘retiré dans les mornes des Perches’ (SAA 10 February 1770, 72–2 [sic]) (hiding in the hills of les Perches), while others are suspected of being ‘dans le mornes de la dépendance’ (SAA 22 February 1780, 60) (in the hills of the estate) or ‘dans les environs des mornes de Saint-Louis’ (SAA 13 June 1780, 190) (near the hills of Saint-Louis). The morne in Jeannot et Thérèse is given over to a particular function: it is a place à vivres—an area of ground dedicated to the cultivation of foodstuffs such as sweet potatoes, manioc and bananas, often called a provision ground. Although the place à vivres had a very particular significance for the enslaved population, which will be discussed below, it was not the exclusive domain of the enslaved population. Trouillot also links the place à vivres with the free people of colour in their hillside plantations (Trouillot 1982, 352), while the plan for a typical indigo plantation from 1770, reproduced in François Girod’s book on the Hecquet family, has one ‘place à vivres pour la grand-case et l’hôpital’ (provision ground for the big house and the hospital), as well as multiple ‘places à vivres pour les nègres’ (provision grounds for the nègres) (Girod 1970, 60–61). Girod notes that as the Hecquet plantation was expanded in 1773 under the new management of De Wailly, more ‘places à nègres’ were added ‘pour nourrir un atelier qu’il développe considérablement’ (Girod 1970, 59) (to feed a gang that he expanded significantly). Hector identifies two main types of place à vivres within the colony’s plantation system: first, the most common type, which was cultivated collectively under the watchful eye of the master; and second, the private gardens, mostly on sugar plantations, which could include the ‘jardins-cases’ (literally, hut gardens) near the epicentre of the plantation and also ‘jardins-nègres’ (literally, slave gardens) which were situated a bit further away (Hector 2000, 174–75). The latter often belonged to libres de savanes—individuals who had not been legally freed by manumission and whose freedom was not therefore passed down the generations, but who lived somewhat independently within the embrace

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of the plantation.23 As Hector explains, the jardins-cases were located on the edge of the area given over to housing the enslaved people and would have featured small cattle and farmyard animals as well as areas for growing vegetables. These gardens were established by plantation owners in order to relieve them from their duty of providing food for their slaves one day a week: on Saturdays, some enslaved people were given a day to work their gardens and Sundays were also supposed to be a day of rest. This tradition was sometimes called ‘samedi nègre’ (literally, slave Saturday). The ambiguous status of the practice is clear from various ordonnances requiring planters to grow enough food to feed their enslaved workers ‘indépendamment des jardins à Nègres’ (independently of the jardins à nègres) (AA 15 July 1789, 387–88). Indeed, when slavery was abolished in Saint-Domingue, the popular jardins à nègres became a contentious issue—initially their continuation was guaranteed, but it subsequently came under threat. These private gardens were significant because they allowed some enslaved and freed people not only to grow crops to eat—and to do so with relative autonomy—but also, sometimes, to sell to people within the plantation complex and even in neighbouring towns. Many of the people who sold such goods at the local markets were women. The presence of Thérèse and Simon’s huts also invites comment. Although the Code Noir required ‘slave owners’ to provide food and clothing for their enslaved workers, no mention is made of where or how they should be lodged. According to Fouchard, enslaved people were required to build their own huts or cases, which were usually square in shape, and windowless with a door of approximately five feet high (Fouchard 1988b, 74, 77). The case could be for an individual (these were sometimes called ajoupas) or for larger groups. An advertisement in the newspaper for the sale of a plantation near Petit-Goâve features ten cases à nègres with thatch roofs and indicates that the property could be sold with or without ten nègres (SAA 2 February 1782, 47), which suggests that these are individual dwellings. Other advertisements describe cases à nègres for larger groups. On the Hecquet indigo plantation, for instance, there were 11 cases à nègres for 106 enslaved people in the 1767 inventory, 12 cases for 107 enslaved people in the 1769 inventory and 17 cases for 141 enslaved people in 1782 (Girod 1970, 51, 52, 57, 77). This suggests that 23  On the status of the libre de savane, see Gauthier (2009), para 7. On semi-freed slaves retaining their huts and gardens, see Moitt (2001, 161) and Geggus (1996, 268).

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there were between eight and ten people living in each case (although in practice the number may have been slightly lower as the totals included runaways and people in the plantation ‘hospital’ and sometimes even people who had recently died). Cases were grouped together, approximately ten paces apart. They were generally of fragile construction, often described as being in a poor state of repair (Debien 1974, 228). Huts were also places where runaways took refuge (Régent et al. 2015, 128). This, then, is the setting that is invoked in Jeannot et Thérèse: two huts (or possibly just one when it was performed in Port-au-Prince as described in the above advertisement), probably smaller ones, situated approximately ten paces apart (i.e. at either side of the stage), with garden plots in front. Thérèse and Simon thus live on—or at the edge of—the same plantation, whereas Jeannot appears to live elsewhere. According to Simon, Jeannot is currently in Le Cap with a mulâtresse (scene 2)—a detail that confirms the work’s notional location in the north of the colony. The characters are identified by racial background and skin colour (they are described as nègres and négresses), but their status as enslaved, freed or in between is not specified. For the reasons outlined above, it may be useful to think of them as semi-freed libres de savane. Whatever the case, the work’s plantation setting is heavily evocative of plantation life and its reliance on enslaved workers even if we do not see our characters labouring in the course of the work. Although Jeannot et Thérèse does not offer a realistic portrayal of plantation life in Saint-Domingue, the love plot that temporarily crosses boundaries of race and class and which drives the work is more prescient than it might first appear. One of the primary concerns of French administrators of Saint-Domingue and other Caribbean colonies was to prevent sex and marriage between black/enslaved and white/free people. Part of the appeal of Jeannot et Thérèse for its colonial audience must have lain in its slightly transgressive evocation of erotic or sexual relations between people of different social and racial backgrounds—a phenomenon that was something of an open secret in the colony. Interracial marriages were never banned in Saint-Domingue (unlike in Louisiana or later in France), but they remained rare (Taber 2015, 110). As Taber has noted, marriage between free and unfree people became quite a common strategy for manumission that drew on one of the provisions in the notorious Code Noir. Article Nine punished married men who had children with their slaves but stipulated that an unmarried master who had children with his slave should marry her and thereby free his slave and their children, providing he was

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the legal ‘owner’ of those children as well. This method granted the manumitted slaves full legal rights (including to inheritance) and legitimized the children (Taber 2015, chapter three). It also avoided manumission fees. It was a strategy that seems to have been adopted unevenly in different areas in the colony—being broadly more popular in Port-au-Prince and in the Southern peninsula than in the north (Taber 2015, 132–33). Jeannot et Thérèse does not address the question of manumission, but it does engage with interracial and cross-class erotic relationships. The precise crisis that must be resolved in the course of the work is precipitated by the fact that Jeannot has left Thérèse for a rich mulâtresse living in Le Cap. Thérèse, meanwhile, claims to have rejected the overtures of both a wealthy mulâtre who wears a sword (the equivalent of Jeannot’s mulâtresse) and even a rich white man. Her account of these rejections is clearly intended to be light in tone, but our knowledge of how such invitations might have played out off-stage invites us to read between the lines of her song. In response to the mulâtre’s offer of money, she explains: moi répondre oh! oh! moi conné ça vous gagné zenvie quitté moi t’en prie moi quienne à Jeannot I replied ‘oh, oh!’ I know what you want But please leave me alone I belong to Jeannot.

This response is echoed in her subsequent encounter with the white man: li dir moi comme ça procher ma fille car vous ben gentille moi répondre oh! oh! He told me ‘come close, my dear girl, Because you are so lovely’. I replied ‘oh, oh!’

If the unequal power relations between black women and free men, especially free white men, meant that many black women were coerced into accepting such an offer, refusals were not absolutely unheard of. In the absence of similar testimony for Saint-Domingue, that of an enslaved woman, called Delphine, living in another French slave colony, Île

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Bourbon (now La Réunion), in the mid-nineteenth century, may shed some light on the kinds of jealousies and rivalries that crossed boundaries of race and status in French overseas colonies. Delphine tells of the rivalry between her enslaved black lover or husband, Fortin, and a free man of colour called Coco Boyer. It is recorded as follows: Au moment où je rentrai à ma case … je me trouvais suivi par le nommé Coco Boyer. … Je le repoussai pendant une demi-heure au moment où Fortin frappa à la porte. … Coco Boyer apercevant mon mari, lui asséna un coup de pied dans le ventre. Fortin, armé d’un bâton, lui saisit le pied et lui porta un coup à la figure. (Régent et al. 2015, 179–80) As I was returning to my hut … I found that I was being followed by the socalled Coco Boyer… I rebuffed him for half an hour until Fortin knocked on the door… When he spotted my husband, Coco Boyer kicked him in the stomach. Fortin, armed with a stick, grabbed him by the foot and hit him in the face.

When asked by the interrogator if she had in fact been in a relationship with Coco Boyer, Delphine replied: ‘J’ai toujours refusé en lui disant de me laisser tranquille en lui disant que Fortin était jaloux et d’un caractère méchant’ (Régent et al. 2015, 180) (I have always turned him down telling him to leave me alone and telling him that Fortin is a jealous man with a nasty temperament). In Jeannot et Thérèse, as befits a theatrical comedy, jealousy is used constructively to bring Jeannot back to Thérèse. But behind the comic portrayal of such interracial interactions, there lay a more sinister reality. With regard to Jeannot’s rich mulâtresse, enslaved men did occasionally have relationships with free women, especially women of colour (Régent et al. 2015, 176). We also know of a love triangle in colonial Guadeloupe that is not dissimilar to one of the possibilities invoked in Jeannot et Thérèse. The evidence comes in the form of reported testimony from a free man of colour, Charles Sainte-Rose, who became the rival of a white man for the affections of an enslaved woman called Augustine.24 As Sainte-Rose explains: J’ai eu des habitudes avec Augustine … Avant sa mort, j’ai rencontré Thisbé [Augustine’s mother]: elle m’a raconté que M. Texier avait voulu en faire sa 24  See also Hunt-Kennedy’s account of the Jamaican-based planter, Thomas Thistlewood, who perceived an enslaved man called Jimmy as his sexual rival in relation to an enslaved woman called Abba (Hunt-Kennedy 2020, 57–58).

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maîtresse, qu’Augustine avait refusé, et qu’alors il l’avait assommée de coups de bâton, qu’elle avait perdu tout son sang. (Régent et al. 2015, 179) I had relations with Augustine… Before she died, I met Thisbé [Augustine’s mother]: she told me that M. Texier had wanted to make her his mistress, that Augustine had refused, and that he had beaten her with a stick and she had lost all her blood.

These accounts would seem to confirm that Jeannot et Thérèse portrayed not so much the flights of fancy of two individuals of low social status, whether enslaved or semi-free, who imagined that relationships with people from different backgrounds were possible, but rather an innocuous version of a phenomenon that could in real life go very wrong. The work may thus have acted as a temporary, theatrical outlet—and perhaps also as a safety valve—for thoughts and feelings about something that was both accepted and denied, tacitly condoned and publicly condemned in the colony. If colonies are the ‘safety valves for metropolitan excess’ (Dayan 1995, xv–xvi), then Creole theatre may have acted as a local safety valve for the safety valve. The fact that Jeannot et Thérèse portrays the temporary phenomenon of interracial erotic relations ostensibly from the point of view of the black (and partially enslaved) population should not be mistaken for empathy for such people, although it does appear to reveal some curiosity about this social group. Above all, in Saint-­ Domingue, its importance lies in the discussion and ultimate avoidance of interracial sexual relationships and of ‘miscegenation’ and the reassertion of a desired reality: black people marrying and reproducing only with other black people. Perhaps the popularity of the work lay partly in this combination of lip-service paid to race-based social engineering and the cheerful exploration of alternative possibilities that were the guilty secret of many colonials. Explorations of interracial relationships were thus highly double-edged among a colonial audience. Another notable aspect of the lives of enslaved people, particularly on plantations, is evoked in scene 2 when Thérèse recalls having danced a calenda with Jeannot. ‘Calenda’ was a flexible term that could be used variously to describe night-time gatherings of enslaved people that featured dancing and sometimes vodou rituals and spirit possession induced through dance, as well as a type of dance that did not involve spirit possession (Prest 2019a). Colonial authorities feared any gathering of enslaved people, and they were especially fearful of gatherings involving dance rituals, as will be seen in our discussion of Papa Simon’s quasi-vodou ritual below. Calendas were prohibited in Saint-Domingue but continued in

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secret, and in August 1758—the year in which Clément claims Jeannot et Thérèse was written and performed—the manager of a plantation was fined for having allowed enslaved people to gather and perform a calenda (Ramsey 2011, 36). We recall, too, that Macandal was arrested when attending a calenda on a plantation in Limbé, several miles west of Le Cap. The way in which the calenda is presented in Jeannot et Thérèse is emblematic of how other potentially disquieting elements are treated in the work: in Thérèse’s mind, the calenda in which she participated was significant because of how Jeannot strutted about for her benefit (scene 2). If there was any ritual involved, it was a ritual of courtship, not vodou. On several occasions, mention is made in the press announcements for performances of Jeannot et Thérèse of a  special dance (variously described as nègre or créole in line with the distinction outlined above); on one occasion, this is described as a calenda (AA 28 January 1784, 60). Although these white imitations of what passed (to the white audience at least) for black dance will have differed from ordinary French dances, it is clear that they rendered the calenda in a way that was entertaining rather than frightening. If, as is almost certain, the dance in question was performed at the end of the work as part of the wedding celebrations for Jeannot and Thérèse, it will have been a celebration of romantic love, the logical outcome of Thérèse’s previous calenda. On the other hand, Simon’s ritual in scene 4 clearly refers to local vodou practices. Clément’s claim that Jeannot et Thérèse was originally written and performed in 1758 places it in the immediate wake of the Macandal affair. As noted above, Macandal was seen in the late 1750s primarily as a poisoner, but one who accomplished his extraordinary feats of mass poisoning (as it was then understood) thanks to his mysterious, magical powers. He also attended at least one calenda in which he ‘vint se mêler à la danse’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 652) (joined in with the dancing). If the full repositioning of Macandal and his followers as weavers of magic and not as poisoners is relatively recent, the character was always associated with magical powers of some kind. It seems likely, then, that Jeannot et Thérèse also served as a welcome and anodyne outlet for the exploration and debunking of the kinds of supernatural powers that were attributed to Macandal and to other mysterious practices associated with enslaved people, notably vodou. Certainly, in the version of the text that has made its way down to us, Jeannot et Thérèse is used to explore the kind of vodou ritual that we know was considered threatening by colonial authorities and many individuals.

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The extraordinary nature of the pseudo-vodou ritual that Simon performs in scene 4 should be emphasized as it was extremely rare for anyone to invoke vodou so openly and clearly at this time (Moreau de Saint-­ Méry’s account, which I refer to below, was written and published much later). If the interracial sexual relationships that abounded in Saint-­ Domingue were an open secret, vodou was more of a closed secret. There are, to my knowledge, no pictorial representations of vodou from this period, and the term is not mentioned in any of the decrees aimed at prohibiting the practice—instead, gatherings and calendas are evoked as euphemistic alternatives (Prest 2019a, 509). This gives us some idea of how afraid people were of vodou. Because they were prohibited, vodou rituals took place in secret, which only added to their aura of mystery. It seems clear, then, that an important element of Jeannot et Thérèse’s appeal was its portrayal of something unusual and frightening in an entirely anodyne way.25 This owes much to the characterization of Simon. The music for Simon’s songs (unlike those for Thérèse, which are modern) is taken from older musical repertoire. As Camier notes, this choice might be understood to suggest either that Simon is old-fashioned or that he embodies age-old wisdom (Camier 2021, 98). I suggest that it may do both: in the eyes of Thérèse and Jeannot, Simon, who is explicitly presented as African-born, is a man endowed with extraordinary powers, powers that transcend even racial distinctions: ‘vous qui conné dans zaffaire / passé negre passé blanc’ (your knowledge of affairs is greater than that of a black person and a white person)—and of course such people did indeed exist in Saint-Domingue. For the knowing audience, however, Simon is archaic and, as quickly becomes clear, a charlatan. Our doubts are raised in scene 2 when, in another unwelcome overture from a man, Simon invites Thérèse to pay him with her ‘amiquié’ (friendship), and they are confirmed in scene 3 when Simon admits to the audience that ‘yau tou dés crié moi ben habile / pendant moi pas conne arien’ (both of them think that I am very clever, but I know nothing).26 There can be nothing directly 25  The choice of works performed in Port-au-Prince on 9 January 1781 seems to have aimed at debunking the potentially threatening elements associated with night-time drumming, which we know was prohibited and feared by the colonials: these were Néricault’s comedy, Le Tambour nocturne ou le mari devin and Grétry’s La Fausse magie. 26  In the equivalent scene in Le Devin du village, the magician admits that Colin and Colette are in awe of his knowledge of what they have in fact told him; in Les Amours de Bastien et Bastienne, Colas does not explicitly confess to his charlatanism, but marvels at the innocence of the young lovers.

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frightening about Simon when the audience knows that he is not a genuine magician and has no occult powers. Nor is he a genuine African—but one played by a white actor. This knowledge, in turn, informs audience response to the ritual. The stage directions are as follows: Jeannot se sauve aux premières grimaces de Simon qui pour lors fait tous les lassets du sac et du ouanga puis il dit en chantant et en grimacant: ‘oualili, quacoucou, Dahomé, coroco, calaliou’. Jeannot runs away when Simon starts grimacing. Simon unties the laces of his bag containing the wanga, and sings and grimaces ‘oualili, quacoucou, Dahomé, coroco, calaliou’.

In Rousseau’s work, the scene features a spell book and a magician’s staff, while in the Favart-Harny parody, it is a volume from the popular Bibliothèque bleue (a series of cheaply produced, widely circulated publications, similar to the English chapbook) that is produced from the magician’s bag. In the magic scene of Jeannot et Thérèse we find several references to a ouanga or wanga—a term used to denote a charm, fetish or spell, and one that is used on several occasions in the course of the work.27 Moreover, Simon’s incantation uses the word ‘Dahomé’, that is Dahomey, now Benin, the West African kingdom in which vodou is understood to have originated, while calaliou (or callaloo) is a plant used in Caribbean cuisine (Camier 2021, 97n32). By extension, callaloo is also a Caribbean vegetable dish seemingly of some symbolic value as the Haitian leader, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, was willing to accept white people into the black Republic of Haiti who were sufficiently well-assimilated as to eat callaloo (Dubois 2004a, 270). Jeannot’s fearful reaction recalls the same response on the part of Bastien in Bastien et Bastienne and that of the peasant women in Le Devin du village. But his reaction is perhaps more freighted with meaning. The Saint-Dominguan audience is invited to laugh or smile at the response of a black character, performed by a white actor, who in fact embodies their own fears of genuine off-stage rituals that were undertaken by black people with real powers. For all their attempts at dismissing 27  In scene 2, Thérèse asks Simon to prepare a wanga; in scene 4, Simon explains to Jeannot that Thérèse has accepted the overtures of a white man owing to Simon’s wanga; in scene 6, Simon explains to Thérèse that he has seen the error of his ways thanks to Simon’s wanga, and the final scene features the happy couple singing the praises of Simon’s wanga: ‘Papa Simon ouanga vous bon’ (Papa Simon, your wanga has worked).

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vodou and other African-inspired magical practices as bogus superstition, the colonials were clearly concerned that by some means or other these practices could be effective. Moreover, they even understood that their effects were not necessarily limited to the black population, as Moreau de Saint-Méry’s account confirms: Des Blancs trouvés épiant les mystères de cette secte, & touchés par l’un de ses membres qui les avait découverts, se sont mis quelquefois à danser, & ont consenti à payer la Reine Vaudoux, pour mettre fin à ce châtiment. (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 50) White people found spying on the mysteries of this sect and touched by one of its members who had discovered them sometimes began to dance, and agreed to pay the Vodou Queen in order to bring this penance to an end.

It is remarkable that Moreau de Saint-Méry acknowledges that the power of spirit possession, engendered through dance, could be passed from person to person and specifically from black participants to white observers. He then notes that ‘jamais aucun homme de la troupe de la police qui a juré la guerre au Vaudoux, n’a senti la puissance qui force à danser’ (no man from the branch of the police that is waging war on vodou has ever experienced the power that forces people to dance)—a claim that is undoubtedly intended to be reassuring, but which still leaves the possibility of white individuals falling under the power of rituals performed by black people wide open. With this in mind, we note that it is also the specific power of vodou dance that is evacuated from this performance by Simon. The stage directions mention Simon’s grimacing and singing, but not specifically any dancing. Without dance, there is no spirit possession. The music to which Simon sings here is a fairly stately—and slightly old-fashioned—minuet in the French style (Camier 2021, 100). Even if Simon did dance during his ritual, the minuet is about as far removed from the African, drum-based music that accompanied genuine vodou rituals as it could be. Simon’s ritual, then, evokes real-life vodou rituals in the minds of the theatre audience only to present them with something very remote from any off-stage reality—something that can be safely observed by the audience without the risk of being caught under its spell. Was there any comfort or pleasure to be taken by our mitigated spectators in seeing their practices referenced in this way and in knowing that they were feared?

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Les Amours de Mirebalais (Clément, 1786) It is also worth considering the alternative title and performance context of the same work when it was given in Saint-Marc in 1786. The work’s new location, Mirebalais, which is some 60  km north-east of Port-au-­ Prince, is surrounded by mountains and better suited to the production of coffee than sugar. As Moreau de Saint-Méry puts it, in Mirebalais ‘Des mornes qu’on avait toujours vus en friche ont reçu des cultivateurs du cafier’ (hills that had always been left uncultivated were taken over by coffee growers). It is also recognized for its food produce: ‘Le Mirebalais entier procure d’excellens vivres du pays & en abondance’ (Moreau de Saint-­ Méry 1797–1798, II, 237) (the whole of Mirebalais procures excellent local produce in abundance), especially rice and land crabs. Mirebalais thus seems like a good fit for the brief stage direction that appears at the beginning of the play, although the reference to Jeannot being in Le Cap may have been changed—perhaps to Port-au-Prince or even Saint-Marc. In the context of a performance in Saint-Marc, the colony’s third largest town, setting the work in Mirebalais may also have fulfilled the important function of being somewhere on which the residents of Saint-Marc could look down a little. Moreau de Saint-Méry paints a picture of Mirebalais as rather isolated and inaccessible, close to the Spanish border (and therefore to the maroon communities that lived in the mountains between the two) and somewhat inhospitable. Mirebalais also had a relatively large free coloured population. The press announcement for the one recorded performance of Les Amours de Mirebalais under that title calls it a ‘Parodie Nègre du Devin de village (black parody of Le Devin du village) but makes no mention of blackface, noting only that Lise would play the role of Thérèse’ (AA 28 January 1786, 44) and that the same amateur who had performed in Les Nègres de place ou le commerce de nuit (a work that is discussed below) would play Papa Simon. We know from the advertisement for Les Nègres de place, that the amateur in question was seen to specialize in performing black roles. Specifically, we read that ‘un Amateur, connu pour imiter parfaitement les Nègres dans leur idiòme & dans leurs manières, remplira le principal role’ (AA 24 December 1785, 576) (an amateur, known to imitate nègres perfectly in their idiom and their behaviour, will play the lead role). One important question that arises, then, is whether or not Lise, when playing Thérèse, also imitated ‘black performance’ or whether this was limited to Simon. Lise, like her half-sister, Minette, was a woman of

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colour who was probably pale-skinned. However, Minette is famous for not having performed in any local works and for having appeared to denigrate them publicly in a newspaper announcement published on 18 October 1783—a position that has been variously interpreted as theatrical and social snobbery or a wish to avoid participating in works that degraded black people (Fouchard 1988e, 269; Camier and Dubois 2007, paras 48, 49).28 Certainly one wonders how the social and racial dynamics played out when, exceptionally, Thérèse was performed by a woman who was known to be of African ancestry. We note that the newspaper announcement uses the respectful term of ‘Demoiselle’ when referring to both Minette and Lise. It is perhaps instructive to look at the evening as a whole, which featured, in addition to Les Amours de Mirebalais, which was performed last, its source play, Le Devin du village, and an opéra-comique by Quétant, Audinot and Gossec, called Le Tonnelier. This is the only recorded instance of Jeannot et Thérèse / Les Amours de Mirebalais being performed with its source play—a feature that will have invited comparisons between the two (but without the intermediary of Bastien et Bastienne). The fact that Lise is introduced to the theatre-going public in the press announcement in relation to the second work, Le Tonnelier, suggests that she did not perform the role of Colette in Rousseau’s Le Devin du village—something that perhaps underlines the differences, rather than the similarities, between the source play and its Creole parody. Lise’s performance as the young peasant woman, Fanchette, in Le Tonnelier confirms that she was also cast in roles understood to be white by default and that she could switch between the two in quick succession. Similarly, the role of Fanchette includes a lot of spoken dialogue, whereas the role of Thérèse is mostly sung. Lise was clearly multi-talented. The organizer of the event in Saint-­ Marc, a man named Amphoux, writes about pleasing the public by presenting them with ‘un genre de Spectacle propre à varier ses plaisirs’ (a kind of spectacle able to vary their delights). If variety was the goal, then Lise’s specificity as a performer of colour may well have added an extra layer of variability, both when she played a white role and when she played a black one. Interestingly, the other documented theatrical event organized by Amphoux (in conjunction with the actor Mme Charpentier) also 28  Fouchard suggests that Minette may have been establishing herself in opposition to Mme Marsan in Le Cap (Fouchard 1988e, 270).

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featured a local work: Clément’s Lundi du Cap-Français ou les recouvrements (performed in Les Cayes on 10 February 1784), although none of the speaking roles in this work appears to be black.

Les Nègres de place ou le commerce de nuit (Unknown, 1786) Whereas we have a full text of Jeannot et Thérèse (and, thanks to the work of Bernard Camier, an almost complete score), no text remains for our next work, a two-act anonymous comedy called Les Nègres de place ou le commerce de nuit or, as the subtitle was given in the Port-au-Prince advertisement, les commerçants de nuit. Since the work is not claimed by Clément and it is uncertain whether it was even performed in Le Cap, it is unlikely that he is its author. Both recorded performances were organized by the same beneficiary, the French actor Jean Vall (or Val), who, with his wife, later performed alongside several other actors from Saint-Domingue at the French Theatre in Charleston in the 1794–1795 season (Sodders 1983, 92). But we have no record of Vall writing any theatre. Another possible candidate is the unnamed amateur performer who took the lead role in Saint-Marc. According to an advertisement in the Moniteur de la Louisiane (ML) in 1808 for the first performance in New Orleans of a two-act Creole comedy with singing called Le Commerce de nuit, which is almost certainly the same work, its author was an amateur performer called Rifaux.29 The advertisement notes that Rifaux is ‘connu par le talent particulier d’imitation de tous les patois Créoles’ (known for his special imitative talent in all Creole dialects) and had performed successfully in Saint-Domingue and elsewhere (ML 24 September 1808). I have not found any explicit references to Rifaux performing in Saint-Domingue, but this performance in New Orleans was organized by Tessier, who had been active in the theatre in Port-au-Prince, and it is conceivable that Rifaux was the same amateur performer who played the lead role— described in ML as ‘Joseph, nègre cultivateur’ (Joseph, a gardener nègre)—22 years earlier.30 29  The date of the advertisement has been incorrectly noted as 25 May 1808 (Debien and Le Gardeur 1992, 223). I am grateful to Jeffrey Leichman and Rhys Borders for providing me with the correct date (24 September 1808) and a copy of the advertisement. 30  He may be the ‘Riffaud’ from Saint-Domingue who was running a Vauxhall Gardens with space for dancing in the United States in 1801 (Babb 1954, 119).

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We are obliged to speculate on the play’s content based only on its title and subtitles and the few details that we can glean from the press about two upcoming performances: the first, on a double bill with Molière’s comédie-ballet, Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, in Saint-Marc in January 1786; the second on a double bill with Sedaine and Philidor’s opéra-comique, Les Femmes vengées in Port-au-Prince in November the same year. We can also draw on the aforementioned advertisement from ML and on our knowledge of the lives of enslaved people. First, it should be noted how unexpected it is to find the term nègres de place in the title of a theatrical work at this time, and particularly a comedy. Although a number of French plays, particularly from the early nineteenth century, feature enslaved characters, these are generally sentimental portrayals of faithful servants who remain loyal to their white masters even in times of difficulty, known as ‘bons nègres’, and who speak a mock dialect that is not usually a faithful rendering of Caribbean Creole (Chalaye 1998, 134–42). Nègres de place is the term used to describe enslaved field hands, people who worked long hours undertaking such tasks as planting and cutting cane, digging and weeding. Nègres de place were at the bottom of the hierarchy of enslaved people and led lives that were quite different from those of our enslaved domestics or even of enslaved artisans. According to the manager of the Hecquet plantation in 1788, of a total of around 150 enslaved people, between 80 and 90 worked ‘à la place’ (in the field) regularly (Girod 1970, 108). Girod-Chantrans described nègres de place as ‘les êtres les plus malheureux des colonies’ (the most unfortunate beings in our colonies), ‘destinés … aux travaux les plus rudes & à des châtimens barbares pour les moindres fautes’ (Girod-Chantrans 1785, 162, 130) (destined for the harshest labour and barbarous punishments for the slightest of faults). His account of watching field hands at work in SaintDomingue in 1782 gives a powerful sense of how gruelling their work conditions were: Ils étoient au nombre de cent hommes ou femmes de différens âges, tous occupés à creuser des fosses dans une piece de cannes, & la plupart nus ou couvert de haillons. Le soleil dardoit à-plomb sur leurs têtes: la sueur couloit de toutes les parties de leurs corps; leurs membres appesantis par la chaleur, fatigués du poids de leurs pioches & par la resistance d’une terre grasse, durcie au point de faire rompre les outils, faisoient cependant les plus grands efforts pour vaincre tous les obstacles. Un morne silence régnoit parmi eux; la douleur étoit peinte sur toutes les physiognomies … L’œil impitoyable du

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gérant observoit l’attelier, & plusieurs commandeurs armés de longs fouets … frappoient rudement de tems à autre ceux même qui, par lassitude, sembloient forcés de se ralentir, negres ou négresses, jeunes ou vieux, tous indistinctement. (Girod-Chantrans 1785, 137) There were about a hundred men and women of different ages, each busy digging holes in a cane field, and most of them were naked or covered in rags. The sun beat down on their heads; sweat dripped from all parts of their bodies; their limbs were heavy from the heat, worn out by the weight of their pickaxes and by the resistance of the loam soil hardened to the point of breaking their tools, but straining to overcome all these obstacles. A desolate silence reigned among them; pain was painted on all their faces. The pitiless eye of the manager watched the gang, and several foremen armed with long whips would from time to time brutally strike even those who from fatigue seemed obliged to slow down, nègres and négresses, young and old alike.

It is no surprise, then, that their working life lasted only 15 or 16 years. Clearly this is not what is featured in the play, for we are told that it ‘a beaucoup amusé les Spectateurs’ (AA 4 November 1786, 528) (amused the spectators a lot) and even the most hardened portion of the Saint-­ Dominguan theatre audience would not normally have found a portrayal of the suffering of enslaved people—and, by implication at least, of the cruelty of plantation owners—amusing. Girod-Chantrans also provides an account of the tradition of the jardin à nègre and the surplus that could be generated from it which is also worth citing at length as it helps us understand more of the context for the play: Les deux heures qu’on leur accorde chaque jour, avec les fètes & dimanches, sont destinées à la culture des vivres dont ils se nourrissent. On donne pour cet effet à chaque esclave une petite portion de terre, dans laquelle il plante ce qui lui plait. Le manioc, les patates, les tayaux, les ignames, les ­giraumonts, les bananiers, les poix-congo, les ananas sont les especes de vivres qu’ils cultivent le plus volontiers. Un negre assidu au travail de son petit terrein a souvent des vivres au-delà de sa consommation. Il en fait alors un objet de commerce, avec la permission de son maitre, dans la ville ou la bourgade la plus voisine, & rapporte chez lui en échange, des salaisons, du tabac à fumer, du tafia, ou quelque vêtement. Ces vivres surabondans des habitations servent dans les villes à la nourriture des negres domestiques, artisans, & même à celle de plusieurs blancs, trop économes ou trop misérables pour manger du pain. (Girod-Chantrans 1785, 131–32)

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The two hours that they are granted each day, along with feast days and Sundays, are used to grow produce with which they feed themselves. For this purpose each slave is given a small patch of land on which he plants what he likes. Manioc, potatoes, Caribbean cabbage, yams, squash, bananas and pigeon peas, pineapples are the kinds of produce that they like to grow the most. A nègre who works hard on his patch often has more produce than he consumes. With his master’s permission, he turns it into an object of trade in the nearest town or village, and takes home with him in exchange salted products, smoking tobacco, tafia or some item of clothing. The surplus produce from plantations is used in the towns to feed domestic nègres, artisans and even some white people who are too frugal or too poor to eat bread.

From this account, we can understand the likely link between the first and second parts of the play’s title, between field hands and the trade (commerce) that is alluded to. Some fields hands who were able to grow enough produce on their place à vivres became traders of sorts on Sundays and feast days. In his account of the market in Le Cap, Moreau de Saint-Méry comments on this phenomenon: Le nègre de la campagne qu’on connaît sous le nom de nègre de place, échange les petits produits de sa culture ou de son industrie, contre ce que le nègre de ville lui apporte & qu’il a conservé de sa nourriture citadine pour avoir des fruits. (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 443–44) The country nègre, who is known as a nègre de place, exchanges small items that he has grown or made for what the city nègre brings him from his urban food in order to have fruit.

Although in this example Moreau de Saint-Méry is commenting on the trade between country slaves and town slaves, his full description of the slave’s market in Le Cap makes it clear that the market was extensive, featuring these exchanges but also buying and selling across social boundaries. Girod-Chantrans confirms that nègres de place also had direct dealings with a portion of the free population: the petits blancs. An Ordonnance from 1766 indicates that a new marketplace was to be set up in Le Cap in La Place de Clugny at the request of the property owners in the area. The new market was to function alongside—but not threaten the livelihood of—the existing daily market in La Place Notre-Dame (near the cathedral, about 500 metres away and later called la Place d’Armes). Specifically, the nègres de place who normally sold fresh produce on Sundays and feast days

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on La Place Notre-Dame were enjoined to move to La Place de Clugny (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1784–1790, V, 2–3). The fact that some two years later in 1768, this market began to operate on a daily basis indicates that it was successful and popular. Moreau de Saint-Méry writes of 15,000 enslaved people, including women, coming to the market on Sundays to buy or sell a large array of goods (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 441–44). Markets run by enslaved people seem to have been strategically placed in order to attract customers. Moreau de Saint-Méry’s description of the market in Limonade, for instance, suggests as much: ‘les fêtes & les dimanches il y a un marché dans la savane du presbytère, dont la situation est propice pour les transports que les nègres des montagnes y font des vivres qu’ils ont à vendre’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, I, 199) (on feast days and Sundays there is a market in the savannah by the presbytery, where the location is convenient for transporting the produce that the mountain slaves have to sell). As Moitt points out, it is likely that the market was located and timed strategically to maximize sales from the emerging congregation (Moitt 2001, 56).31 The explicit use of the term vendre (to sell) is also significant here: it confirms again that enslaved people participated not only in the exchange of goods but also in sale of goods, sometimes for their personal profit. The title of the play does not locate it in one particular town, but the two documented performances were in Saint-Marc in January 1786 and Port-au-Prince in November the same year. For the Port-au-Prince performances, readers of the newspaper are told that Les Nègres de place has already been performed successfully in two towns in the colony. If the work was premiered in Saint-Marc, it may well have been set there. Indeed, the question of the respective locations of the different markets seems to have been of particular concern in Saint-Marc and something that was set down in an Ordonnance from September 1785. Moreau de Saint-Méry mentions local disputes over where the so-called marché des Blancs (which sold ‘marchandises sèches’ or dry produce) should be held and their resolution in 1787 whereby the ‘marché des vivres et légumes’ (the fruit and vegetable market) was moved from the main marketplace on La Place d’Armes in order to make way for the marché des Blancs to return to its 31  Proximity to a church could also be a problem: an Ordonnance from 1736 notes that the marché des nègres in Le Cap must be moved as it disrupts the service (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1784–1790, III, 454).

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surrounding tree-lined streets (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 196). The performance and possible première of Les Nègres de place the previous year would have coincided with the ongoing debates. We are told in the advertisement for the performance in Saint-Marc that the play is ‘en langage & costume Nègres’ (in the language and costume of nègres) and, as we saw above, that ‘un Amateur, connu pour imiter parfaitement les Nègres dans leur idiòme & dans leurs manières’ (AA 24 December 1785, 576) (an amateur, known to imitate nègres perfectly in their idiom and their behaviour) will play the lead role. This amateur, as we have seen, was the same person who later performed the role of Papa Simon in Les Amours de Mirebalais on 5 February 1786. This, then, is a work in which the principal role is that of an enslaved black man—a role that is performed by someone specializing in white perceptions of ‘black performance’. But what are we to make of the reference in the subtitles to night-time when we know the market took place in the day? Some further details provided in the announcement for the performance in Port-au-Prince shed some light on this. We are told that the work is subtitled les commerçants de nuit, is in the Creole language and that ‘La couleur & les costumes des Nègres, ainsi que celui des Cabaretiers Blancs, Reinfort & Tienbon, seront observés avec exactitude’ (AA 4 November 1786, 528) (the colour and the costumes of the nègres, like that of the white tavern owners, Reinfort and Tienbon, will be rendered with exactitude). From this we learn that the play features at least two nègres de place, with one of them being the lead role, performed by white actors in blackface, and two white cabaretiers or tavern owners. The night-time commerce is probably a reference to the informal selling of goods by enslaved people in the tavern, although it could also simply be a reference to the standard commerce in food and especially drink of the tavern itself. Cabarets or taverns were a feature of life in Saint-Domingue as in metropolitan France. One of the most notorious accounts of the French cabaret is by Louis-Sébastien Mercier, author of Le Déserteur, discussed in the ‘Unsustainable Tensions’ chapter. Mercier’s account, published in his Tableau de Paris (Amsterdam 1782–1788), is damning. Brennan notes that accounts of French cabarets have been distorted by the fact that cabarets were associated with popular or ‘low’ culture, and that most accounts of them, almost all condemnatory, were written by the cultural elite, including Mercier (Brennan 1988, 7). This discrepancy is even more acute as we consider the nature and role of the cabaret in Saint-Domingue,

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where we know that enslaved people sometimes drank, and its portrayal in a theatrical comedy. Moreau de Saint-Méry’s Loix et constitutions is peppered with censorious arrêts and ordonnances seeking to regulate the creation and running of cabarets throughout the colonial period. This regulation culminated in the army general Charles Leclerc’s arrêt from 16 Floréal, l’an X (6 May 1802) banning cabarets outright throughout the colony as well as the sale of wine, eau de vie and tafia by retailers. What was it about cabarets that were such a source of concern, and how might the cabaret have been portrayed in a comic theatrical work that sought to please and amuse its audience? Drunkenness and the illegal trade in alcohol were two elements of unease. Girod-Chantrans notes of the enslaved population that ‘leur boisson habituelle est l’eau, mais ils s’enivrent de tafia dès qu’ils peuvent s’en procurer; c’est sans doute une grande douceur pour eux, d’oublier leurs maux quelques instans’ (Girod-Chantrans 1785, 142–43) (their usual drink is water, but they get drunk on tafia whenever they can obtain any; it is no doubt a great comfort to them to forget their troubles for a few moments). Drawing on testimony contained in judicial, notarial and fiscal archives, Brennan argues that cabarets were places where a wide range of people met and formed (and sometimes also broke) social bonds (Brennan 1988, 7, 15). One example of this kind of testimony relating to the French colonies is found in mid-nineteenth-century La Réunion and features the voice of an enslaved man called Joson. Joson claims to have tried to kill his female companion, Céleste, following excessive drinking in a local cabaret, run by a Monsieur Zélicourt. What is interesting for the present discussion is the way in which Joson’s account contradicts that of Zélicourt: Interrogateur: Monsieur Zélicourt dit qu’il ne vend de rum ni même d’eau de vie et qu’il est faux qu’il est vendu pour un marqué32 de rum a qui que ce soit. Joson: Je persiste à dire que Monsieur Zélicourt vend du rum qu’il tient cantine et que c’est chez lui que j’ai bu pour un marqué de rum. (Régent et al. 2015, 111) Interrogator: Monsieur Zélicourt says that he does not sell rum or even brandy and that it is untrue that he sold a sou marqué’s worth of rum to anybody. Joson: I repeat that Monsieur Zélicourt sells rum, that he runs a canteen and that it was at his canteen that I drank a sou marqué’s worth of rum.  ‘Un marqué’ designates ‘un sou marqué’—a coin used in the French colonies.

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Moreover, for all the attempts at control outlined above, as Joson’s testimony suggests, the cabaret could be a place where people lost control, where boundaries were crossed and unusual things happened. As a place of leisure, the cabaret also challenged the enslaved person’s role as the means and mode of production. In other words, the cabaret humanized the enslaved person and reduced his immediate productive capacity; it also made him a consumer rather than a producer. For all these reasons, cabarets were understood to require careful control, as a 1782 règlement from Guadeloupe makes clear: Il est défendu à toutes personnes tenant cabaret ou lieu public de recevoir chez eux des Nègres ou Gens de couleur esclaves, & de leur donner à boire ou à manger à table, à moins que lesdits esclaves ne soient munis d’un billet de leur maître. Il est pareillement & très-expressément défendu aux dites personnes de recevoir aucun dépôt, de quelque nature qu’il soit, des Nègres ou Gens de couleur esclaves, à peine, contre les délinquans, d’être condamnés aux peines ci-après énoncées. (Régent et al. 2015, 109–10) It is forbidden for any people running a cabaret or public meeting place to welcome nègres or enslaved people of colour and to serve them drinks or a sit-­ down meal unless the said slaves have a pass from their master. It is equally and very expressly forbidden for the aforementioned people to accept packages of any kind from the nègres or enslaved people of colour on pain of the wrongdoers being condemned to the punishments outlined below.

The reference to being seated suggests a particular concern with social status and differentiation, while the reference to packages seems to suggest that the cabaret was used for other purposes: possibly for the storage of items but more probably as a place where items were traded or exchanged informally (and illegally)—something that, as indicated above, might also make sense of the commerce or commerçants de nuit subtitle to our play. With specific reference to Saint-Domingue, we find a number of Ordonnances seeking to regulate cabarets in the colony, including one from August 1780 that is concerned with Le Cap and its environs and which is presented as a response to the perceived ‘trop grande quantité de Cabarets … sans ordre, ni règles’ (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1784–1790, VI, 52–54) (excessive number of disorderly and unregulated cabarets) in the area. The Ordonnance seeks to reduce the total number of cabarets to 30. Of particular concern is the selling and drinking of tafia, particularly among the military (or ‘gens de Guerre’—the date coincides with the

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ongoing American Revolutionary War) and, of course, the non-white population. Specifically, the Ordonnance stipulates that ‘il … est défendu d’en vendre aux Négres, et Gens de couleur, sans un billet de leurs Maîtres’ (it is prohibited to sell [tafia] to nègres or people of colour without a pass from their masters). Two questions that arise are whether our cabaret owners are portrayed as operating legally or illegally and if the nègres de place are seen to have written permission from their masters to drink in a cabaret. Given that the play is, unlike Jeannot et Thérèse, in two acts, it is possible that the action takes place in two different locations. The first act may well have featured the nègres de place, led by ‘Joseph’, exchanging and selling their produce at the market, while the second act may have taken place at the end of the day and into the night in a nearby cabaret.33 Brennan describes the tavern or cabaret as ‘little more than a table and chairs with a roof overhead’ (Brennan 1988, 8), and this sparseness lends itself well to the set of a play (‘une table et quelques chaises’, a table and a few chairs, is part of the opening set for Blaise et Babet, mentioned below). In addition, the set may also have featured a counter for serving drinks with bottles and tin receptacles. Clearly the play will have featured drinking—a common comic trope, and the idea of drinking to excess is perhaps indicated by the names of the tavern owners: Reinfort and Tienbon, both of which suggest the strong physical constitution of men who can hold their drink. But these names also have other connotations: ‘un homme [qui] a les reins forts’ (literally, a man who has strong kidneys) is explained in the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française (1762) as meaning ‘il est riche, & qu’il a le moyen de soutenir la dépense qu’il faut faire pour une affaire, une entreprise’ (he is rich and has the means to support the expense that is required for a transaction or business). ‘Tenir bon’ means to hold one’s ground. Given that a comedy usually features the creation and then resolution of a situation or conflict that is socially questionable in some way (often the marriage of two people who are unsuited to each other), we can speculate about how this might have been worked out here. Act I of Les Nègres de place may, then, have featured the enslaved traders successfully trading with people above their social status—something that the audience may have found both amusing and slightly unsettling. As Olwell has observed in relation to colonial Charleston, the market was a place where the 33  It is perhaps the cabaret location that accounts for the absence of women from a play featuring enslaved traders. It was often enslaved women who went to the market on Sundays while enslaved men undertook other types of paid employment (Geggus 1996, 263, 265).

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established relationship between enslaved and free people was renegotiated, albeit on a temporary basis (Olwell 1996, 102–04). Act II might have featured the same enslaved traders in the cabaret after market where they may have met their comic comeuppance, perhaps by spending all their earnings on drink, gambling it away or by bartering their produce with the tavern owners for goods of a much lower value. If this is correct, Les Nègres de place will have offered the theatre audience both the ‘amusing’ and familiar spectacle of successful enslaved traders at market and that of those traders being outwitted by members of the white population— something that they might have found both entertaining and, above all perhaps, reassuring. This is broadly in line with our reading of Jeannot et Thérèse, in which audiences were treated to the amusing spectacle of enslaved or semi-free lovers considering sexual partners of a higher social and racial status before the reassuring resolution and return to order when they are united and marry each other. Alternatively, the joke may have been on the cabaret owners and their names used to ironic effect, revealing that they were not such capable businessmen after all. If so, Act I may have featured the enslaved traders struggling to obtain good prices for their produce in the market but, in Act II, succeeding in doing so with Reinfort and Tienbon.

Julien et Suset (Clément, 1788) The second Creole parody examined here will be referred to as Julien et Suset (it is also referred to as Julien et Susette and Julien et Zilia in the local press). We know of two planned performances: the first in Le Cap on 13 February 1788 and the second in Port-au-Prince on 12 January 1791. Julien et Suset is a two-act parody or, as Clément refers to it in the press, a ‘traduction nègre’ (black translation) by Clément of Dezède’s two-act opéra-comique in vaudevilles, Blaise et Babet. With 23 documented performances between 1784 and 1788 in Port-au-Prince, Le Cap, Les Cayes and Saint-Marc, Blaise et Babet was a popular work in Saint-Domingue and one that would therefore have been familiar to most of the audience who saw its Creole parody. Set in a village in Brittany and featuring local farmers who speak a crudely rendered dialect, Blaise et Babet involves a simple marriage plot temporarily thwarted by a jealous tiff that is resolved as much by the lovers themselves as by the intervention of the benevolent feudal lord. The fact that both works are in two acts suggests that Clément

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followed the structure of his source work closely, as does Clément’s claim to have retained Dezède’s original musical score. The first announcement regarding the premiere of Julien et Suset confirms that it features enslaved characters, draws our attention to the role of the feudal lord and drops an intriguing hint: Le sieur Clément, auteur de cette traduction, est bien aise de prévenir qu’il n’a rien changé au role du personnage qui remplace dans sa pièce le comte de Belval: mais que vu le nouveau lieu de la scene, il a fait du Seigneur de Village un Commandant de Quartier, dont les bienfaits n’ont pas non plus le même motif. A cela près & quelques mots créoles dont se sert le chevalier du Palmier, comme il arrive quelquefois à l’Habitant du meilleur ton en parlant avec ses Nègres, le role en question est absolument le même. (SAA 26 January 1788, 710) Sieur Clément, author of this translation, is pleased to announce that he has not changed the role of the character who, in his work, replaces the comte de Belval; but that, in view of the work’s new setting, he has made the feudal lord a local commanding officer, whose generosity does not have the same motive. Apart from that and a few words of Creole spoken by the chevalier du Palmier, as can sometimes happen to the most well-to-do planter when speaking with his nègres, the role is absolutely the same.

The fact that the local lord is recast as a commandant de quartier (a commanding officer or local district officer, depending on the type of location that is imagined) is, as Clément points out, a result of the play’s new setting in Saint-Domingue. The obvious alternative would have been to cast him as a planter and his vassals as his enslaved plantation workers, but Clément’s choice seems to emphasize Palmier’s military and colonial status. On the other hand, Clément likens Palmier’s occasional use of Creole to the way in which planters sometimes spoke to their enslaved workers. This leaves us with an unanswered question: is Julien et Suset set on a plantation owned by Palmier who is also a military officer of some kind, or is it set in a more urban context? The former, which seems more likely given the rural setting of the source text, would increase the likelihood that the characters, other than Palmier, are enslaved field workers rather than enslaved domestics. What is most intriguing about the advertisement is the observation that the commander’s generosity does not have the same motive. In Blaise et Babet, the lord is motivated by his genuine goodness and perhaps also by the fact that he had previously fallen on hard times (as a result of a court

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case that he then wins in the course of the work) and benefitted from the generosity of his vassals. Although we do not have the text of Julien et Suset, a reading of Blaise et Babet can be used to provide some clues regarding Palmier’s new motive. Our suspicions, already aroused by Clément’s announcements, are deepened by the fact that in the source play the lord pays Babet’s dowry (which, incidentally, is to be the income for two years from the land that her family themselves work). But perhaps the most obvious clue is found in a line from the chorus who celebrate the lord’s offer to pay for the marriage of six young couples, to be led to the altar by Blaise and Babet. The chorus sings in I.12 ‘Pour ses enfans que f’roit il davantage?’ (what more would he do for his [own] children?). In Saint-­ Domingue, where we know that white colonial officers did have children with local women of colour and sometimes provided for them financially (though rarely recognized them officially), this innocuous remark assumes a new charge. This is enforced in subsequent lines from the source play, notably one spoken by Alix, Babet’s mother, to the lord in which she comments that when she thinks of him ‘le cœur me bat … me bat’ (I.12) (my heart pounds, it pounds). Such a line would suggest consent on Alix’s part rather than the abusive relationship that would have been the norm off-­ stage in Saint-Domingue. Another line that is likely to have raised audience eyebrows when rendered in its new context is the reference to a promise made by the lord to Babet: ‘Pour vous, ma petite Babet, je me souviens de ce que je vous ai promis, Blaise et vous’ (for you, my little Babet, I remember what I promised you and Blaise). Given that Clément encourages people to question Palmier’s motives for his generosity, the explanation in a Saint-Dominguan context seems clear: Clément invites his audience to imagine that Palmier is the father of the Babet character, Suset. This raises the question of physical appearance and of skin colour. The second advertisement for the premiere of Julien et Suset notes that it has been postponed for six days, during which time Mme Faurès has been cast in the role of Suset ‘vu la facilité qu’elle a du langage créole’ (given her facility for the Creole language). The advertisement also notes that ‘on jouera à visage noir pour prêter davantage à l’illusion & se raprocher du naturel’ (SAA 9 February 1788, 722) (it will be performed in blackface in order to heighten the illusion and be more natural). This confirms that the majority of the roles are conceived of—and presented—as black and were

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performed by white actors in blackface. The advertisement also confirms that the Creole language was not just a minor feature of the work, but a significant one. Since all the characters in Blaise et Babet apart from the lord speak in dialect, it would appear that all the characters in Julien et Suset, similarly, speak in Creole apart from Palmier who, as we have seen, mostly speaks in French. Two aspects seem particularly worthy of comment. The first is the harmonious and warm relationship between the feudal lord and his vassals in the source work, Blaise and Babet—something that would not have transferred easily to a context featuring a master and his enslaved workers. In particular, it is difficult to imagine how the financial loan could have been rendered in the Saint-Dominguan context when featuring enslaved characters, and it seems likely that the loan was eliminated as part of the reconfiguration of Belval’s motivation in his new incarnation as Palmier. The second aspect is Clément’s deliberate nod to his audience about white men having children with women of colour, including, sometimes, their own enslaved workers. It is clear from Clément’s announcement that his own Palmier is not the deeply virtuous man of Blaise et Babet; but why did Clément choose to draw attention to this open secret of colonial society? Is he suggesting that Palmier is virtuous to the extent that he half-­ recognizes Suset by providing for her and funding a lavish wedding celebration? Or is there a more critical element to this work? The fact that it was revived in Port-au-Prince in 1791 may possibly suggest that it resonated with more revolutionary ideas that were beginning to circulate at the time. Indeed, in Blaise et Babet, Belval acknowledges that his vassal, old Mathurin, is recognized by the community not for his rank (rang) but for his virtue (vertus), but we do not know how this line was rendered in Clément’s parody, and there are no clues in this final announcement. It simply reads ‘Julien et Zilia, traduction en langage créole, de Blaise & Babet’ (GSD 8 January 1791, 34) (Julien et Zilia, a translation in the Creole language of Blaise et Babet).34 The change in name from Suset to the supposedly African-sounding Zilia may have been a way of emphasizing her African ancestry.

34  As discussed in relation to Jeannot et Thérèse, the shift from ‘traduction nègre’ to ‘traduction en langage créole’ reflects the fact that this performance is in Port-au-Prince rather than in Le Cap.

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Conclusion We have examined two Creole works whose texts are extant and four whose texts are absent. By allowing ourselves to speculate, in particular about the latter, we have been able to expand our understanding of these elusive but important works using fragments of information in conjunction with our knowledge of other theatre works and life in Saint-Domingue. It is hoped that this groundwork will lead to further findings and reflections in due course. Meanwhile, our examination confirms both that Creole works came closer to portraying something more recognizable as life in Saint-Domingue than any French works could (or, indeed, sought to do) and that the harsher realities of local life, especially for the enslaved population, were still kept very much at arm’s length. It has been suggested that the enslaved domestics in Les Veuves créoles, especially Jean-­ Baptiste, are the closest theatrical equivalent to the enslaved domestics who were present in the playhouses of Saint-Domingue. While their portrayal fails to engage deeply with the reality of their situation, it is possible that it may yet have been of significance to our ‘mitigated spectators’. Enslaved domestics are also seen to be of some significance to the character of de la Cale in Les Veuves créoles as spreaders of news. In reality, too, enslaved domestics could exert some level of independence on how they chose to spread—or not spread—news within the community and how that news was nuanced. When asking his domestics to use their voices to share what they have heard, de la Cale expects them to spread news of his honour, but they might equally have spread news of his ridiculous reaction to an honour that is clearly unmerited. Our black Figaro probably worked somewhat differently as his agency jars with that granted to real enslaved valets. Here the emphasis appears to be on white portrayals of black figures combined with a wish to satisfy the audience’s yearning for another Figaro play. With regard to non-domestic enslaved characters, who were not (as far as we know) represented among our mitigated audience, it would appear that their portrayal aimed to explore, take control of and then defuse several matters that were of genuine concern to the colonial population. These include interracial sexual relations, calendas and vodou rituals, as well as the story and legend of Macandal. Our works deal lightly with some weighty matters and create the illusion that everything is under (white) control. But some cracks in this theatrical armour can be discerned. There is, for instance, a discrepancy between the ultimate

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avoidance of interracial marriage involving black characters as seen in Jeannot et Thérèse and the suggestion of interracial sexual relations in Julien et Suset. While all the relationships alluded to in these works are portrayed as consensual, the theatre audience knew of the power differential that separated female-vassal-slave from male-master-officer off-stage. Moreover, coercive sexual relations between white men and women of colour were part of the daily lives of enslaved domestic servants as well as plantation workers. For audience members who chose to read between the lines of these cheerful texts and scores, as we have done here, there was plenty on which to reflect. Finally, we should note that, in contrast with some of the French works examined in the ‘Unsustainable Tensions’ chapter, what is missing from Creole portrayals of enslaved characters, as far as we can tell, is any invitation to sympathize with their enslavement. Whereas in L’Héroïne américaine the audience is supposed to be moved by Jarika’s distress as she contemplates her chains, the distress of our Creole characters relates only to the central love plot. Creole portrayals of enslaved characters are thus paradoxical: enslaved figures in these works are undoubtedly recognizable as figures from contemporary life in the French Caribbean, but they are not recognizable by their enslavement. Their portrayal as enslaved people is profoundly mitigated.

5

Concealed Contributors: Enslaved Participation in Theatre-Making

This chapter is concerned with the contributions made by real enslaved people to public theatre-making in Saint-Domingue. Some contributors are relatively prominent—as is the case, notably, for the enslaved musicians in the theatre orchestra (who have already attracted some critical attention). Others are essentially invisible, as is the case for the enslaved wigmakers and set painters who worked behind the scenes and even more so for the carpenters and builders who participated in the construction and maintenance of the colony’s playhouses, who have received little or no critical attention in the context of theatre research. Other contributions that are examined include those of enslaved coachmen who drove audience members to and from the playhouse, and those of domestic servants, including some female servants, ‘belonging’ to theatre-makers. By setting prominent and less prominent contributions alongside one another, the goal is to cast our net as widely as possible and to consider all people—and all contributions to theatre production—on an equal footing. The enslaved men who helped to build the playhouses of Saint-Domingue are as important to our story as the enslaved musicians who were active participants in the theatre-making that took place inside those playhouses.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Prest, Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22691-5_5

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Orchestral Musicians Runaway and For Sale advertisements testify to a number of enslaved people in Saint-Domingue who played a musical instrument, usually the violin. Sometimes advertisements give an indication of their level of accomplishment, describing them as playing well or a little. Of these individuals, over a quarter are also identified as wigmakers. As Camier has noted, this overlap between music-making and wigmaking confirms that the people in question were working within the domestic sphere, meeting the different practical and social requirements of their ‘masters’ (Camier 2004, 259). Enslaved domestics would certainly have played music to entertain their ‘master’ and his or her guests, and to accompany their dancing; sometimes they were sought after by professionals, as the following advertisement confirms: Une personne desireroit prendre à ferme un Negre qui sût jouer du violon pour faire danser, & qui fût un peu domestique & bon sujet. S’adresser à M. Dupietry, maître de danse, rue du Vieux Cimetiere au Cap. (AA 22 November 1786, 549) Somebody would like to hire a nègre who knows how to play the violin to dance to, who has some experience as a domestic and is a good subject. Contact M. Dupietry, dancing instructor, rue du Vieux Cimetière, in Le Cap.

Alongside these, a small number of enslaved musicians, often those belonging to other orchestral musicians, performed professionally in the theatre orchestras in Saint-Domingue (Powers 2014, 86–89). The earliest evidence of this is found in two For Sale advertisements published in the local newspaper in 1764 and 1765. They confirm that enslaved musicians participated in this way from the earliest days of public theatre in the colony. The first is an advertisement published on 15 February 1764, submitted by a musician called Tasset, which reads: Trois jeunes nègres à vendre, dont les deux plus grands jouent passablement du violon et lisent la musique assez bien sur toutes les clefs indifféremment: ils ont accompagné dans différents Opéras qui se sont donnés depuis deux ans sur le théâtre du Cap: il y en a un des deux qui sait très bien raser. Le plus jeune joue aussi du violon par musique, mais foiblement. Comme ces trois nègres perdroient de leur prix, en les séparant, ils seront vendus ensemble; s’il ne se présente personne pour les acheter d’ici au 24 mars prochain, il les fera crier et vendre ce jour-là, à la barre du Siège Royal du Cap au plus

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offrant et dernier enchérisseur. On peut s’adresser au Sr Tasset à qui ils appartiennent, il demeure au Cap, rue de la Comédie, il a de la musique et des instruments à vendre. (Fouchard 1988c, 57) Three young nègres for sale, the two older ones play the violin reasonably well and read music quite well to the same standard in all the different clefs. They have played in various operas that have been performed over the last two years in the theatre in Le Cap. One of them is a very good barber. The youngest also reads music on the violin, but not very well. As these three nègres would lose their value if separated, they will be sold together. If nobody comes forward to buy them between now and 24 March, they will be hawked and sold on that day at the barre du siège royal in Le Cap to the highest bidder. You may contact Sieur Tasset, to whom they belong. He lives in Le Cap on rue de la Comédie. He also has music and instruments for sale.

Things evidently did not go according to plan as almost exactly a year later on 20 February 1765, we find the following advertisement by Tasset in the local newspaper: Le sieur Tasset musicien au Cap se disposant à partir pour France, donne avis qu’il a trois nègres à vendre dont deux musiciens âgés de 16 à 17 ans, lisant assez bien la musique sur toutes les clefs indifféremment et en état de faire leurs parties dans un concert, ainsi que dans les opéras qui se donnaient dans cette ville; il y a un des deux qui rase très bien: le troisième âgé de 14 à 15 ans joue un peu du violon et connaît un peu la musique. (Fouchard 1988c, 57) Sieur Tasset, a musician in Le Cap, who is preparing to leave for France, gives notice that he has three nègres for sale of whom two are musicians aged between 16 and 17 years, who read music quite well and to the same standard in all the different clefs, and are able to play their parts in a concert and in the operas that were performed in this town. One of them is a very good barber. The third, aged between 14 and 15 years, plays the violin a little and knows how to read music a bit.

Since Tasset was himself a musician, it is likely that he bought and then trained his enslaved musicians and that the two who played in the theatre orchestra and in at least one public concert did so together with their ‘master’. Violinists were expected to read both treble (G) and alto (C) clefs, as two of the enslaved men clearly could (the reference to all the clefs may indicate that they could read in other clefs as well); they would in all likelihood have played the viola as well as the violin. Tasset as their ‘owner’ will no doubt have taken a more prominent role in the orchestra—perhaps

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as their section leader. But it is still remarkable that he and his young enslaved domestics (if the information in the advertisements is correct, they will have begun performing in operas in Le Cap aged only 13 and 14) participated in a similar fashion in the same musico-theatrical entertainments. Camier notes that enslaved musicians were expensive (Camier 2007, 93), and Tasset’s comment about the three young men losing their value if sold separately reminds us that his primary motive for training them as musicians was profit. The domestics’ musical talent made each of them more valuable, and together they could be sold for more than the sum of their parts, not least because between them they could make up a significant portion of the orchestra. The theatre orchestra in Port-au-­ Prince is reported to have included only 11 regular musicians, although this will have been supplemented by supernumeraries on occasion (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 328).1 No number is given for the orchestra in Le Cap, which may have been slightly larger, while the orchestra in Léogane is reported to have included only four ‘violins’ (i.e. members of the violin family), a bugle and a bassoon (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 461). We do not know what happened to Tasset’s musicians (his use of the imperfect tense in his second advertisement may suggest that they were no longer employed by the theatre at this time), but it is possible that whoever bought them negotiated a new contract with the theatre orchestra after Tasset’s return to France. With regard to the repertoire that they will have performed, we only have the details of five performances in Le Cap before 1765, but assuming that the enslaved violinists continued to perform in the theatre orchestra between Tasset’s two announcements, it is likely that they performed in— and became familiar with—the following musical works: Rousseau’s Le Devin du village (performed on 27 May 1764); Monsigny and Lemonnier’s Le Cadi dupé (24 October 1764 and 14 February 1765); Sodi’s Baïocco et Serpilla (22 November 1764); Arlequin Hulla (performed on a double bill with Marivaux’s Le Jeu de l’amour et du hasard on 25 November 1764); Philidor’s Le Soldat magicien (24 January 1765 and again on 7 February 1765 on a double bill with Les Trois gascons); one musical version of Annette et Lubin (31 January 1765 on a double bill with Regnard’s La Sérénade) and Les deux chasseurs et la laitière (14 February 1  In Fouchard (1988e, 108–111), we find a series of excerpts from letters written by the white musician, Albert Simon, second violin in the theatre orchestra in Port-au-Prince, which include details about his salary and private teaching.

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1785). Of these, the most remarkable are perhaps Le Devin du village and Le Cadi dupé—the first owing to its place in both French and SaintDominguan theatre history, and the second because it is set in Baghdad and features a non-speaking servant character who is enslaved and who cooperates with the plan to dupe the unfaithful cadi (the judge of a sharia court). As we saw in the ‘Unsustainable Tensions’ chapter, it was not uncommon for contemporary French authors to address the question of slavery via other cultures; moreover, as we also observed, at least one visitor to Saint-­Domingue likened the role of the privileged Creole nègre in the plantation hierarchy to that of the cadi. Another role in Le Cadi dupé may have resonated even more with enslaved people: that of Ali, who is the daughter of the teinturier (clothes dyer) Omar, and a pawn in a comic revenge plot aimed at teaching the cadi a lesson. The cadi is duped into believing that he is to marry the beautiful Zelmire, but instead he is presented with Ali, whose arrival is announced by (supposedly) comical music and who is brought to him in a wheelbarrow wearing a (supposedly) comical costume. Both the comedy of this scene and its didactic purpose for the cadi rely on the collective understanding that Ali, who was usually portrayed by a male performer to emphasize her lack of femininity, is unthinkable as a sexual partner owing to her ugliness (she is described in scene 2 as being ‘d’une laideur effrayante’—frighteningly ugly) and her physical disabilities. When impersonating Ali in scene 4, Zelmire sings of how Ali’s father describes his own daughter as ‘boiteuse / Borgnesse, manchotte, hydeuse’ (lame, one-eyed, one-handed, hideous). When Ali’s father, Omar, appears in scene 8 he describes his daughter as ‘impotente’, ‘rebutante’, ‘une horreur’, ‘un monstre’ (impotent, repellent, a horror, a monster) and comments that ‘rien dans la nature / n’égale sa difformité’ (nothing in nature equals her deformity).2 As Hunt-Kennedy in particular has demonstrated, imagined and real links between enslaved Africans and disability were strong in the eighteenth century: many enslaved people were physically disabled as a result of poor nutrition, harsh working conditions and punishments, as well as work-based accidents such as the one in which Macandal lost his hand (see the previous chapter). These physical manifestations were compounded by contemporary discourses that figured African people as 2  I develop a reading of performances of Le Cadi dupé in Saint-Domingue as ableist in a forthcoming article to appear in a volume on music in the French Caribbean with Classiques Garnier.

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physically, spiritually and mentally disabled and ultimately sub-human (Hunt-Kennedy 2020). In addition, the subtle ways in which Le Cadi dupé mocks Islam—in scene 4, for instance, the cadi swears ‘par la moustache de tous nos Prophetes’ (by the moustaches of all our prophets)—may also have grated with any enslaved (or, indeed, free) Muslims present.3 We do not know what Tasset’s unnamed enslaved domestics made of this or any other works in which they performed. From Tasset’s account, we understand that they were competent but not exceptional musicians, and there will no doubt have been other enslaved musicians who performed in a similar capacity and at a similar level.4 Alongside these, we have evidence of at least one enslaved musician who performed in the theatre orchestra in Le Cap whose talent was exceptional. Readers of the local newspaper, some of whom would have already seen and heard him perform at the playhouse, were introduced to ‘Julien’ in the following announcement: M. de Trémondrie part pour France par le premier convoi. Il laisse sa procuration à Mde son épouse. Il vendra un jeune Griffe5 de 17 à 18 ans, nommé Julien, bon musicien, & annonçant les plus grands talens pour le violon & l’alto, dont il joue déjà supérieurement: il est en ce moment engagé jusqu’à Pâques à l’Orchestre de la Comédie du Cap. Il fait sa partie, n’importe dans quel concert. Il faut pour ce Griffe s’adresser à M. Ducommun, Curateur aux successions vacantes. (AA 13 November 1781, 446) M. de Trémondrie is leaving for France in the first convoy. He is leaving his affairs to be managed by Madame his wife. He is selling a young griffe aged between 17 and 18 years, called Julien, a good musician, promising to be highly talented on the violin and viola, which he already plays expertly. At the moment he has a contract until Easter playing with the theatre orchestra in Le Cap. He plays his line in any concert. For this griffe, contact M. Ducommun, curator of unsettled estates. 3  Fouchard has emphasized the presence in Saint-Domingue of a small but significant number of literate Muslims, who could read and write Arabic (Fouchard 1988c). 4  Camier and Dubois mention Joseph César, a free black man and head of music in the militia, who played in the theatre orchestra in Le Cap in the 1770s and who ‘owned’ an enslaved man who also played in the orchestra (Camier and Dubois 2007, para 44). Memelsdorff speculates that a clarinettist named Louis who played in the orchestra in Port-­ au-­Prince may have been enslaved or formerly enslaved (Memelsdorff 2021, 287). 5  The term ‘griffe’ would normally indicate that he was born of a black father and a mother of mixed racial ancestry.

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Interestingly, Trémondrie had been a sea captain before settling in SaintDomingue and setting up a coffee plantation. It has been suggested that he may have encountered Julien in Curaçao on one of his journeys (Bardin et al. 2018).6 Several announcements are found in the press that mention Julien’s solo playing in the theatres of Saint-Domingue. The first, unlike the others, does not identify Julien as a griffe and refers to him with an honorific that was customarily used for free people of colour—factors that introduce an element of doubt regarding his identity (Fouchard 1988a, 48). However, read alongside Trémondrie’s For Sale advertisement, in which we are told that Julien plays in the theatre orchestra, is identified as a griffe and described as being ‘nommé Julien’ (called Julien) (which is not the same as—but is quite close to—le nommé Julien, which appears below) and subsequent announcements in which Julien/the griffe performs with the musician, Petit, it seems likely that they are one and the same person. The announcement is for a double bill in Le Cap featuring Le Diable à quatre ou la double métamorphose by Sedaine and Philidor (featuring Mme Marsan) and Janot ou les Battus paient l’amende by Dorvigny in a benefit performance organized by the music director, Fontaine. As one might expect, the performance showcased quite a lot of music as well as the two theatrical works. The section of the notice that details the musical interludes reads as follows: Dans le premier entr’acte, le nommé Julien jouera un Concerto de violon calqué sur l’ariette du Barbier de Séville, Quand dans la plaine. Dans le second entr’acte & entre les deux Pieces, l’Orchestre exécutera un Divertissement arrangé par le Maître de Musique, & une Symphonie concertante de S. Georges, dans laquelle les Sieurs Petit & Charles exécuteront différens solo sur le violon & le violoncelle. (20 November 1781, 455) In the first entr’acte, the so-called Julien will play a violin concerto derived from the arietta in Le Barbier de Séville, ‘Quand dans la plaine’. In the second entr’acte and between the two works, the orchestra will perform a divertissement arranged by the music director and a sinfonia concertante by Saint-Georges, in which Sieurs Petit and Charles will perform different solos on the violin and violoncello.

6  The errors that have crept into the newspaper references to Julien’s career in Saint-­ Domingue in that article have been corrected in what follows here.

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Julien is the first of three instrumentalists to be named, and his performance of a violin concerto (based on the song from Beaumarchais’s Le Barbier de Séville that Rosine sings, accompanied by the count, during her supposed music lesson) in an entr’acte in the middle of the first work will have formed a prominent part of the evening’s entertainment. Although Julien is identified only by a first name and referred to as ‘le nommé’ (as opposed to the white instrumentalists, who are given the honorific ‘Sieur’), it is clear that he is recognized for his exceptional talent, which sat alongside that of the more prominent white performers, Charles and especially Petit. It is also worth noting that the work in which Petit and Charles performed their solos was a sinfonia concertante by Saint-Georges—an exceptionally talented musician (and fencer) of mixed racial ancestry, born in Guadeloupe who went on to have a distinguished musical career in metropolitan France (Banat 1990, 2006). Whether by accident or by design, this was an event that showcased the musical talents of at least two instrumentalists of colour. We know from Julien’s later life and work in France that he was also a talented composer, so it is perfectly possible that he wrote—or improvised—the concerto based on ‘Quand dans la plaine’. Our second advertisement is for a benefit performance for Petit, now lead violin of the theatre orchestra in Port-au-Prince, featuring Grétry and Marmontel’s Zémire et Azor (in which slavery features as a minor theme), and it clearly features the same Julien griffe of Trémondrie’s For Sale notice. What is uncertain is the veracity of the claim that Julien has recently arrived in Saint-Domingue from France. While it is possible that Julien did travel with his new master to France between 1781 and 1783, it is equally possible that the advertisement has made up this detail in order to attract an audience (such inventions were not uncommon in our advertisements, as we have seen). Whereas some members of the theatre audience in Le Cap would have recognized Julien, this was far less likely in Port-au-­ Prince. Here too, the musical interludes are described in some detail: Entre le premier & le second acte, le Sieur Petit exécutera un Concerto du célèbre Jarnovik, son maître, entre le troisième & le quatième acte, le Sieur Petit, & Julien, jeune Griff arrivé nouvellement de France, exécuteront en Duo, les petits airs variés de la composition du Sieur Dufresne. (SAA 5 July 1783, 376) Between the first and second acts, Sieur Petit will perform a concerto by the famous Jarnović, his teacher; between the third and fourth acts, Sieur Petit and Julien, a young griffe recently arrived from France, will perform, as a duet, various short arias composed by Sieur Dufresne.

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Here we have Petit performing his customary repertoire (Jarnović) and making his customary claim to having been Jarnović’s pupil. What is more remarkable is the fact that in the second musical interlude, Petit and Julien perform on an equal footing—musically, if not socially, they perform ‘en duo’ (as a duet). It is perhaps significant that they perform the work of a locally based composer, Dufresne, who was also in the theatre orchestra and who composed the music for at least one original theatrical work: an opéra-comique with a text by Clément (whose work featuring enslaved characters was discussed at some length in the previous chapter) called Le Pommier ou la ruse de village, which has four documented performances in Le Cap between 1773 and 1778. It is certainly significant that Julien was chosen as a soloist by the musical director in Le Cap and by the lead violin in Port-au-Prince—something that testifies both to his talent and perhaps also to some element of novelty or even exoticism (exoticism being a key feature of the main work performed that evening as well). Later in the same month, we read about Julien performing again as a soloist in Port-au-Prince, this time during a benefit performance for Acquaire and featuring Favart and Monsigny’s La Belle Arsène. Here the musical interludes are advertised as follows: Entre le second & le troisième acte, l’Orchestre executéra une Symphonie concertante de Daveaux, dont les Solo seront exécutés par les Sieurs Petit, Pepe, & le jeune Griff. (SAA 12 July 1783, 396) Between the second and third acts, the orchestra will play a sinfonia concertante by Daveaux in which the solos will be performed by Sieurs Petit, Pepe and the young griffe.

The fact that Julien is simply labelled ‘le jeune griffe’ seems to confirm his celebrity as a performer of colour at the same time that it dehumanizes him by un-naming him. Again, Julien’s talent is confirmed by his appearance on an equal musical footing with Petit and Pepe. Indeed, recognition of Julien’s musical talent was one reason given for his manumission by the man who freed him in September 1785 when they were in France.7 7  Julien’s new master was Paul Jean François Lemercier de la Rivière. Julien travelled to France in 1785 on board the Éclatant, but it was Paul Belin de Villeneuve (who was also on the Éclatant with Julien and la Rivière), who freed him in September 1785. Julien returned to Saint-Domingue in April 1786 before returning to Paris in 1790. From 1791, around the time he was awarded a pension by la Rivière, he seems to have chosen to call himself Julien Clarchies. He died on Christmas Day in 1815 (Bardin et al. 2018).

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The ‘nègre créole’ As we have seen, the only two onstage performers of colour in Saint-­ Domingue whom we can name are Minette (who performed only in Port-­ au-­Prince) and her half-sister, Lise (who performed in Léogane, Les Cayes, Saint-Marc and perhaps also in Port-au-Prince).8 Both women were born free and into a well-connected family, and both are likely to have been pale-skinned (although, as will be seen below, Minette’s skin colour was, for at least one eyewitness, visibly non-white). We know of one further reference to a solo performer of colour, who appears in an intriguing announcement made by Ribié: Par extraordinaire & au bénéfice particulier accordé au sieur Ribié avant son départ, comme gratification par le sieur Fontaine, directeur, on donnera vendredi 14 du courant, la 1re représentation du SABOTIER, ou L’HOMME AUX HUIT SOUS, comédie nouvelle & allégorique, tirée d’une anecdote arrivée à Henri IV. Le sieur Ribié jouera une Scène nouvelle, tragi-comique, avec un Nègre créole qui remplira le rôle du Prince Gonzinet, & la seconde représentation de la PANTOMIME DE RICHARD CŒUR DE LION, ornée de tout son spectacle. (SAA 8 March 1788, 749) In an extraordinary performance for the benefit of Sieur Ribié granted to him before his departure as gratification by Sieur Fontaine, director, will be given on 14th of this month the first performance of Le Sabotier ou l’homme aux huit sous, a new allegorical comedy taken from an incident that happened to Henri IV. Sieur Ribié will perform a new, tragi-comic scene with a Creole nègre who will perform the role of Prince Gonzinet, and the second performance of the pantomime of Richard cœur de Lion, decorated with all its spectacle.

Like the reference to the nègres in the first boxes examined in the ‘Mitigated Spectators’ chapter, this reference to a performance by a ‘nègre créole’ has perplexed scholars for some time. Several elements are obscure. First, it is unclear what the tragi-comic ‘Scène nouvelle’, featuring a prince called Gonzinet might be and how it might relate (or not) to one or other of the two named works performed at the same event. Le Sabotier is a one-­act spoken comedy partly in rustic dialect. In scene 2, Candor, a former 8  Although her name is not mentioned in the press announcements relating to Port-au-­ Prince, a notarial document from 1788 indicates that Lise was part of the theatre troupe there (Memelsdorff 2022).

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captain of the dragoons, speaks to the clog maker of a prince who sometimes hunts in the vicinity. An important theme in the play is the contrast between the ‘natural’ goodness of the poor peasant clog maker and wealthier people of higher social status—something that might support the idea of breaking down social hierarchies. Ribié states specifically that it is an allegorical work based on an anecdote about Henri IV. This seems to be a reference to a story about Henri IV finding shelter with a welcoming peasant family who were unaware of his identity (and explored in another work performed in Saint-Domingue: Collé’s La Partie de chasse de Henri IV). This would link the hunting prince with Henri, but not obviously with Gonzinet. The other work on the double bill, Ribié’s pantomime, Richard cœur de Lion, is important for reasons that have been overlooked: it received its (world) premiere in Le Cap on 8 March 1788, and its little-known first print edition was produced there in the same year (Ribié 1788a). Its second print edition, which confirms the date and location of the premiere, appeared after the work was performed in Rouen in September the same year (Ribié 1788b). Its Paris premiere at the Théâtre des grands danseurs was not until 22 November 1789. Combined with the two works by Mercier discussed in the previous chapter, we have now identified three French works that were premiered in Saint-Domingue, and there are probably more to uncover. The newspaper announcement for the first performance of Ribié’s Richard cœur de Lion on 8 March 1788 tells us a bit more about it: Ribié … a commencé l’action de l’instant où Richard, revenant de la Terre-­ sainte, fait naufrage près de Venise, & il s’est appliqué à suivre une marche toute autre que celle de l’Opéra, en plaçant cependant sur la scene les mêmes acteurs. (SAA 1 March 1788, 743) Ribié starts the action at the moment when Richard, returning from the Holy Land, is shipwrecked near Venice, and he has made an effort to follow a plan that is completely different from the opera [by Sedaine and Grétry] while still putting the same characters onstage.

Ribié’s Richard cœur de lion is, like several of the works Ribié put on in Saint-Domingue, a military pantomime. There is, however, no hint of a Prince Gonzinet. It seems clear that the new scene was separate from its accompanying works and functioned in a way similar to the musical interludes that often

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separated items on a theatrical double bill, including those discussed above in relation to Julien Clarchies. In the same way that Acquaire, in particular, seems to have exoticized Julien by presenting him as a talented enslaved man, Ribié’s ‘Nègre créole’ may, similarly, have been of interest precisely owing to the exceptional nature of his appearance onstage. As we have seen, the term nègre did not necessarily denote an enslaved person, but without the qualifier libre, that is the default understanding in this context. The qualifier créole is interesting and may provide a clue regarding the identity of our mysterious performer: most enslaved domestics were Creole, and it is possible that Ribié chose for his farewell performance at the end of his (first) tour of Saint-Domingue to put an enslaved domestic—his own, rented out for the duration of his trip, or someone else’s— on stage in an entertainment that would be genuinely unique and also quite provocative. If the scene is indeed new (and we have no reason to doubt it), then it will almost certainly have been written with this particular performer in mind. But what was the scene? The term scène is polyvalent but may suggest a scène muette (silent scene) of pantomime, in which case both the Creole man and Ribié may have performed in silence. If so, their movement will have assumed greater importance. We know that Ribié was a talented physical performer, but what of the black Creole man? Did he have acting and movement ability that was perhaps nurtured by Ribié in the course of his tour? If he was in the service of another actor based in Le Cap, he may have had the opportunity to watch the troupe rehearse and perform regularly. The fact that he is referred to by the indefinite article (un Nègre créole) suggests that he was not well-known to the theatre audience. Even if he did little more than sit or stand regally during the scene as Ribié performed around him, our unnamed performer must have had significant stage presence for the scene to succeed theatrically. The provocative element to Ribié’s decision to put a black performer onstage is all the greater given that he played the character of a prince alongside Ribié, whose role is not given. If the creole man played, as seems likely, an African prince, his performance will have resonated with contemporary views whereby African princes (unlike ordinary Africans) could only be enslaved by error—as was the case for the legendary Oroonoko. In that sense, the performance by an enslaved man of African ancestry of an African prince embodied—literally—the contradictions that underpinned the very practice of slavery. The name ‘Gonzinet’ may have been inspired by the character of Gonzinet, captain of the guards, who features in a

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burlesque tragedy called La Bataille d’Antioche, ou Gargamelle vaincu by Fonpré de Francansalle, which had been performed in Paris in 1778 and 1779 and which would probably have been known to Ribié. The Battle of Antioch took place during the Crusades, and the city of Antioch is sometimes linked with Richard Lionheart. But Francansalle’s Gonzinet is no prince.9 The names of some the other characters in Francansalle’s work are crudely exoticizing, notably those of the prince and princess who are called Girofle (clove) and Canelle (cinnamon). Ribié’s scene featuring a black performer playing a prince called Gonzinet was almost certainly an exoticizing one too, but it is significant that he describes it as tragi-comic. Had it been described as comic or burlesque, we might have surmised that Ribié presented some kind of carnivalesque reversal of normal hierarchies, but we have no sense that Ribié was seeking to mock the black performer. The kind of scenario that could be described as tragi-comic might feature a prince in difficulty (the tragic potential) but saved thanks to the help of another (the ‘comic’ or happy outcome). Whatever the exact scenario, it is likely that Ribié played the prince’s social inferior. If the onstage social inversion was not carnivalesque or even comical, it was arguably all the more provocative. Although this inversion of social status was no doubt enabled by the fact that it was performed onstage and understood not to be real, it does nonetheless make the inversion imaginable, thereby opening up the possibility of similar inversions off-stage. It seems, then, that between a spoken comedy that both patronized and commended the lower orders (Le Sabotier) and a heroic military pantomime presenting the triumph of Richard Lionheart and his followers over the Holy Roman Emperor, an enslaved Creole man appeared on stage in Le Cap and, by his very presence there, coupled with his role as a prince, raised questions about other social hierarchies and conflicts at the same time that he provided the audience with genuine theatrical novelty. However this scene was performed and received by the audience in Le Cap, the fact that a black and probably enslaved performer appeared on the stage there in 1788 marks an important—and, as far as we know, exceptional—moment in theatre history.

9  Les Eaux minérales (London: [np], 1778), a two-act comedy by Clairville (who describes himself as a citizen of Maestricht), features a Baron de Gonzinet. The work relies on stereotypical portrayals, including Madame Moka (a café holder), Nathan Lévi (a Jewish moneylender) and two English ‘mylords’ called Spléene and Bricbroc. Gonzinet has lost his money at cards and negotiates with the money lender.

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Black Supernumeraries In addition to the performer who played Prince Gonzinet, there is reason to believe that Ribié included performers of colour as supernumeraries in his productions. A comparison of the Le Cap and Rouen editions of Ribié’s Richard cœur de Lion reveals one significant difference in the content of the published text: in I.6 of the Le Cap edition, we read that the emperor Henri VI (played by an actor called Carronville) ‘est placé dans un char traîné par des esclaves’ (is placed in a chariot drawn by slaves) and, in I.7, that Richard (played by Dellony) joins him in the chariot. But neither reference to the slave-drawn chariot is included in the Rouen edition. This suggests that the chariot was a feature of the Saint-Domingue performances, drawn by real enslaved people—probably by enslaved porters who were accustomed to carrying people in sedan chairs off-stage. How did they experience this cross-over from their daily chores to a theatrical performance of those same chores in an entirely different context? Given the small size of the core theatre troupes in Saint-Domingue and the absence of an opera chorus, additional performers were required for most larger-scale sung works. The testimony of Alfred de Laujon, whose observations regarding the segregated audience in Port-au-Prince were examined in the ‘Mitigated Spectators’ chapter, indicates that the additional performers included people of colour: Les acteurs me faisaient beaucoup rire. Une maîtresse était jaune, un amant était blanc, et quelques noirs jouaient le rôle de courtisans. Il fallait se reporter sur la scène pour ne pas entendre parler de préjugés. Ce fut surtout à l’apparition des chœurs que j’eus de la peine à me contenir. Je voyais dans l’ensemble des figures un mélange de couleur dont les nuances étaient différentes entr’elles, et les yeux s’y perdaient. Avec cela j’entendis plusieurs voix qui me surprirent, et je ne trouvai pas que la pièce fût mal représentée. (Laujon 1835 I, 166–67) The actors made me laugh a lot. There was a yellow mistress, a white lover and some black people played the courtiers. You had to turn to the stage to avoid hearing about prejudice. It was when the choruses appeared that I struggled to contain myself. In the collection of faces I saw a mix of colours whose nuances were all different and our eyes became lost in them. With all that, I heard several voices that surprised me, and I did not think that the work was badly performed.

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Laujon recalls, during the same visit to Port-au-Prince, reporting on the popularity in Paris of Le Mariage de Figaro and Sedaine’s Richard cœur de lion. Allowing for the fact that he had been travelling for some months already, his testimony above probably refers to the mid-1780s, perhaps to 1785 or 1786. ‘Yellow’ was a term sometimes used for people of mixed racial ancestry and the ‘yellow’ mistress was almost certainly Minette, performing a solo role alongside a white performer in an opéra-comique (the genre with which she was most closely associated). Interestingly, Minette (if Camier’s identification is correct) was described by an audience member at the theatre in Baltimore in 1796 as having ‘dingy skin’ (Camier 2022). Laujon’s account clearly indicates that black performers participated as non-singing ‘extras’ and that other performers of colour (of various skin tones) sang in the chorus alongside white singers. We note that the racial mixing Laujon observed onstage pleased and entertained him in a way that the social and racial segregation that he saw among the audience did not. One might add that the existence of any social mixing onstage makes the possibility of such social mixing off-stage more concrete and more imaginable. We should also note that the quality of the singing and of the performance overall surpassed Laujon’s expectations. Laujon does not tell us which work or works he saw. His language is quite generic, invoking the standard heterosexual love plot, some courtiers (supernumeraries) and the choruses (crowds). We know that our newspaper records, which prioritize benefit performances over subscription performances, are incomplete, and so a search for documented opéras-­ comiques performed by Minette in the mid-1780s does not necessarily provide us with the answer. An important clue would seem to lie in the fact that Laujon writes of choruses in the plural. One possibility, then, is Grétry and Durosoy’s Les Mariages samnites, which includes separate male and female choruses (for warriors and Samnite women) as well as a general combined chorus. It also features large numbers of supernumerary figures onstage, supposedly representing ‘toutes les Classes de Citoyens’ (III.1) (all classes of citizen)—not all of them courtiers, but the ambiance of the Samnite nation coming together is broadly courtly, and there is plenty of scope for courtiers to feature in earlier scenes. All of which matches Laujon’s description quite well. Les Mariages samnites was an ambitious work to put on in Saint-Domingue, but we know of planned performances

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in Cap-­Français (in 1777 and 1781), Port-au-Prince (1782) and SaintMarc (1783). The announcement for the performance in Port-au-Prince is of particular interest as it confirms the intent to perform the work with large numbers of participants: Les Comédiens du Port-au-Prince donneront mardi prochain 26 de ce mois, (au bénéfice de la Demoiselle Doligny) une représentation des MARIAGES SAMNITES, Opéra en trois actes, de M. Durosoy, Musique de M. Grétry, orné de toutes ses décorations, chœurs & marches, & d’un cirque à la Romaine. (SAA 23 February 1782, 71) The actors of Port-au-Prince will give next Monday 26th of this month (for the benefit of Mlle Doligny) a performance of Les Mariages samnites, an opera in three acts by Durosoy, with music by M. Grétry, complete with all its stage sets, choruses and marches, and a Roman circus.

Even allowing for some exaggeration or wishful thinking on Mlle Doligny’s part, it is clear that any production approaching what she describes would have required a large number of extra performers. She explicitly mentions the inclusion of more than one chorus (chœurs). It seems likely that the performance described by Laujon was similar to that outlined by Doligny some four years earlier, quite possibly featuring the same work and even some of the same silent black courtiers and singers of colour. If my suggestion is correct, this would mean that Minette played the role of Céphalide, whose complexion (teint) is described by her lover, Agathie, as rosecoloured (la rose) (I.2)—something that may have contributed to Laujon’s amusement. Laujon’s account, coupled with what we can surmise about Ribié’s performances, should inform our assumptions about other works, including Les Veuves créoles (discussed in the ‘Mitigated Portrayals’ chapter) whose ‘domestiques noirs’ might well have been performed by black supernumeraries as well. What Laujon’s account does not make clear is whether or not any of the performers whom he saw were enslaved—something that he would not necessarily have known in any case (we have already seen that enslavement was not always readily discernible on a person’s body). In an account that focuses on his perception of colour (black, white, yellow), Laujon describes the people playing the silent courtiers in his opéracomique as ‘noirs’, while the singers are described as being of a mixture of colours and having a variety of skin tones. We should not rule out the possibility that some of these performers were enslaved, and it is likely that

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they were the talented domestic servants of some of the theatre-­makers who also contributed to the performance. Whatever the case, Laujon’s testimony is extremely important as it makes clear that the public stage of Port-au-Prince was not as white as has sometimes been assumed.

Non-performing Contributors We now consider contributions that will have been less visible to the theatre-­going public and which are even more elusive for the researcher: those made by non-performing individuals, backstage and away from the stage. In his summary of the full composition of the permanent theatre troupe in Port-au-Prince, Moreau de Saint-Méry mentions eight male actors and eight female actors, eleven musicians, a prompt, a ‘machiniste’ (the person responsible for the mechanical stage sets), a painter (the person responsible for designing and painting the décor), a tailor, a wigmaker, four portiers (porters or doormen) and a ticket seller (Moreau de Saint-­ Méry 1797–1798, II, 328). The painter, tailor and wigmaker (and possibly others too) will have drawn on the labour of assistants and apprentices, some of them enslaved, as they prepared for their performances. Indeed, having completed their apprenticeship, some enslaved people then worked as professionals in these trades, usually for another craftsman or master craftsman who was sometimes their owner. A jail list from 1767 includes an enslaved man called ‘Champagne’, then in the jail in Fort-Dauphin, who is described as ‘tailleur de profession’ (a tailor by profession) claiming to belong to Sieur Arnaud ‘tailleur au Cap’ (AA 6 May 1767, 138) (a tailor in Le Cap), and a number of individuals labelled ‘tailleur de son métier’ (tailor by trade) are listed in runaway advertisements during the period. Fouchard notes that the tailor for the theatre in Port-au-Prince was Jean Funadel. Neither the jail lists nor the runaway advertisements link any specific tailors with the theatre, but we do have an advertisement submitted by a painter-decorator who worked at the theatre in Port-au-Prince and who Fouchard identifies as a witness on Saint-Martin’s will, along with Funadel: Jean Peyret (Fouchard 1988a, 69, 1988e, 156). Décor was an important element in theatre productions in Saint-Domingue, and several theatre announcements provide details of Peyret’s contributions and of two performances put on for his benefit. Productions in which Peyret was involved include a performance in Port-au-Prince of La Belle Arsène, featuring Minette (here referred to as ‘la jeune personne’ the young person)

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on 14 August 1781, complete with animated statues and magical transformations—rocks turning into a throne and a desert turning into a palace (SAA 31 July 1781, 298; SAA 7 August 1781, 308). In 1782, Peyret published the following advertisement: Joseph-Manuel, Holandais, étampé sur le sein droit illisiblement, âgé d’environ 36 ans, taille de 5 pieds 8 pouces, parti marron le 16 de ce mois. Ceux qui en auront connaissance sont priés d’en donner avis au Sieur Peyret, Peintre en cette ville; il y aura récompense. (SAA 22 June 1782, 234) Joseph-Manuel, Dutch, illegible brand on his right breast, aged around 36 years, 5 foot 8 inches tall, ran away on the 16th of this month. Those who recognize him are asked to inform Sieur Peyret, painter in this town. There will be a reward.

Peyret does not provide any information about Joseph-Manuel’s work, but it is possible that he helped Peyret to prepare the sets for performances in the playhouse in Port-au-Prince prior to his disappearance. Joseph-­ Manuel might, specifically, have contributed to the sets for Peyret’s benefit performance on 13 April 1782, featuring Marmontel and Grétry’s La Fausse magie and Dorvigny’s Janot ou les battus paient l’amende (SAA 13 April 1782, 133). An important décorateur in Le Cap was a man named Gervais, who was also a talented musician. Fouchard has noted the significance of Gervais’s sets, which paved the way for special effects featuring lightning and illuminated fountains (Fouchard 1988e, 178–81). Gervais was also responsible for the permanent painted and sculpted decorations inside the playhouse, which include sea creatures, satyrs and allegories of tragedy and comedy (AA 23 April 1766, 145–46). A list from the jail in Le Cap in 1766 includes details of a runaway claiming to belong to Gervais: ‘un Negre Congo, nommé François, se disant appartenir au Sr. Gervais, demeurant en cette Ville’ (AA 22 October 1766, 362) (a Congolese nègre called François, claiming to belong to Sieur Gervais, who lives in this town). It is possible that François contributed in some way to the permanent decorations in the playhouse before he went missing and/or to some of the performances that took place after the new playhouse opened in April that year. Several announcements for these early performances highlight Gervais’s new bespoke sets. Turning to other behind-the-scene contributors, there are no details of a wigmaker called M. Simon in any theatre announcements, but we learn

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of his professional links with the playhouse in Le Cap from other newspaper advertisements. The first is in the For Sale section: Une Mulâtresse grande perruquiere pour femme, avec trois bonnes couturieres. On s’adressera au Sieur Simon, Perruquier de la Comédie, demeurant proche du Spectacle, rues Sainte-Marie & des Marmousets. (AA 23 March 1779, 98) A mulâtresse, expert wigmaker for women, with three good seamstresses. Contact Sieur Simon, wigmaker at the theatre, living near to the playhouse, Sainte-Marie and Marmousets streets.

Simon identifies himself explicitly as a wigmaker at the theatre, and it seems likely that the mulâtresse in question will have worked in this capacity as well. The dressmakers may also have made, adjusted and repaired costumes for theatre productions in Le Cap. Although For Sale advertisements tend, for obvious reasons, to play up people’s talents, it is nonetheless remarkable that the unnamed mulâtresse is described as an expert wigmaker for women. Might the mulâtresse have prepared the wigs for the female actors in Le Cap alongside Simon who prepared those of the male actors? She might well have dressed the hair of, among others, Mme Tesseire when she played the central role of Pauline in a rare performance in the colony of Corneille’s five-act tragedy, Polyeucte, on 24 February 1779. Two later advertisements featuring Simon confirm that he also took on male apprentice wigmakers, whose training will almost certainly have included some experience at the playhouse: Un Negre Sénégalois, nommé Dick, âgé de 16 à 17 ans, sans étampe, travaillant ci-devant chez M. Simon, Perruquier. Ceux qui le reconnoîtront, sont priés d’en donner avis au Sieur Simon, ou à M. Delaire, à qui il appartient: il y aura récompense. (SAA 5 June 1782, 210) A Senegalese nègre called Dick, aged 16 to 17 years, no brand, who formerly worked for M. Simon, wigmaker. Those who recognize him are asked to inform Sieur Simon or M. Delaire, to whom he belongs. There will be a reward. Un Negre créole, nommé Jean-Baptiste, âgé de 12 à 13 ans, sans étampe, bien pris dans sa taille, ayant un oeil plus petit que l’autre, est parti maron depuis deux mois de chez le Sr Simon, Perruquier de la Comédie, où il étoit en apprentissage. Ceux qui le reconnoîtront, sont priés de le faire arrêter & d’en donner avis au Sr Joseph Prevost, Habitant à Plaisance: il y aura bonne récompense. (SAA 16 October 1782, 398)

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A Creole nègre called Jean-Baptiste, aged between 12 and 13 years, no brand, nicely proportioned, one eye smaller than the other, ran away two months ago from the house of Sr Simon, wigmaker at the theatre, where he was an apprentice. Those who recognize him are asked to have him detained and to inform Sr Joseph Prévost, a planter in Plaisance. There will be a substantial reward.

It is not absolutely clear how recently Dick worked with Simon or in what capacity, but he may have helped dress the actors’ hair for the performance in Le Cap of Voltaire’s Zaïre (a work discussed in the ‘Unsustainable Tensions’ chapter) on 18 May 1782. Jean-Baptiste will probably have helped with the small number of performances that took place in Le Cap in the summer months prior to his disappearance, which included a performance of Grétry and Marmontel’s Zémire et Azor, featuring Mme Marsan and organized by Dubuisson on 1 June, and a double bill on 25 June, featuring Mme Marsan performing cross-dressed alongside Mme Dubuisson in Philidor’s L’Amant déguisé ou le jardinier supposé. Ravel has noted the case of an assistant wigmaker in Paris who illegally sold parterre tickets ‘in an alleyway on the side of the theater’ (Ravel 1999, 26)—is it conceivable that Dick had done the same thing in Le Cap? Although the timing is such that they are unlikely to have known each other, it is interesting to consider that Jean-Baptiste, who was 12 or 13 in 1782, was very close in age to Marsan’s domestic, Paris, who (as we saw in the ‘Unsustainable Tensions’ chapter) was around 18 years old when he ran away in 1788. Meanwhile, in 1784, the director of the theatre in Le Cap submitted the following For Sale advertisement: Un Negre âgé d’environ 26 ans, excellent cocher, perruquier pour hommes & un peu pour femmes; un autre âgé de 22 ans, excellent perruquier pour hommes & pour femmes, coëffant pour le Théâtre, au besoin faisant un peu de cuisine. S’adresser à M. Fontaine, Directeur du Spectacle. (SAA 7 April 1784, 238) A nègre aged around 26 years, excellent coachman, wigmaker for men and a bit for women; another aged 22 years, excellent wigmaker for men and women, dresses hair for the theatre, if needed can also cook a little. Contact M. Fontaine, Director of the Theatre.

This advertisement confirms that dressing the hair (or wigs) of men and women were separate, though related, skills. It also confirms that enslaved

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people contributed these skills to local theatre production in this way on a regular basis (as emphasized by the use of the gerund, coëffant or, in modern French, coiffant, in Fontaine’s advertisement). Indeed, as hairdressing will have been required at every theatre performance, it is reasonable to assume that enslaved people were systematically present to dress (or help dress) the actors’ wigs. In the earlier days of public theatre in Le Cap, we find evidence of a wigmaker called Bellanger, who, on preparing to return to France, advertised the sale of ‘quatre Negres, perruquiers, dont l’un sçachant parfaitement finir une perruque, & joue du violon’ (AA 4 January 1769, 8–7 [sic]) (four nègres, wigmakers, one of them knowing how to finish a wig perfectly and plays the violin). His address is rue Notre Dame du Cap, ‘près de la Comédie’ (near the theatre). The reference to the particular skill of finishing a wig is interesting. Revier has outlined the work involved in creating a wig in the mid-eighteenth century, which she divides into five stages. These are, crudely, first, the purchase and preparation of the raw materials (hair or horse hair); second, the wig design according to the client’s taste, complexion and measurements; third, the creation of a skeleton on which the hair will be sewn; fourth, the plaiting and cutting of the hair on the frame and, finally, the dressing of the hair using scissors, hot irons and powder (Revier 2006, 198). Bellanger’s unnamed nègre was apparently especially good at the final stage of this process, while Simon’s unnamed mulâtresse will, if his description is accurate, have mastered most—and probably all—of these stages. In the theatre, new wigs will sometimes have been commissioned, but existing wigs will also have been adapted to new roles and new performers—a process relying heavily on the fourth and especially the fifth stage(s) outlined above. One wonders who was responsible for preparing the particularly extravagant hairstyle, called a Grecque, sported comically by Mme Grapin in I.5 of Les Veuves créoles (discussed in the previous chapter) and how it looked in performance. Although they did not contribute directly to theatre production, the enslaved men who could be hired to transport theatre-goers to and from the playhouse should also be mentioned. In 1784, three advertisements appeared in the local press advertising this service in Le Cap. The first explicitly targets female theatre-goers: Les sieurs Fadeville & Compagnie … ont l’honneur de prévenir qu’on pourra envoyer demander chez eux des Chaises à porteurs, qu’ils loueront à

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un prix raisonnable. Les Dames qui voudront s’en servir pour aller à la Comédie, sont priées de faire prévenir au moins une heure d’avance, & si elles veulent que les Chaises restent à leur ordres pendant le Spectacle. (SAA 3 November 1784, 713) Sieurs Fadeville and Company have the honour of announcing that it will be possible to request Sedan chairs from them, which they will rent out at a reasonable price. Women wanting to use them to go to the theatre are kindly asked to give at least an hour’s notice and to indicate if they wish the chairs to remain at their service during the performance.

Two weeks later, another advertisement clarified some of the details of the service on offer, noting, in particular, that Fadeville and Company ‘fourniront les Negres’ (will provide the nègres) (17 November 1784, 743). A few weeks later, a third advertisement announced a drop in price for prebooked journeys and the possibility of hiring a Sedan chair on leaving the playhouse: Les sieurs Fadeville & Compagnie, à qui l’on a bien voulu observer qu’ils avoient annoncés le prix de leurs Chaises à porteurs trop cher, en prenant une gourde pour aller & une pour revenir de la Comédie, ont l’honneur de prévenir les personnes qui feront demander une chaise pour aller & revenir du Spectacle ne payeront qu’une gourde; & quand leurs chaises seront à la porte de la Comédie, à la disposition des personnes qui voudront s’en servir, les Negres porteurs fixeront le prix, suivant les courses & les circonstances. (SAA 15 December 1784, 810) Sieurs Fadeville and Company, who were informed that the proposed price of their Sedan chairs, at one gourde to go the theatre and one to return from it, was too high have the honour of announcing that people who require a chair to go to and return from the theatre will pay only one gourde; and that when their chairs are at the entrance to the playhouse (available to those who would like to use them), the enslaved porters will arrange the price depending on the journey and the circumstances.

It is interesting that the enslaved porters are advertised as being in charge of fixing a price for unbooked journeys from the playhouse. As with the personal domestics who accompanied their masters to the playhouse as coachmen or valets discussed in the ‘Mitigated Spectators’ chapter, we must ask what the porters who were booked for a return journey did during the show. Did some of them manage to slip into the playhouse or did they spend the intervening hours running other errands or perhaps in the local café or bar?

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This indirect contribution to theatre-making—or, rather, to theatre attendance—brings us back to the more general question of the contributions made by domestic servants ‘belonging’ to troupe members and theatre-­makers. It is likely that they were involved in theatre-making and the functioning of the playhouse in direct and indirect ways, and it is important to acknowledge their contributions even when we cannot pin them down. Enslaved individuals ‘belonging’ to theatre directors will certainly have run errands on their behalf relating to theatre business, and those ‘belonging’ to actors will have undertaken tasks such as repairing, washing and pressing their costumes. We know from Moreau de Saint-­ Méry that actors in Port-au-Prince, where there were no dressing rooms in the playhouse until 1787 (Fouchard 1988e, 157), were sometimes seen walking to the theatre in their costumes (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 329), which suggests that they were kept by individual actors at home. Under these circumstances, ordinary domestics will certainly have helped their ‘masters’ to put on their costumes. They will also have helped carry performers’ other belongings and accompanied them to and from the playhouse when necessary. They may well have attended their ‘masters’ during their regular morning rehearsals and evening performances, perhaps helping them to change costume between scenes or works when required. Their near invisibility in the theatre records belies what was, in all likelihood, a significant presence and contribution by both male and female domestics.

Builders The final type of contribution made by enslaved people that is explored here is in relation to the construction, maintenance and renovation of the playhouses in which our performances took place. Not all building work in Saint-Domingue was undertaken by enslaved labourers, but most of it was. In a chapter that he describes as the first study of slave builders in the French Atlantic Empire, Gauvin Alexander Bailey notes that: the most punitive jobs such as clearing land, cutting down trees, quarrying rocks, carrying loads, and performing heavy unskilled construction labour were given to teams commandeered either by plantation owners and religious orders … or by slave workshops belonging to the king and housed on royal plantations. All such slaves were overwhelmingly field labourers. (Bailey 2018, 98–99)

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Bailey notes that ‘sometimes settlers agreed “voluntarily” to lend their slaves … and sometimes the government paid masters for their slaves’ service or drew upon a fund called the caisse des libertés made up of the fees charged for manumissions’ (Bailey 2018, 99). An advertisement in the local newspaper submitted by the chief engineer for Port-au-Prince, Nicolas Boisforest (who also designed its theatre) invites expressions of interest from building contractors in relation to a project to repair the church in Arcahaye (AA 11 December 1776, 594). Clearly this was a tender process. A longer and more formal announcement featuring Boisforest was published in SAA on 20 December 1786 (589) in relation to two large building projects in different parts of the colony. For these larger projects, the successful contractors had to recruit labourers from a variety of sources. Steiner notes, in relation to an unusually well-documented project from the second half of the eighteenth century, which aimed to improve the water supply in Port-au-Prince by building an aqueduct, that the construction team involved ‘soldiers, indentured servants, African slaves, and paid artisans, mostly of African descent’ (Steiner 2020, 14). One contractor for the aqueduct project was required to provide at least 25 African or mixed-race workers every day, as well as 50 day workers who would be spread across various different locations and supervised by the project engineer, Charles-François Hesse (Steiner 2020, 157). Masters who rented out enslaved workers were paid a daily rate, and occasionally skilled workers were paid directly. The ‘atelier des nègres du roi’ (workshop of the king’s nègres) also contributed to the project (Steiner 2020, 108, 160). It is important to note that enslaved people provided skilled as well as unskilled labour for building projects.10 As Bailey comments, ‘many [slaves] learned a trade, particularly carpentry, masonry, roofing, and joinery, most frequently in ateliers run by whites or gens de couleur’, and there is also evidence of enslaved men undertaking the day-to-day running of some workshops themselves (Bailey 2018, 99). Designated carpentry and other workshops were usually based in towns, but plantations also featured skilled workers who could be rented out by other plantation owners or urban builders when the need arose. Enslaved craftsmen were often apprenticed in urban workshops, where they provided their labour 10  In one notarial document from 1777, enslaved carpenters were valued at 3600 livres each, while the unskilled workers were valued at only 2000 livres each. See Bailey (2018, 518n45).

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for free, and some of them were later recognized as master craftsman (Bailey 2018, 101–02). The future emperor of Haiti, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, worked as a carpenter during his enslavement. Bailey comments that on plantations, enslaved carpenters were ‘responsible for a wide range of tasks, from cutting down trees and making planks and beams to constructing frames for wooden buildings and roofs’; enslaved joiners undertook ‘fine carpentry and furniture making’, while enslaved masons ‘generally did the heavy work under a master such as landfill and laying down foundations or floors’ (Bailey 2018, 103). Confirmation that enslaved people had special skills can be found in the runaway, For Sale and For Hire advertisements in the local press, which mention dozens of enslaved carpenters, masons, joiners and roofers. In some instances, the métier of the enslaved man coincides with that of his owner, for whom he will have worked as an artisan or apprentice. In a few instances, the runaway is listed as having taken his professional tools with him: this is the case, for instance, for Étienne, ‘bon maçon’ (a good mason) who we are told ‘a emporté avec lui tous les outils de son métier’ (AA 17 July 1776, 343) (took with him all the tools of his trade) and for Charles and Narcisse, both couvreurs (roofers) ‘parti marrons avec leurs outils’ (SAA 27 April 1785, 196) (run away with their tools). One advertisement from 1783 sheds light on the variety of enslaved workers owned, rented and employed by building contractors in Saint-­ Domingue. It also links this particular contractor with Fontaine, director of the theatre in Le Cap: La nuit du 12 au 13 de ce mois, plusieurs Negres maçons, menuisiers, boulangers, machoquiers, confiseurs, tous de nation Mandingue, sont partis marons: tous sont de choix & de prix, tant pour l’extérieur que pour les talens, & au nombre de dix ou douze, à la connaissance de quelques-uns des propriétaires. … un autre, nommé Lafleur, maçon, est étampé sur le sein droit J B. ROY, picoté de petite vérole, âgé de 22 à 23 ans au plus, taille d’environ 5 pieds 6 pouces. … Ceux qui les reconnaîtront, sont priés de les faire arrêter & d’en donner avis à M. Roy, Entrepreneur de bâtimens, ou à M. Fontaine, Directeur du Spectacle, tous deux au Cap. (SAA 22 January 1783, 38) On the night of 12th to 13th of this month, several nègres, masons, joiners, breadmakers, blacksmiths, confectioners, all of the Mandingue nation, ran away. All of them are first-rate and valuable, as much for their physique as for their talents—around ten or twelve of them as far as some of the owners know. … Another, called Lafleur, a mason, is branded J B.  ROY on his right breast,

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marked with smallpox, aged 22 to 23 years at the most, around five foot six inches tall. … Those who recognize them are asked to have them detained and to inform M. Roy, building contractor, or M. Fontaine, director of the theatre, both in Le Cap.

This is a large group, and we note that its members are all described as being from the same ethnic group in West Africa.11 Although, as we have seen, ethnic designations were loose, this detail may suggest a kind of ethnic solidarity within the enslaved community in Le Cap. The advertisement implies that different owners have been consulted regarding the number of runaways. This suggests that they may have run away from different locations, although it seems likely that most, perhaps all, of the masons, joiners and blacksmiths were working for Roy. Whatever the precise details, the advertisement speaks of a high level of organization within the enslaved community of precisely the kind that planters and colonials feared, but the likelihood of which they also repeatedly denied (Trouillot 1995, 83–84). The advertisement is interesting too because it explicitly acknowledges the runaways’ advanced skills and concomitant value. It also provides evidence of links between the contractor, Roy, and Fontaine, here identified in his capacity as the director of the theatre in Le Cap. We do not have records of the enslaved workers who helped to build the playhouses of Saint-Domingue. Indeed, Bailey notes that, of the many buildings discussed in his book, only one—the old prison at Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadeloupe from circa 1777—‘can be linked beyond a doubt to an identified slave labourer’ (Bailey 2018, 94). As has been the case for much of this book, we are obliged to look for scraps of evidence that bring us closer to what we want to know about enslaved people. The magnificent theatre of Le Cap, inaugurated in April 1766, was built by the contractor, Jean Renaud (or Renault), who immediately put it up for sale for the sum of 15,000 livres (see AA 2 April 1766, 123). We have a record of one enslaved man linked to Renaud (who here describes himself as an architect), who went missing while the theatre was under construction and who may have contributed to it in some way: Un Nègre Créole, nommé Baptiste, âgé de 30 ans, taille de 5 pieds 4 pouces, étampé C.D.OI.D.I, est maron depuis le 20 du mois dernier. Ceux qui le

 For a more detailed account of group escapes, see Eddins (2019).

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reconnoîtront, sont priés de le faire arrêter, & d’en donner avis à M. Renaud, Architecte au Cap. (AA 5 March 1766, 92) A Creole nègre called Baptiste, aged 30 years, five foot four inches tall, branded C.D.OI.D.O., ran away on the 20th of last month. Those who recognize him are asked to have him detained and to inform M. Renaud, architect in Le Cap.

A decade later, the owner of the playhouse was Jean Artaud (or Arthaud or Artau) who leased out the building and its popular coffee shop (Camier 2004, 85, 243n5), but will have been responsible for its upkeep. Artaud was born in Burgundy and died in Port-au-Prince in 1789 (Bailey 2018, 262). He is described variously in the local press as ‘Entrepreneur général des travaux du roi’ (SAA 8 March 1786, 122) (general contractor for the king’s works) and, perhaps more accurately, as ‘Entrepreneur de bâtiments’ (building contractor) or ‘Entrepreneur’ (contractor) (SAA 10 February 1787, 696). Moreau de Saint-Méry links Artaud, who features on the subscription list for his Loix et constitutions book, with a number of building projects in Saint-Domingue, not all of which came to fruition. The projects include a fountain in Fort-Dauphin, a bridge in Le Cap, a guardhouse, work on the Providence in Le Cap, the façades of la place royale in Le Cap, the cours Villeverd in Le Cap and renovations to the local hospital.12 It is clear that Artaud made extensive use of the labour of enslaved people in his projects, although he will not have ‘owned’ all his labourers personally—many of them will have been rented from fellow contractors or, possibly, from neighbouring plantations. In 1780 we find the following advertisement in the rental section of the newspaper: Sept Negres bons charpentiers, travaillans dans l’atelier de M. Artaud depuis dix années, à qui l’on pourra s’informer de leurs talens. Il faut s’adresser à Mrs Poupet freres, Négocians au Cap. (AA 13 June 1780, 188) Seven nègres, good carpenters, working in the workshop of M. Artaud, who can tell you about their talents. Contact the Poupet brothers, merchants in Le Cap.

As we have seen, it was not uncommon to hire out skilled (and unskilled) workers—indeed, it seems likely that Artaud himself had hired the 12  For a reproduction and discussion of the design for la place royale, see Bailey (2018, 258–64).

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carpenters from the Poupet brothers. The advertisement is intriguing because, even allowing for some exaggeration, it suggests that his workshop, and the lives of the enslaved men who worked in it, was a relatively stable set-­up. Moreau de Saint-Méry provides an interesting eyewitness account of Artaud’s workshop from the late 1770s: Je rencontrai en allant à l’hôpital à la pointe du jour, le nombreux atelier de M. Artau, qui en transportait la charpente environnante toute assemblée, & revenant après le coucher du soleil, il y avait une maison de 110 pieds de long, palissadée, couverte & fermée, dans un espace qui était vide le matin. Je cite ce trait, parce qu’il donne une idée des moyens ce cet entrepreneur, & d’une céléritié d’exécution que lui seul a fait voir à Saint-Domingue. (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–1798, II, 582) Going to the hospital at the crack of dawn I encountered M. Artaud’s large workshop which was transporting the surrounding wooden structure for it ready-assembled, and coming back after sunset there was a building, 110 feet long, with a palisade fence, covered and enclosed in a space that had been empty in the morning. I include this detail because it gives an idea of the means of this contractor and of a speed of execution that was unique to him in Saint-Domingue.

This vignette confirms that enslaved labourers worked hard for long hours; it also confirms that the seven carpenters that were for hire in 1780 are unlikely to have represented Artaud’s whole workforce. Artaud’s claim that the people for hire had worked for ten years may suggest that they were older workers who were less capable of meeting the considerable physical demands that Artaud made on them. We know, too, that Artaud, entered into business arrangements with the free mulâtresse, confectioner and local slave trader, Zabeau Bellanton, who was discussed in the ‘Unsustainable Tensions’ chapter. In July 1779, Artaud agreed to undertake some significant building work on a property belonging to Bellanton for the sum of 13,860 livres, which was to be paid in several instalments (ANOM 7DPPC Bordier jeune 5972, 9 July 1779). In October 1779, he and Bellanton made a verbal agreement, which she had put into writing in February 1780, whereby she would sell him two enslaved men called Jacques (aged around 23) and Jean (aged around 26 and described as only speaking English) for the sum of 4000 livres. This payment was offset against Bellanton’s debt to Artaud, which she repaid earlier than originally planned (ANOM 7DPPC Bordier jeune 5972, 17 February 1780).

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A search within the jail lists confirms that a number of enslaved people claiming to belong to Artaud ran away, although some of them may have been Artaud’s domestic servants rather than skilled workers. In July 1781, the jail list for Saint-Marc indicated that on 30 June a man named Jean-­ Pierre had been arrested. The details are given as follows: Jean-Pierre, Nago,13 étampé sur le sein gauche LCJ, âgé de 24 ans, taille de 5 pieds, ayant des marques de son pays sur le visage, se disant appartenir à M. Artaud, Entrepreneur de bâtiments au Cap. (SAA 17 July 1781, 273) Jean-Pierre, of the Nago nation, branded LCJ on the left breast, aged 24 years, five feet tall, with country marks on his face, claiming to belong to M. Artaud, building contractor in Le Cap.

As we have seen, enslaved runaways sometimes managed to travel considerable distances, but the 150 km or so that separate Saint-Marc from Le Cap may suggest that Jean-Pierre had been rented out to someone in Saint-Marc and run away from there. Perhaps he was one of the seven good carpenters listed above, apprenticed at the age of around 14. The reference to Artaud’s profession in the notice might give credence to this idea. But what happened to Jean-Pierre after his arrest? It is possible that Artaud did not see the advertisement since it was published in the Port-­ au-­Prince edition of the newspaper; certainly it appears that neither he nor Saint-Pierre’s temporary boss, if he indeed had one, acted upon it, as an advertisement published in the press six weeks later indicated that Jean-­ Pierre was among the captured slaves who, having remained unclaimed for two months, were now to be sold for the benefit of the state at the barre du siège royal in Saint-Marc on 1 October (SAA 28 August 1781, 340). Another enslaved man belonging to Artaud was to be sold in the same way in Saint-Marc on 3 July 1784: Du 21 Novembre dernier, Jolicœur, Congo, étampé illisiblement, âgé d’environ 30 ans, taille de 5 pieds 3 pouces, marqué de petite-vérole, se disant appartenir au Sieur Artaud, Entrepreneur au Cap. (SAA 15 May 1784, 319) From 21 November last year, Jolicœur, Congo, illegible brand, aged around 30 years, five foot three inches tall, marked by the smallpox, claiming to belong to Sieur Artaud, contractor in Le Cap.  The term Nago is generally used to describe someone belonging to the Yoruba language group. 13

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One question that arises from this advertisement is why Jolicœur was kept so much longer than the customary two months before being sold at auction. Confirmation of Jolicœur’s capture in Saint-Marc on 21 November is provided in an announcement in the SAA 29 November 1783 (684), although here the name of his owner is (incorrectly) given as M. Artan. It seems that Jolicœur will have spent over seven months in jail. Jolicœur was quite a common name for enslaved people to be given, but there are two runaway advertisements that may well be for the same man. First: Un Negre Congo, nommé Jolicoeur, étampé J. B. ROY, bien fait, trapu, le nez épâté, est parti maron le 9 de ce mois. Ceux qui le reconnoîtront, sont priés de le faire arrêter & d’en donner avis au Sr Roy, Entrepreneur de bâtimens, rue du Bac, au Cap. (SAA 25 November 1775, 564) A Congo nègre called Jolicœur, branded J.  B. ROY, nicely proportioned, stocky, with a flat nose, ran away on 9th of this month. Those who recognize him are asked to have him detained and to inform Sieur Roy, building contractor, rue du Bac in Le Cap.

Two elements suggest that this might be the same person: the fact that Jolicœur is described in both advertisements as being ‘Congo’ and the fact that he ‘belonged’ to another building contractor who, as we saw above, was linked to the theatre director, Fontaine. If it is the same man, Artaud may have bought (or rented) Jolicœur from Roy—Bailey has noted how ‘renting, exchanging, or selling slaves was an important way for workshops to cement business partnerships’ (Bailey 2018, 102). A later advertisement also describes a Congo Jolicœur whose age matches that of Artaud’s man and whose profession is one that would have been useful to both Artaud and Roy: Un Negre Congo, nommé Jolicoeur, menuisier de son métier, étampé MONTFORT AU CAP, âgé de 27 à 28 ans, taille d’environ 5 pieds, est parti maron depuis un mois. Ceux qui le reconnoîtront, sont priés de le faire arrêter & d’en donner avis à M. Friou, Négociant au Cap: il y aura récompense. (AA 31 July 1782, 290) A Congo nègre called Jolicœur, a joiner by trade, branded MONTFORT AU CAP, aged 27 to 28 years, around five feet tall, ran away a month ago. Those who recognize him are asked to have him detained and to inform M. Friou, a merchant in Le Cap. There will be a reward.

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If this is the same person, we can surmise that the illegible brand of the 1784 announcement would have read MONTFORT AU CAP. Another of Artaud’s enslaved workers, named Voltaire, was captured on 18 June 1785 and put in the jail in Le Cap (see SAA 22 June 1785, 273), and on 10 February 1787, Artaud advertised for the return of a cooper called Robert (SAA 10 February 1787, 696). The capture of a man called Boulanger, also belonging to Artaud, in la Petite Anse, who was put in the jail in Le Cap, was announced in SAA 27 October 1787, 941, while Tony, whose little finger on his left hand was bent (perhaps as a result of a work injury), was captured in Limonade on 25 November the same year (SAA 1 December 1787, 969). These multiple announcements confirm that Artaud ‘owned’ and employed many enslaved men and that their lives were not as stable as the advertisement for seven carpenters who had allegedly worked in his shop for ten years seemed to suggest. The smaller, mostly wooden theatre in Port-au-Prince was built in 1777 by the French merchant and businessman, François Mesplès, to an existing design by the military engineer, Nicolas Boisforest (1731–1788). Jean-Bernard Bossu records Boisforest travelling with him to Saint-­ Domingue from Le Havre in 1770  in order to take up a position as ‘Ingénieur en chef au département du Cap-François’ (Bossu 1778, 5) (chief engineer in the department of Cap-Français).14 Boisforest became chief engineer in the north part of Saint-Domingue in 1775 and chief engineer of the southern and western parts in 1776, then director general of fortifications for Saint-Domingue in 1786. It is therefore possible that it was Boisforest himself who in 1786 condemned as unsafe the very theatre that he had designed a decade or so earlier. We have a record of Boisforest selling an enslaved wigmaker and cook, as well as other ‘belongings’, including animals and furniture, as he prepared to leave for a trip to France in 1773 (SAA 1 May 1773, 204), and three runaways stamped with the name Boisforest were reported missing from a plantation later in 1773 and thought to be in Le Cap (SAA 24 July 1773, 348). There are no advertisements indicating that Boisforest himself ‘owned’ enslaved ­builders, although he will have ‘employed’ hundreds of them in the course of his career in Saint-Domingue. Moreau de Saint-Méry mentions various building projects overseen by Boisforest; intriguingly, he mentions another theatre designed by Boisforest in 1787 to replace the previous one in Port-­ au-­ Prince, although the second one was never built (Moreau de  See Bailey (2018, 155–58) for more on the role of engineer-in-chief.

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Saint-­Méry 1797–1798, II, 340). The Boisforest-Mesplès theatre that was built will have relied heavily on the labour of enslaved people for its construction in 1777 and its renovations in 1784 and 1786, as well as for regular maintenance and repairs.15 A document from 10 November 1786 reminds Mesplès of his obligation to ‘entretenir le bâtiment en maçonnerie charpente couverture et plafond’ (ANOM F3 277) (maintain the masonry and woodwork on the building and its roof and ceiling)—something that will almost certainly have involved enslaved workers. Indeed, a document drawn up in August 1785, when Mesplès was putting his affairs in order in preparation for his planned departure to France (a journey that he did not in fact make, possibly owing to a series of unpaid debts), includes instructions to his administrator, Jean-Baptiste Foucault, regarding the maintenance of the playhouse and, immediately afterwards, some instructions relating to an enslaved man named Louis. They read: Je vous laisse mon nègre Louis à l’effet d’entretenir la propreté des cheminées, magasins, rues, rigoles et perrons; il est un peu charpentier, couvreur, maçon, et pose très bien la ferrure d’une porte, en sorte que vous l’occuperez à telle réparation dont vous le reconnaîtrez capable. Vous lui donnerez pour sa nourriture quatre escalins par semaine, vous l’obligerez de loger dans l’un de mes logements toutes fois et quants vous en aurez de vides pour l’avoir à votre portée, et lorsque vous trouverez à les louer tous, vous lui permettrez de loger où il voudra en vous faisant savoir où vous pourrez le trouver en cas de besoin; d’ailleurs vous exigerez qu’il vienne tous les jours prendre vos ordres. (Roussier 1948, 189) I leave you my nègre, Louis, so that he can maintain the cleanliness of the chimneys, warehouses, roads, gutters and porches. He does a bit of carpentry, roofing and masonry and is very good at installing the ironwork on a door, so you can use him for any repair work of which you find him capable. You will give him four escalins a week for food, you will make him live in one of my lodgings whenever you have any that are empty in order to have him on hand. When you find that you have rented all of them out, you will allow him to live where he likes while ensuring that you know where you can find him in case of need. Moreover, you will insist that he come every day to receive your orders.

From this we learn that Louis would have been the first port of call for any minor repairs on Mesplès’s properties, including the playhouse. Louis was  See the ‘Dossier Mesplès’ in ANOM F3 187.

15

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clearly a man of many talents. According to the AA on 13 and 20 August 1785 (351, 363), one escalin was the price of 21 ounces of bread, so four escalins would have been insufficient to feed Louis adequately.16 If the offer of housing Louis in one of Mesplès’s empty apartments appears generous, we must ask how Louis was to find and fund alternative accommodation when the need arose? It seems likely that Louis was sometimes able to earn additional money hiring himself out when he was not needed by Mesplès. Certainly it would appear that Mesplès was willing to grant Louis some freedom of movement and that he trusted Louis not to run away. Roussier notes that Mesplès had bought Louis in August 1768 and that, on his death in 1789, Mesplès granted 55-year-old Louis his freedom in his will (Roussier 1948, 194). While it is clear that Mesplès valued Louis at some level, we do not know how Louis viewed his relationship with Mesplès: could he have had any affection for his long-term ‘master’, or did he despise the man who maintained him in slavery for 21 years and made him clean the chimneys and gutters of his many properties? What did Louis do after he was freed, and how did he participate in the revolution? Three other enslaved people are mentioned in Mesplès’s will: 35-year-old Scipion, valued at 5000 livres (who must therefore have had significant special skills); Zéphir, also 35 and valued at 3300 livres (a price that suggests some specialization); and 13-year-old Valentin, valued at 1300 livres.17 A number of runaway advertisements feature enslaved people with the name Mesplès branded onto their body. Sometimes Mesplès is listed as an alternative contact person in relation to runaways, but he is rarely listed as ‘owner’ of the person in question. Indeed, the runaway advertisement that most closely links Mesplès with an enslaved builder is one submitted by the executor of his will (the same Foucault as above), after Mesplès’s death:

16  Article 22 of the Code Noir stipulated a weekly ration for people over the age of ten years of two and a half pots of manioc flour or three cassavas weighing at least two and a half pounds each (or the equivalent), plus two pounds of salt beef or three pounds of fish (or the equivalent). 17  In a long letter to d’Estaing, with which Mesplès enclosed (or planned to enclose) the drawings of his theatre and other properties in Port-au-Prince, he mentions having two enslaved domestics, one of whom he describes as his ‘maître d’exercisse … jeune, fort, vigoureux et bon sujet’ (Fouchard 1988e, 58) (physical trainer, young, strong, vigorous and a good subject).

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Augustin, Curaçaolien, Charpentier, étampé nouvellement à l’encre MESPLÉS, au-dessous AU CAP, & d’autres étampes, âgé de 36 à 38 ans, taille de 5 pieds 4 à 5 pouces, le nez un peu aquilin; parti marron depuis le 4 du courant; il était déjà parti le 13 septembre pour se rendre au Cap, avec des billets & lettres de passe signés le Rioux & de Rioux; il voyage sous le nom de Guillaume. Ceux qui en auront connaissance sont priés de le faire arrêter & d’en donner avis à M. Foucault, Négociant en cette ville, exécuteur-­ testamentaire de feu M. Mesplés, à qui ce Nègre appartient. (AA 14 October 1789, 550) Augustin, from Curaçao, a carpenter, recently branded MESPLÉS in ink and underneath LE CAP, with other brandings, aged 36 to 38 years, five foot four to five inches, a slightly hooked nose, ran away on the 4th of this month. He had already left on 13 September with permits and permission letters signed le Rioux and de Rioux to go to Le Cap. He travels under the name of Guillaume. Those who recognize him are asked to have him detained and to inform M.  Foucault, a merchant in this town and executor of the will of the late M. Mesplès, to whom this nègre belongs.

As a skilled craftsman equipped with permission letters and other paperwork, Augustin (or Guillaume) had a higher-than-average chance of eluding (re)capture.18

Conclusion It is impossible to render full justice to the many hidden contributions that enslaved people made to the rich public theatre tradition of Saint-­ Domingue. We have, however, been able to move a little closer to pinning down some of the theatre-related activities undertaken by enslaved people, including wigmakers and painters as well as domestic servants who ran errands to and from the playhouse. Thanks to runaway advertisements, in particular, we have been able to provide some details about some of the individuals who may have undertaken this and other work and in some instances to name them—albeit with European names assigned by their ‘masters’—and to find out a little more about them. We have highlighted 18  According to Le Glaunec’s account of runaways from early nineteenth-century Louisiana, Jamaica and South Carolina, slave carpenters were in high demand and benefitted from greater freedom of movement than most other enslaved people (Le Glaunec 2021, 139). Geggus too notes that carpenters appear to have been ‘the occupational group most prone to marronage’ and that their skills were ‘much needed in both town and countryside’ (Geggus 1985, 125).

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the importance of the skilled and unskilled labour of enslaved people who helped build, maintain and repair the colony’s playhouses, and we have also probed further the contributions of orchestral musicians (who will have participated in and overheard a large number of theatrical works) and supernumerary singers and actors. Of these, some performed on an equal musical footing to their white counterparts. The identity of the unnamed ‘nègre créole’ who performed in Le Cap in 1788 remains, like his role as Gonzinet, obscure, but we have attempted to bring this to life by speculating about how Ribié might have come to put a black man on stage in this way and by exploring what form their ‘scene’ might have taken. Interestingly, the enslaved Creole man appears to have performed the socially superior role in their scene—something that could only have been imaginable in a theatrical (i.e. unreal) setting, but which, by being performed, thus became more imaginable off-stage as well. Other contributions no doubt remain unknown and perhaps even unthought of, but if we hold on to the half-glimpsed lives of Simon’s unnamed mulâtresse, of Dick, Jean-Baptiste, Joseph-Manuel and Louis, as well as the unspecified enslaved porters and enslaved builders and the many other people like them, we can at least prevent them from slipping back through the archival gaps completely. We can also begin to acknowledge the extent to which the metropolitan-inspired theatre tradition in the colony was reliant on the work of enslaved people of African descent.

6

New Citizens: Shifting Roles in Revolutionary-Era Theatre

The final chapter of this book engages with the revolutionary period, encompassing both the French Revolution, which famously began in 1789, and especially the first decade of what became known as the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804)—the latter being ‘unthinkable even as it happened’ (Trouillot 1995, 73). During this period, slavery was abolished first in Saint-Domingue in 1793 and then across the French empire in 1794, and Napoleon’s subsequent attempts to reinstate it eventually led to the creation of Haiti in 1804—the first independent nation in the Caribbean, the first black republic anywhere in the world and the second democracy of the Western Hemisphere after the United States of America.1 When, in August 1788, Louis XVI called the Estates General to discuss the financial crisis that France faced largely as a result of the support lent to the American Revolution, different factions saw in it the potential to further their (often conflicting) causes. These factions included the growing anti-slavery movement in France as well as the staunchly pro-slavery planters based in France and in the colonies, notably in the town of Port-­ au-­Prince. Many colonials in Saint-Domingue wanted self-­representation— and ultimately autonomy—via the creation of a local colonial assembly or set of assemblies. From their point of view, representation in the metropole was an attractive possibility but also a risky option as it would 1

 For an analytical survey of recent work on the Haitian Revolution, see Popkin (2021a).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Prest, Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22691-5_6

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maintain the seat of power elsewhere and allow the abolitionists a voice on such matters as rights for the free people of colour and, ultimately, slavery. Although no Saint-Dominguan representatives were formally invited to the Estates General, elections were held among landowners in the colony anyway. It is significant that the ‘cahiers de doléances’ (book of grievances) drawn up by unofficial delegates from Saint-Domingue ‘explicitly opposed the integration of property-owning free people of color into the political life of the colony’ (Dubois 2004a, 73). Although the Saint-Domingue delegates made no mention of the dangerous topic of slavery, others in the metropole did: 49 of the cahiers submitted from metropolitan France challenged the slave trade or slavery, and a speech made at the meeting in June 1789 invited delegates to sympathize with enslaved Africans (Dubois 2004a, 73). When the Estates General finally met in Versailles from 4 May to 17 June 1789, the 17 delegates from Saint-Domingue who were present had not been invited—rather, they had turned up of their own volition. Those delegates may have felt that they sometimes struggled to be heard, but they did at least know what was going on in France as the events of the Revolution there unfolded. Back in Saint-Domingue, news of the French Revolution was slow to reach the colony. This was owing both to a deliberate censorship campaign that sought to keep matters—especially texts containing the explosive word liberté—at bay, and to the time it took for news to travel across the Atlantic, the erratic timing of its arrival and the random forms that the news itself took (including personal testimonies, private correspondence, newspapers and other publications). News of the storming of the Bastille was published in the local newspaper in Saint-Domingue on 18 September 1789 (i.e. over two months after the event), while a censored version of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which had been banned from circulation in the colony, was published in Saint-Domingue on 11 November 1789, nearly three months after its publication in France (Popkin 2018, 8–9).2 Initially, attempts were made to keep local revolutionary events out of the press as well, notably the slave uprisings of the Northern Province, across the plains around Le Cap, that began on the night of 22 August 1791, which are understood to mark the beginning of the Haitian Revolution. As Popkin notes, ‘whereas newspapers in the United States and France gave detailed accounts of these events, those 2

 A draft article of the Declaration was published in AA in May 1789.

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published in Saint-Domingue itself imposed a virtual blackout on them’ (Popkin 2018, 7). But the genie could not be put back in its bottle and subsequent insurgents would sometimes express their demands in terms that explicitly recalled those of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. In one instance, a man taken captive in 1791 was found to be carrying copies of French revolutionary pamphlets as well as tinder for guns and a fetish—‘a potent combination’, as Dubois observes (Dubois 2004a, 103). The goal of this chapter is to explore how theatre engaged with matters ‘revolutionary’ in Saint-Domingue, especially with regard to slavery and enslaved people. It is concerned first with the performance of ‘revolutionary’ theatre pieces imported from France and what these tell us about the ever-widening gap between metropole and colony. Most of all, it is concerned with four new works that were not performed in the metropole, only in Saint-Domingue, three of which were written especially for a Saint-Dominguan audience. These, broadly, tell a story of increasing interest locally in matters relating to slavery and then its abolition. The first work is La Répétition interrompue, written by the editor of the local newspaper, Charles Théodore Mozard (1755–1810), in response to the news from France of the unification of the three estates, and performed—and published—in Port-au-Prince in October 1789. Revealingly (but unsurprisingly), La Répétition interrompue makes no reference to slavery or the local enslaved population. This is in marked contrast with our second work—a play that was imported from metropolitan France but never seemingly performed there: Le Triomphe du tiers état ou les ridicules de la noblesse. Also inspired by the events of 1789 and performed in Port-au-­ Prince only five months after La Répétition interrompue, Le Triomphe du tiers état likens feudalism to transatlantic slavery and condemns both. The third work is La Liberté générale ou les Colons à Paris, performed in 1796 and published the same year by ‘citizen B’. Although it is set in Paris, the play was written, performed and published in Cap-Français. It presented the colony with an overt celebration of the end of slavery, albeit as a decision taken in metropolitan France rather than as a consequence of decisions taken locally, largely as a result of the actions of enslaved people. The transatlantic slave trade is foregrounded and symbolically banished in the fourth work, called Le Héros africain ou la traite des noirs which was performed in Le Cap in May 1797.

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‘Revolutionary’ Theatre from France The notion of ‘revolutionary’ theatre is, of course, a very slippery one as it can be understood in several different ways. Beaumarchais’s Mariage de Figaro, which, as we saw in the Mitigated Portrayals chapter, was keenly awaited and then performed on many occasions in Saint-Domingue, is often understood as a revolutionary play owing to the egalitarian sentiments expressed by the character of Figaro. But all the documented performances of Le Mariage de Figaro in Saint-Domingue took place before 1789, so it is not a revolutionary work in terms of having been created during the strict parameters of the French (or Haitian) revolution(s), nor is it revolutionary in the sense that it depicts or reflects on actual revolutionary events. The most popular plays of the revolutionary decade in France were not the overtly political or patriotic plays famously promoted by eager politicians, and the mandate by the National Convention in August 1793 to perform Voltaire’s Brutus (1730), Lemierre’s Guillaume Tell (1766) and Chénier’s Caïus Gracchus (1792) in designated theatres three times a week was unenforced (Darlow 2012, 152–54). More popular in practice were comedies and sentimental dramas, many of which had (like some of the tragedies of political choice) been written during the ancien régime (Feilla 2016, 3–4).3 Feilla argues that sentimental dramas were ‘revolutionary’ in a more subtle sense as it was understood that they could promote sympathy and understanding among mixed audiences of a kind that would be transformative (Feilla 2016, xii). Alongside these, some other works that were performed regularly do not appear to be revolutionary in any sense of the term. Some bespoke revolutionary works from France were performed in Saint-Domingue, including three relating to the events of the Festival of the Federation organized across France on 14 July 1790 by the National Assembly to mark the first anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, and featuring a ceremonial collective taking of the oath at 12 noon.4 Although the official programme for the event in France claimed that its distribution would enable citizens to swear their loyalty ‘in concert and at the same moment by all the inhabitants in every part of this empire’ (Ozouf 1988, 43), 3  For a statistical analysis of the most popular theatrical works in the period, see Kennedy et al. (1996, 379–91). 4  See Ozouf (1988, 33–60) for an account of this festival.

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Saint-Domingue had plenty of local concerns, including strong insurrectionary tendencies among some of the white population in Port-au-­Prince. Eighty-five white deputies from the self-declared General Assembly in the town of Saint-Marc travelled from Port-au-Prince to France onboard a mutinous warship, the Léopard, to plead their cause before the National Assembly. As always, it took some considerable time for plays depicting ‘recent’ events to reach the colony. Collot d’Herbois’s patriotic tableau La Famille patriote ou la fédération was premiered in Paris on 17 July 1790 and then performed in Cap-Français on 4 December the same year; Pellet Desbarreux’s patriotic festival, La Fédération villageoise, premiered in Toulouse in July 1790, was performed in Port-au-Prince on 8 January 1791 (on a double bill with Voltaire’s Mahomet) and again on 6 March 1791 (on a double bill with Collé’s La Partie de chasse de Henri IV). A work advertised simply as La Fédération du 14 juillet was performed in Le Cap (on a double bill with a verse adaptation of Quinault’s Les Coups de l’amour et de la fortune ou le siège de Barcelone) even longer after the event it commemorated on 26 February 1791.5 But the time lag between metropolitan France and Saint-Domingue was less significant than the contextual and political lag that separated the two places. Even prior to the slave revolts in the Northern Province of the colony in August 1791, it was clear that the implications of the French Revolution and its promise of freedom and equality were very different in a colony where most colonials wanted freedom from metropolitan rule partly in order to maintain slavery, while the enslaved population wanted freedom from real slavery, and where both the enslaved and free people of colour—and indeed the petits blancs—wanted equal rights. The ‘revolutionary’ concepts of equality and especially freedom thus meant very different things to different social groups and to groups either side of the Atlantic. If it went ahead as planned, the performance in Port-au-Prince of La Fédération on 6 March 1791 will have taken place only two days after the murder in the city—by members of his own regiment—of Colonel Mauduit. The assassination of 5  Of the three plays recommended by Mirabeau for performance as part of the first Festival of the Federation in France—Voltaire’s Brutus (1730), his Mort de César (1731) and Chénier’s Charles IX (1789)—only one was, as far as we know, ever performed in SaintDomingue, but only long before the revolutionary period: Voltaire’s Mort de César, performed in Cap-Français in 1767. See Kennedy et al. (1996, 51).

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Mauduit, who was trying to reassert metropolitan authority in the colony (and who had presided over the dispersal of the Saint-Marc assembly in July 1790), was presented by the rebellious colonials as a victory over despotism and even as a victory over ‘slavery’—a metaphor that is especially ironic since the abolition of slavery was the one thing that the colonials most wanted to prevent (Popkin 2021b, 66–67). News of Mauduit’s murder was explicitly likened by the white residents of Cap Dame Marie (in the far West of the colony) to the storming of the Bastille in France (Popkin 2021b, 67). However, the comparison in fact serves to underline the fact that events in France were not directly transferable to the colony, whose equivalent events—in this instance—rejected the authority of the current post-Bastille or ‘revolutionary’ government. A depiction of the fall of the Bastille reached Saint-Domingue in the form of a pantomime, La Prise de la Bastille, which was programmed three times in the colony in 1790: once in March in Port-au-Prince and twice— a week apart—in Cap-Français in November (the second listing may have been a postponement from the preceding week). Although the work is billed as being in three acts, it may have been the popular one-act pantomime known in France as La Fête du grenadier ou le retour de la Bastille, premiered in Paris in September 1789.6 In Port-au-Prince, the pantomime featured on a double bill with Les Deux petits savoyards (mentioned above), while in Le Cap it was performed alone, but preceded by fireworks. The explicit mention of fireworks for the two performances in Le Cap suggests that the work may have been Ruggieri’s L’Attaque et la Prise de la Bastille, which was essentially a firework display and which, Carlson notes, featured in one performance in Paris ‘French guards who had actually participated in its storming’ (Carlson 1966, 46). Interestingly, the announcement for the first documented performance in the colony insists on attempts, within the limits of the Port-au-Prince playhouse, to reproduce the reality of the event (AA 11 March 1790, 133)—something that Magelssen has argued was never the purpose of the original commemorations (Magelssen 2005). This suggests that the same works will have operated—and were perhaps intended to operate—differently in different locales. Where the people of Paris needed guidance on how to remember and interpret recent revolutionary events, the people of Saint-Domingue may have needed (or perhaps wanted) first to have some kind of direct experience of those events 6

 See Lüsebrink (1989, 348–49) for a brief account of this work.

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before processing and responding to them.7 As Magelssen points out, the primary purpose of the Federation was to bring stability rather than renewed revolutionary activity (Magelssen 2005, 44). In Saint-Domingue, the principles of freedom—often described in terms of freedom from a form of metaphorical slavery—promoted by the French Revolution were potentially extremely threatening to a regime built on actual human slavery. And its own revolution was brewing. Still, news of productions of revolutionary theatre in France were clearly thought to be of interest to readers of the Affiches américaines. Performances in Paris of a popular theatrical work, Harny du Guerville’s La Liberté conquise ou le despotisme renversé (1791), were reported on in the Saint-Dominguan press in the following terms: On a donné au théâtre de la nation [in Paris] la Liberté conquise ou le Despotisme renversé; c’est le public qui a fait la pièce; c’est son anthousiasme qui en a crée l’intérêt. Il y a vu un abrégé de la révolution, & il a témoigné de la manière la plus décisive & la plus énergique combien il en chérissoit l’ensemble & les détails; tous les mots ont été interprétés avec cette chaleur qui n’appartient qu’au patriotisme. Il a transformé les spectateurs en acteurs; il n’y a eu qu’un cri, qu’un applaudissement, qu’une voix pour dire: Oui, vivre libre ou mourir. (AA 4 May 1791, 217–18) At the Theatre of the Nation, they performed La Liberté conquise ou le Despotisme renversé. It is the public who made the play. It was their enthusiasm that generated its significance. It contains a summary of the revolution, and it demonstrated in the most decisive and energetic way how much it cherishes it in its fullness and its details. All the words were performed with that zeal that belongs only to patriotism. It transformed the audience into actors; there was only one cry, one clap and one voice to say Yes, live free or die.8

The same report on the play had appeared in the Annales patriotiques et littéraires de la France on 11 January 1791 following the work’s successful première a week earlier. But one wonders what the readers of AA made of the slogan ‘oui, vivre libre ou mourir’ (yes, live free or die) and of the  For more on theatrical depictions of the fall of the Bastille in an account that, by contrast with Magelssen, privileges their claims to authenticity, see Lüsebrink (1989). Lüsebrink notes that Pierre-François Palloy, who demolished the Bastille, sent sculpted stones taken from the building across France and abroad, including to the French Antilles (Lüsebrink (1989, 342). See also Perazzolo (2012) for an interesting account of how quickly these plays became overtaken by events and lost their popularity. 8  See Lüsebrink (1989, 349–52) for a brief account of this unpublished work. 7

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account of the theatre audience not just participating in the action but seemingly taking it over. It is difficult to imagine ‘slave-owning’ colonials, who lived in perpetual—and increasing—fear of slave revolts, rejoicing at the thought of local theatre audiences publicly and collectively shouting out these calls to arms, especially in the presence of their enslaved domestics—unless their ability to harness revolutionary rhetoric in the service of their anti-metropolitan, pro-slavery goals, as mentioned above, extended to their interpretation of live performances of imported revolutionary theatre.

La Répétition interrompue (Mozard, 1789) The frustration that the residents of Saint-Domingue felt at their marginalization from up-to-date news of events is made clear in the opening words of an article published on 23 September 1789, which begins: Après avoir été privé, pendant prés de trois semaines de toute correspondance avec la métropole, après avoir été balloté de nouvelles, toute plus allarmantes les unes que les autres, enfin, le 18 de ce mois, un bâtiment Nantois, parti le 30 juillet est arrivé ici, & nous a apporté des nouvelles. (AA 23 September 1789, 516) After having been deprived, for nearly three weeks, of any correspondence with the metropole, having [previously] been shaken by news of events, each of them more alarming than the one before, finally on the 18th of this month, a ship from Nantes, which had left on 30 July, arrived here and has brought us news.

The newspaper edition begins by outlining, ostensibly at the request of its readers, the nature and composition of the three orders of the Estates General. A separate article a page later features news of (worrying) civil unrest and of the storming of the Bastille—an event that is described as ‘un succès qui paroîtra à jamais fabuleux’ (AA 23 September 1789, 516) (an achievement that will always seem fantastical), followed by updates from the Saint-Domingue delegation to the Estates General (AA 23 September 1789, 522–27). The precise event to which our first Saint-Dominguan work, Mozard’s La Répétition interrompue, was responding—and which it openly celebrated—was the unification in June 1789 of the so-called three orders or estates. The estates comprised the clergy (First Estate) and the nobility

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(Second Estate), who together represented a privileged minority that could outvote representatives of the commoners (Third Estate). Representatives of the Third Estate formed a National Assembly on 17 June 1789 and three days later they, along with a handful of delegates from the First and Second Estates and nine from Saint-Domingue (whose request for provisional admission to the Assembly had been granted) (Dubois 2004a, 74), swore the famous Tennis Court Oath whereby they would continue to meet until a French constitution had been put in place. This powerful act of solidarity and defiance prompted Louis XVI to order the First and Second Estates to join the National Assembly on 27 June— an event that allowed the king to be seen as ultimately supportive of revolutionary events, at least for the time being. This news was reported in the local press in Saint-Domingue in an important, but hastily compiled, special edition published on 26 September (i.e. after the news of the events of 14 and 15 July). It tells us that the following day, Sunday 27 September, the theatre audience (which was more diverse on Sundays than on weekdays) requested something on the topic for the following week. A rare account of a performance after it had taken place is provided for La Répétition interrompue, which calls itself a ‘divertissement national’ (national entertainment). We know from the published version of the play that its author was the journalist and newspaper editor and printer, Charles Mozard, who was born in France but had been living in Saint-Domingue since 1773. The edition of the newspaper in which this account features is from 7 October 1789. It includes a selection of news items from the French press dealing with revolutionary events and unrest including, most notably—and on its front page—the decree from the National Assembly from 4 and 5 August abolishing feudal ‘rights’. An account of La Répétition interrompue appears towards the end of a longer piece giving news from Port-au-Prince and specifically detailing the town’s (supposedly) collective response to the recent news from France (AA 7 October 1789, 541–42). The article writes of an initial ‘joie altérée par la crainte’ (joy moderated by fear) but reports that once the people of Port-au-Prince understood that things were under control, they all happily adopted the revolutionary symbol of the cockade. They report that in public places and especially at the playhouse, people were joyful but not disorderly and that at the Sunday performance on 27 September, members of the public carried the cockade, cried ‘Vive le roi!’ (Long live the king!) and ‘Vive la Nation!’ (Long live the nation!) a few times before taking the cockade to the local

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commander who received it in the General’s (i.e. the Governor’s) box.9 The report notes that the local administrators and others had requested a performance of Collé’s La Partie de chasse d’Henri IV during which all the actors—except the one playing the much-maligned Concini—put on the cockade, which was thrown down to them from the boxes. The article continues with details of the public-spirited nature of the theatre audience and their patriotism, symbolized by the distribution of cockades (and other items in the national colours), a series of toasts, a request to free local military prisoners and an invitation to the Intendant and his wife to attend a performance at the theatre on Wednesday that week in aid of a cannoneer who had lost his right thumb during an earlier performance of de Belloy’s Gaston et Bayard. Both the General and the Intendant and his wife attended the performance at which ‘le Public saisit & applaudit quelques passages qui pouvoient s’appliquer aux circonstances’ (AA 7 October 1789, 542) (the public seized upon and applauded some passages that could be applied to the circumstances). It is following this account of the role that theatre audiences, theatrical works and the space of the playhouse (supposedly) played in demonstrations of local patriotism that we read of how a new work, La Répétition interrompue (which shares its title with an earlier work by Pannard, Favart and Fagan de Lugny, later reworked by Favart),10 came to be written: Le Public avoit paru désirer le dimanche 27 Septembre de voir représenter quelque pièce qui eût pour objet direct les Évènemens Nationaux. Un Citoyen de cette ville s’empressa de se rendre aux vœux qu’on avoit formé. Il composa rapidement un petit divertissement, en vers & en prose, mêlé de chants, intitulé la Répétition interrompue. (AA 7 October 1789, 542) On 27 September the public seemed to want to see performed a play that had as its direct object national events. A citizen of this town hurried to satisfy the desires that they had formed. He quickly wrote a short divertissement in verse and in prose, interspersed with songs, called La Répétition interrompue.

The work is thus explicitly presented as a direct, local response to the French Revolution, in contrast with imported older, repurposed works 9  Interestingly, when the character of Ramezeau in La Répétition interrompue turns towards the Governor’s box, Mme Valville advises him not to address the Governor directly, noting that ‘M. le Général n’aime pas les complimens’ (scene 3) (The General does not like compliments). 10  For more on these two works, see Rizzoni (2000, 113–26).

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such as La Partie de chasse and Gaston et Bayard. Although Mozard’s new piece is certainly opportunistic, its claim to be responding to a local wish for something to address what was going on seems plausible. We note that the work claims to address national events and not explicitly to celebrate them; similar wording appears in the printed edition of the play, in which the author writes of the public desire to see a play ‘qui eût trait aux nouvelles nationales’ (which related to national news). It would seem that the play’s purpose was to engage with something from which the local population felt somewhat marginalized. Importantly, La Répétition interrompue is not set in France, but in the playhouse in Port-au-Prince—a public space in which local people were seen to respond to this momentous news. According to Dubois, responses in Saint-Domingue to the news of the falling of the Bastille included ‘pillaging and setting fires in the towns’ by the poor whites as well as the creation of new political clubs (Dubois 2004a, 78). How was it received according to Mozard’s festival piece? As the work’s title suggests, it is a highly metatheatrical work. Set and performed inside the playhouse in Port-au-Prince, it features a troupe of actors and their crew whose rehearsal is interrupted by important news. As was the case in reality, news of revolutionary developments in metropolitan France arrives in the play via a ship that had begun its journey in Nantes. In the play, the news-bearer is the stage prompt called Vanhove (played by a visiting French actor of that name who would go on to organize the performance in Port-au-Prince of La Prise de la Bastille the following year). In scene 2, Vanhove speaks excitedly to the stage manager cum producer, Saint-Loup—and thereby to the theatre audience—of how ‘les citoyens sont réunis’ (the citizens are reunited), ‘le Peuple est tout, & [que] les individus ne sont rien, que par ce qu’ils valent intrinsèquement’ (the people are everything and individuals are nothing except in terms of what they are worth intrinsically) and how ‘pour symbole de la paix & de l’union générale … toute la Nation a pris la cocarde de France’ (as a symbol of peace and of general unity the whole nation is wearing the French cockade). His interlocutor responds laconically ‘nous la prendrons sans doute’ (then we shall no doubt wear it too). They agree to respond by asking the author, Ramezeau, played by the actor Le Gros, to write ‘un petit divertissement adapté à la circonstance’ (a short divertissement tailored to the situation). In the next scene, the remainder of the troupe, including the machinist and stage decorator, appear having heard the same news, and Ramezeau sets about writing his new work. Meanwhile Vanhove reports on how

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France had seen ‘quelques jours de tumulte’ (a few tumultuous days) before ‘un ordre admirable’ (an admirable order) was reinstated (scene 3). Ramezeau announces that he is preparing ‘une petite fête composée de citoyens de tous les ordres’ (a small festival comprising citizens from all the estates), featuring educated, well-nourished, happy peasants, as they will all be in the future. Although there were plenty of idealized portrayals of peasants in the theatrical repertoire at this time, a reference to the happiness and comfort of people of the lower orders in the context of a work marking major social change in contemporary life cannot have passed without a flicker in such a hierarchical and oppressive society. The actors try out various patriotic and celebratory texts, set to familiar melodies or vaudevilles (including the ‘Menuet d’Exaudet’, which also features in scene 6 of Jeannot et Thérèse) for size, while Ramezeau’s efforts—and the vagaries of the theatre troupe—are gently satirized along the way. There is talk of the patriotism and courage of the people of Paris and a stage direction indicates that these portions should all be performed with ‘beaucoup de movement & de zèle, caractère ordinaire du patriotisme’ (scene 3) (lots of movement and zeal—the customary characteristics of patriotism). Ramezeau explains his extended botanical allegory in which the different orders of citizen are represented by different plants and flowers before a curtain is lifted to reveal a bust of the king surrounded by three Frenchmen dressed as the three orders and holding a laurel wreath over the king’s head. Ramezeau then composes some lines to accompany the distribution of cockades and featuring a chorus singing ‘Et les François unis / Sont tous amis’ (scene 3) (And united, the French are all friends). The non-­ speaking actors from the originally-planned performance arrive and are invited to join in a final military-style ceremony, which features the saluting of the flag to music performed by the local regimental band, and the decoration of the king’s statue and the three men representing the three orders. The work ends with cries of ‘Vive le Roi’ (Long live the king!) and ‘Vive la nation!’ (Long live the nation!). But how accurate is this account of local responses and how was this account received by theatre audiences? Unsurprisingly, Mozard’s newspaper reported that La Répétition interrompue was a great success: La représentation s’en fit dimanche dernier & le Public accueillit avec beaucoup de bonté cette production. Les circonstances, le jeu des acteurs, leur zèle, celui des musiciens & notamment de Mrs Vanhove, le Gros, Destinval, Saint-Loup, & Mile, maître d’orchestre, de Mmes Sensée, Valville, Dorival & Minette, ainsi que les évolutions militaires qui furent très-bien exécutées par

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les grenadiers du régiment du Port-au-Prince, tout contribua à ce succès, qui a beaucoup surpassé l’attente de l’Auteur. Il saisit cette occasion de témoigner au Public toute sa reconnoissance. (AA 7 October 1789, 542) The performance took place last Sunday and the public greeted the production with a lot of goodwill. The circumstances, the actors’ performance, their zeal, that of the musicians and especially that of Messieurs Vanhove, Le Gros, Destinval, Saint-Loup and the conductor, Mile, and of Mesdames Sensée, Valville, Dorival and Minette, as well as the military exercises which were very well executed by the grenadiers of the Port-au-Prince regiment—all this contributed to its success, which greatly surpassed the author’s expectations. He takes this opportunity to express his gratitude to the public.

Similarly, in a note included in the published edition of the play, which appeared later the same year, the work’s success is attributed to the fact that ‘il respire les mêmes sentimens de patriotisme dont étaient animés les Spectateurs’ (it exudes the same patriotic feelings that animated the spectators). However, such rhetorical claims should not, of course, be taken at face value as several groups were profoundly unsettled by the news in ways that challenged their supposed patriotism. Popkin notes that news of the storming of the Bastille and related events ‘set off a colonial version of the “municipal revolution” that had swept the French provinces in the summer of 1789’ and that ‘by the end of October 1789, militant white colonists in Port-au-Prince had forced the colony’s last royal intendant, François Barbé-Marbois, to flee to France’ (Popkin 2018, 9).11 Any of those elite colonialists in the audience in Port-au-Prince on Sunday 4 October 1789 are unlikely to have rejoiced at a democratizing impulse that sought to represent the lower orders more fairly than before as this raised the spectre of rights for the free people of colour and potentially also for the enslaved population. The extent to which they will have shared in the expression of patriotic fervour is also highly debatable given that colonialists based in the colony felt constrained by the many and various strictures imposed on them by the metropole, notably the controversial exclusif, which (in theory, at least) prevented Saint-Domingue from trading with ships from anywhere other than metropolitan France. Any petits blancs fortunate enough to have been in the audience that day may genuinely have rejoiced at the news that ordinary people in metropolitan France were being given greater representation  See also Popkin (2021b, 63, 80).

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than before, but positive feelings must have been more mitigated among the free people of colour present, even though an announcement published in the local newspaper on 7 October noted that they were permitted to wear the cockade (AA 7 October 1789, 539). They were struggling for representation within Saint-Domingue and were (at this point) excluded from the monumental discussions going on in metropolitan France. A delegation of free men of colour appeared at the National Assembly in October 1789 (Dubois 2004a, 80), but no free people of colour were granted political rights until May 1791 (and free people of colour more broadly were only granted them in April 1792). In this context, the acclamations of unity and universal friendship in La Répétition interrompue must have been jarring for many in the audience, highlighting an existing sense of marginalization. The discrepancy between the joyful celebration performed in La Répétition interrompue and the reality of social relations in colonial Saint-­ Domingue comes into even sharper relief when we consider that one of the performers in the work was the actor-singer of mixed racial ancestry, known as Minette. She is rightly described in the cast-list of La Répétition interrompue as ‘premier rôle dans l’Opéra’ (lead singer in opera), yet Minette only plays a minor role in La Répétition interrompue.12 Despite being an accomplished and experienced soloist, Minette sang with two other women near the beginning of the main scene (scene 3), and appeared as one of four women who silently put garlands and cockades on the statue of the king and the men representing the three estates at its end. The fact that Minette does not have a speaking role in the play is particularly significant given that the other two women with whom she sings do. That being the case, the chorus, apparently sung by the whole cast, to the words ‘les François unis / sont tous amis’ (United, the French are all friends), must have rung a little hollow, not just to the free people of colour but particularly to any enslaved people present. If the failure to reference the enslaved population is unsurprising, what is more noteworthy is the absence of any reference to metaphorical slavery or to its opposite: liberté (freedom). The work emphasizes unity over freedom, which allows for more scope to (continue to) exclude the enslaved population from the picture. Ozouf’s reading of the Fête de la fédération in France a few months later may be relevant here. She notes that two 12  Her career appears to have been waning at this point. Memelsdorff has recently worked out that Minette was eight months pregnant at this time (Memelsdorff 2022).

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groups were absent from the festival in France: the aristocracy (unsurprisingly) and the people (more surprisingly), who only took part in a peripheral way. Ozouf comments that the exclusion of the people was not seen (by those who have made it into the record, one should add) as ‘harmful to national unity’ because ‘nobody could yet regard its exclusion as contradictory’ (Ozouf 1988, 60). While that may be a plausible explanation for Mozard’s exclusion of the local equivalent to the peuple or people (the enslaved population) from his work, the contradiction will not have been lost on any enslaved domestics present who were all too aware of it. In her account of slavery, theatre and popular culture in London and Philadelphia in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Gibbs provides evidence of black people’s awareness of the hypocrisy of discourses around liberty in the US, and there is no reason to think that this awareness did not apply in Saint-Domingue as well (Gibbs 2014, 43, 115).

Le Triomphe du tiers état ou les ridicules de la noblesse (?Pastoret de Calian, 1789) It is instructive to compare Mozard’s Saint-Dominguan work with an imported play inspired by ongoing events in France and performed in Port-au-Prince some five months later. It appears that the one-act comedy Le Triomphe du tiers état ou les ridicules de la noblesse (1789), published anonymously but possibly written by Pastoret de Calian, was never performed in France.13 The intended general thrust of the play is easy to discern from its title and subtitle. Although the Estates General is ongoing in the action of Le Triomphe du tiers état, the work (whose precise publication date in 1789 we do not know) clearly references the rioting and pillaging that took place in the provinces during ‘the great fear’ when peasants feared an aristocratic plot to reverse the progress of the revolution (Sarti 2022, 73).14 This led to what Klooster has called ‘an extraordinary piece of legislation, perhaps the most significant of the entire revolution’ (Klooster 2018, 59): the abolition by the National Assembly of feudal rights, including serfdom, on 4 August 1789. One delegate even 13  It does not feature in Kennedy et  al. (1996) and no performance is recorded in CÉSAR. But there are copies in several libraries in Paris (Tolbiac, Arsenal and Richelieu) and elsewhere. There is also an anonymous pamphlet called Le Triomphe du tiers état (1789). 14  Envoys from the Directory as late as 1796 explicitly likened the social structures of SaintDomingue to those of the ancient feudal system (Benzaken 2010, 370–71).

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raised the issue of slavery that night (Klooster 2018, 63). The momentous news of the abolition of feudalism was, as we have seen, reported in the Saint-Dominguan press on 7 October 1789 and Le Triomphe du tiers état includes discussions of hot topics including (un)fair taxation and land rights, as well as the contractual relationship between landowners and their tenants. It is therefore a rather surprising choice for performance in Saint-­ Domingue—a place where even the revolutionary media, who publicly extolled principles of freedom in the early 1790s, excluded the discussion of matters relating to—or with implications for—the free people of colour and the enslaved population (Popkin 2018, 4). It is perhaps a particularly surprising choice for performance in the town of Port-au-Prince where, by 1790, the royal governor, Peinier, reported that: the dominant faction among the whites in Port-au-Prince was convinced that the revolutionaries in France were about to follow up their explosive rhetoric about liberty and equality by abolishing slavery, and they vehemently opposed any concessions to the free population of color, whose representatives were insisting on their right to wear the tricolor cockade that symbolized citizenship in the nation. (Popkin 2021b, 64)

Yet one performance was programmed there on 10 March 1790 where the work appeared on a double bill with Laujon and Martini’s more anodyne opéra-comique, L’Amoureux de quinze ans. The performance was organized by a musician named Rolland (or Roland) who, in his announcement, indicates that he is leaving the theatre at Easter (less than a month later) to concentrate on vocal music and guitar (SAA 6 March 1790, 129).15 One wonders if Rolland was willing to take a risk at this transitional moment in his career by appealing to many curious theatre-goers while possibly alienating others. It is perhaps significant that, according to the cast-list printed in the published edition of La Répétition interrompue, Rolland had played the small speaking role of the stage painter in that work. Did that experience whet his appetite for a more revolutionary ‘revolutionary’ play?

15  Rolland continued his association with the theatre in Port-au-Prince as he organized a benefit performance on 4 December 1790, which included a two-act opera to his music. See AA 27 November 1790, 607. We also have records of benefit performances arranged by Rolland in Saint-Marc (8 January 1787) and in Cap-Français (7 July 1787).

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The cast features a series of nameless types, including a duc (who has just arrived from Paris) and his intendant as well as six lackeys and a large number of vassals. The play is set ‘dans plusieurs châteaux de France’ (in several French châteaux)—a reminder that the story being told is not an isolated one. Moreover, it is easily transferable to Saint-Domingue where members of the audience in Port-au-Prince will surely have conjured up in their minds images of visiting plantation owners, their local representatives and their lands and labourers. Some audience members will themselves have been part of the planter elite. For the modern reader imagining its performance in Port-au-Prince, the play makes for rather excruciating— and slightly thrilling—reading. It opens with a defiant monologue by the duc who as a privileged nobleman comments in scene 1 that ‘les premières dignités de cette Empire nous appartiennent de droit’ (the highest dignities of this empire belong to us by right), dismisses the ‘essaim d’insectes qui rampant à nos pieds’ (original emphasis) (the swarm of insects that crawl at our feet) and sets out his goal to ‘faire rentrer le Peuple dans son devoir’ (bring the People back into line). Part of his programme is to punish any trouble-­ makers ‘d’une manière qui effraye ceux qui seroient tentés de l’imiter’ (in such a way that frightens those who might be tempted to imitate them). Clearly the point of this scene in the context of revolutionary France was to establish the duc as a ridiculous character whose project was necessarily doomed and who will receive his comeuppance in the course of the play. There were of course still plenty of people in metropolitan France who would have felt uncomfortable reading or hearing this too. But the idea must have sat even less comfortably with elite members of the Saint-­ Dominguan audience who realized that the thrust of the work also undermined their privileges and the abusive, hierarchical system on which they rested. The metaphor of pre-revolutionary France being ‘enslaved’ and liberated from ‘slavery’ was of course commonly used in revolutionary France, but must have resonated differently in a slave colony. In scene 2, the defiant duc speaks to his intendant of making the third estate ‘plus esclave encore de notre puissance & de notre autorité’ (yet more enslaved to our power and our authority). Moreover, the duc comments explicitly on how vassals in France were, until relatively recently, serfs and of how his ancestors ‘les achetoient & les vendoient, comme on fait la traite des Nègres en Amérique’ (bought and sold them as they now trade in slaves in America). He then rants about how some kings ‘ont eu l’imbécillité de vouloir abolir l’esclavage’ (were so stupid as to want to abolish slavery). Although it is

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unclear if the ridiculous duc is talking about transatlantic slavery or serfdom at this point, the issue in Port-au-Prince is that most members of the theatre audience would, contrary to the play’s intentions, have sympathized with his view. While it is possible that the most controversial lines of the play were omitted in performance in Port-au-Prince, this would not have changed its general thrust. Assuming that the performance went ahead as planned, it appears that on 10 March 1790 the theatre audience in Port-au-Prince was treated to a ‘comical’ work that was decidedly edgy. As Popkin reminds us, up to June 1793 ‘no whites in Saint-Domingue, and certainly none of its journalists, had even hinted at the possibility of emancipation’ (Popkin 2018, 20). The intendant, who is of course presented as reasonable, counsels douceur (gentleness) rather than rigueur (rigour) in the face of the revolution that has taken place on the duc’s estate and reminds the duc that ‘tous les hommes sont hommes’ (scene 2) (all men are men). The bailiff in turn comments that the duc treats his workers ‘comme des esclaves’ (like slaves) and refuses to put himself in danger by supporting hereditary ‘rights’ that are ‘évidemment injustes & contraires aux premières lumières de la raison’ (scene 3) (obviously unjust and counter to the first lights of reason). Scene 4 features the vassals themselves and a school master who reads aloud from the revolutionary pamphlets that he has recently received. These include the lines ‘nous sommes tous égaux, parce que nous sommes tous frères; [que] la différence dans les fortunes n’est qu’un léger accident … nous sommes tous des Etres raisonnables, libres & non esclaves’ (we are all equal because we are all brothers. Any difference in wealth is just a slight accident … we are all reasonable beings, free and not slaves). In his own words, the school master rallies the vassals, saying ‘il est temps de secouer un joug qui nous déshonore’ (it is time to shake off a yoke that dishonours us). This is a call to revolt and, if necessary, to arms. During his audience with the vassals and other staff, the duc mocks the rebellious man (i.e. the school master) ‘qui fait l’homme entendu, parce qu’il sait un peu lire’ (scene 6) (who acts the sage because he knows how to read a bit). The school master responds with dignity, commenting that ‘j’ai trouvé justes & raisonnables les réclamations du Tiers-Etat’ (I found the demands of the Third Estate just and reasonable) and reports how the vassals in turn ‘ont vu pour la première fois que leur liberté n’étois qu’un esclavage honteux … ils ont eu horreur de leurs fers’ (scene 6, original emphasis) (have seen for the first time that their freedom was just a shameful enslavement, they were horrified by their chains). The school master rejects hereditary, venal nobility as an

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abuse and offers a didactic lesson in revolutionary values and progress to the duc (and to the French readership/Saint-Dominguan theatre audience), stating proudly that he is backed by justice, reason and the whole nation. Notably, the poacher then claims his right to hunt and warns the duc not to set his game-wardens on him; he points out to the duc the damage wrought on his crops by the duc’s hunting parties and the state of financial ruin—and hunger—in which this leaves him and his family; he notes that the royalties he pays to the duc should—but do not—guarantee the duc’s protection, and claims the right to construct a doocot on his portion of the land. These are precisely the issues that were addressed in the decree of 4 and 5 August 1789 and published in the Saint-Dominguan newspaper on 7 October that year. The opposition between the reasonable and articulate revolutionaries (there are no ‘comical’ rustic accents here), who propose non-violent solutions to the dispute, and the unreasonable, angry (and outmoded) duc are plain to see. One by one, the duc’s employees abandon him because they cannot support him against the just cause of his vassals, and the play ends with the departure of the duc’s personal domestic servants—his cook, coachman and lackeys. The duc decides to return alone to Paris—a journey that, he now realizes, is not without danger. He claims to have learned his lesson and vows to support the cause of the Third Estate at the Estates General. Setting off by foot (it is strongly implied that, abandoned by his staff, the duc cannot ride a horse owing to the effects of a sexually transmitted disease contracted during his youth) after a frugal meal of bread and water, the duc reflects on how the Third Estate, as the biggest social group, could overthrow the system completely. He recognizes in scene 14 that all men are his equal and vows to take up the cause of his ‘frères pauvres’ (poor brothers). It is difficult to imagine what prompted Rolland to put on this play in Port-au-Prince and even more difficult to imagine how it was received by the various groups of people present in the playhouse that day. While the local planter elite may have been able to distance themselves to an extent from their noble equivalents in metropolitan France (and thereby laugh at them, perhaps as a defence mechanism), this overt condemnation of the abuses of unwarranted privilege and the threat of revolt cannot have failed to resonate with them at some level. Questions of what privileges are granted to whom on what basis will of course have resonated with the free people of colour present whose interests were not well-served by Saint-­ Domingue’s representatives at the Estates General or the short-lived new

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Colonial Assembly in Saint-Marc, which included deputies from Port-au-­ Prince (Popkin 2021b, 64). But it is the condemnation of any kind of slavery—and its implications for transatlantic slavery—that is most powerful in the context of Saint-Domingue in 1790. In particular, one wonders what the enslaved domestics present in the Port-au-Prince playhouse made of the refusal of the duc’s domestics to serve him anymore.

The Haitian Revolution Begins Revolutionary events affected both theatre production in Saint-Domingue and the newspapers in which upcoming performances were announced. It has generally been understood that the remarkable public theatre tradition of Saint-Domingue ended in 1791  in the wake of the slave revolts that took off in August that year, and this is broadly true. The last standard announcement of a performance in Le Cap appeared in Le Moniteur colonial on 20 August 1791: here we read that the troupe, now calling itself ‘les comédiens de la Nation’ (the actors of the Nation), are going to perform, that same day, de la Harpe’s tragedy, Coriolan, and Piis and Barré’s opéra-comique in vaudevilles, Les Voyages de Rosine. Beneath this announcement is another for a narrative firework display called Les Forges du Vulcain the following evening, 21 August 1791, weather permitting. It is no surprise that theatre activity—and the main sources that tell us about it— stopped abruptly after the slave revolts that began across the plantations of the  northern plain in the region of Le Cap on the night of 22 August 1791. Much of the town of Le Cap was burned to the ground on 26 September 1791 by the enslaved rebels. Meanwhile, in Port-au-Prince, announcements for four performances in August 1791 are followed by only two more standard announcements: these are for performances on 6 and 13 November 1791. Although there were as yet no major slave revolts in Port-au-Prince (routes from the North to the West Province were blocked by a series of posts aimed at preventing the uprising from spreading), there was, as noted above, considerable civil unrest in the town, and this led to its partial destruction in a fire later that same month. One of the buildings that was destroyed was the Mesplès theatre. In that sense, 1791 does indeed mark the end of a theatrical era.16 With regard to the later revolutionary era, Camier notes that the theatre in Les Cayes was active in 1796 (Camier 2004, 143),  For this reason, TSD currently ends in 1791.

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while Memelsdorff has recently uncovered evidence of a new theatre being created in Port-au-Prince sometime after 1798 (and still functioning in early 1802), to be directed first by a singer named Jean Michel Villeneuve and then by Jean Jacques Labruyère, who had contracts with 12 artists, including Lise (Memelsdorff 2022). The space used was in a different part of the same square as the Mesplès theatre and the repertoire included works that had already been performed in the colony (Le Mariage de Figaro, Jeannot et Thérèse, L’ Épreuve villageoise) and some that had not (Grétry’s Guillaume Tell).17 In the Mitigated Portrayals chapter, we examined a series of advertisements by Fontaine, most of them explicitly identifying him as director of the playhouse. In the first few months of 1793, we find several announcements in the Cap-based Moniteur général de la partie française de Saint-­ Domingue (MGPFSD) by a ‘citoyen Fontaine, demeurant à la Comédie’ (citizen Fontaine, living at the theatre) seeking to rent out a two-storey house and to rent or sell various enslaved people (who he claims are all good citizens even since the insurrection) and goods.18 Later that year, on 20 June 1793, there was an attack in Le Cap by white sailors led by General Galbaud (who had arrived in the colony in May 1793 to command French military forces there) on the French civil commissioners, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax (1763–1813) and Étienne Polverel (1740–1795), who had arrived in Saint-Domingue before him, in September 1792, with sweeping powers and tasked with re-establishing order in the colony. This led to the impromptu and unanticipated offer on the part of Sonthonax and Polverel of freedom to all enslaved people who—in an unlikely alliance—would fight for their cause. The commissioners’ subsequent proclamation is now regarded as ‘the first emancipation decree ever given out by official representatives of any of the Western world’s slave empires’ (Popkin 2009, 153). It also led to widespread violence and looting and, by the evening of 23 June, the town of Cap-Français ‘had been reduced to ashes, and at least 3,000 of its inhabitants lay dead’ following ‘the largest outbreak of urban violence of the entire revolutionary era on either side of the Atlantic’ (Popkin 2009, 153). Following the Battle of Cap-Français, Galbaud was forced to retreat. The door to abolition had been opened and, by the end of October 1793, Sonthonax and Polverel had ‘abolished slavery and eliminated racial privileges throughout the parts of the colony still under  A full account of Memelsdorff’s findings will be published in his forthcoming book.  See, for instance, the edition of 26 February 1793, 408.

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their control, thus completely changing the nature of the conflict’ (Popkin 2009, 153). This in turn forced the issue in metropolitan France and led directly to the abolition of slavery throughout the French empire as decreed by the National Convention on 4 February 1794. The abolition of slavery thus came exactly four and a half years after the abolition of feudalism. Dubois has written of a watercolour, reproduced in Fig. 6.1, and the unfinished proof of an engraving (held at the John Carter Brown Library) of a picture by Pierre-Jean-Louis Boquet stationed in Saint-Domingue in 1793 (and whose family had connections with the Paris Opera) (Dubois 2021). The picture features the insurgents in Le Cap in June 1793, who were, as we have seen, a mixed band. Some of them are pictured wearing the looted clothes of the white elite; in addition, as noted at the bottom of the engraving, some are wearing costumes taken from the local playhouse. Dubois draws our attention to a group of musicians in the bottom right-­ hand corner and to a man ‘dressed in what was likely a costume used in the theater for an indigenous character. He has feathers in his hair, is barechested, and has a necklace, a decorated belt, and a bow attached to his

Fig. 6.1  Watercolour by Boquet, Le Pillage du Cap, révolte de Saint-Domingue (1793). M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University

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back’ (Dubois 2021, 105). He also appears to be dancing. The indigenous character in question is probably that of the native chief, Zamor, in Voltaire’s Alzire ou les américains, which was performed on several occasions in different towns in the colony. An advertisement for one performance of the work in Port-au-Prince hails the actor and beneficiary Dainville as ‘le seul Acteur dans la Colonie qui aye le véritable habit des Princes Incas’ (SAA 2 August 1783, 432) (the only actor in the colony who owns an authentic costume of the Inca princes) and writes of how the rest of the performers have gone to some trouble to find appropriate costumes themselves. It seems likely that the costume in the image of Le Cap is the local theatre’s equivalent of Dainville’s supposedly authentic Peruvian costume.19 Many other people in the image, most of them barefoot, are wearing extravagant clothing or accessories that are probably taken from the theatre: there is a wide array of headwear on display, ranging from elaborate wigs to elegant, feathered hats and headdresses as well as turbans, mitres and what appears to be a hat with a black bird on top. In the foreground, near the centre of the image, we see a man taking clothing (probably costumes) from a large box and in front of him is another man removing jewellery from a smaller box. To the left, there appears to be a dispute among a group of people about clothing. Two costumes clearly represent those taken from the playhouse: near the bottom left of the image, we see a barefooted white man, possibly of Mediterranean origin, in a black hat wearing the characteristic diamond costume of Arlequin—see Fig. 6.2. He is also carrying a musket with a bayonet, a sword and a leather bag. The Arlequin costume features mostly pink and white diamonds, punctuated with blue diamonds (the colours are muted and may be faded). We do not know how accurate the picture is, but it certainly evokes the costume worn by actors who performed the role in the theatre in Le Cap in recent years, including Ribié (unless he brought his own) who appeared there as Arlequin in L’Enlèvement des Proserpine ou Arlequin bouffon des enfers on 27 June 1787 and Pinel in Arlequin soldat milicien on 14 November 1785. Towards the far right side of the image a little higher up, there is a man of mixed racial ancestry wearing the distinctive white buttoned costume and ruff of another character from the commedia dell’arte: Pierrot—see 19  Dubois notes that later in the Haitian Revolution, revolutionary leaders called themselves the ‘Armée Indigène’ (Indigenous army) and Jean-Jacques Dessalines referred to his own army as the Army of the Incas (Dubois 2021, 107).

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Fig. 6.2  Detail from watercolour by Boquet, Le Pillage du Cap, révolte de Saint-­ Domingue (1793), featuring man in Arlequin costume at the centre. M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University

Fig. 6.3. This man is carrying a musket with bayonet as well as a leather buckle and an orange parasol. We note that the traditional figuring of Arlequin in his black mask (discussed in the Mitigated Portrayals chapter) and Pierrot as ghostly white is broadly reversed here. Likewise, this must

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Fig. 6.3  Detail from watercolour by Boquet, Le Pillage du Cap, révolte de Saint-­ Domingue (1793), featuring man in Pierrot costume at the centre. M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University

invoke the costume worn by the actors of Le Cap who performed the role of Pierrot. These include Mme Delarue in a cross-cast performance of Grétry’s Le Tableau parlant on 26 December 1789 (SAA 23 December 1789, 1101) and Julien in a (non-cross-cast) performance of the same

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work on 7 January 1786. This appropriation by the looters of theatre costumes can be read in many ways, but it seems clear that it graphically breaks down the barriers that prevented most people of colour—and indeed most poor whites—from attending such performances and raises the stakes of this kind of costuming as portrayed by the violence that is taking place elsewhere in the picture.

La Liberté générale ou les colons à Paris (Bottu, 1796) Our third work—and the second written explicitly for a Saint-Dominguan audience—is the one-act comedy, La Liberté générale ou les colons à Paris by François Marie Bottu. The play relates to events of several different years and time periods: the abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue in 1793 and across the French empire in 1794, plus responses to the controversy of abolition and the context of 1796—the year of its performance in Le Cap. In addition, the precise date of the performance (10 August or 23 Thermidor, Year IV) invokes the anniversary of 10 August 1792 when armed revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace in an insurrection that would lead to the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of France as a republic. Whereas some metropolitan plays such as Gassier’s patriotic pantomime La Liberté des nègres (1794) depicted events in Saint-­ Domingue for the benefit of a metropolitan audience, La Liberté générale is, exceptionally, set in Paris but written for the benefit of a Saint-­ Dominguan audience. The first abolitionist event underpinning the work is Sonthonax’s declaration of 29 August 1793 in which, in wake of the events of June 1793 outlined above, he declared the freedom of all enslaved people in the Northern Province of Saint-Domingue. The proclamation, which is reproduced in Jean-Charles Benzaken’s extensively documented critical edition of the play (Benzaken 2010, 391–96), is set explicitly in the context of France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (26 August 1789), according to which ‘les hommes naissent et demeurent libres et égaux en droits’ (men are born and remain free and equal in rights). The document, which was published in the colony in Creole as well as in French, reminds the ‘new citizens’ that their freedom from slavery has been achieved explicitly in the name and context of the French Republic (for whom many of them opted to fight in June 1793); it also emphasizes

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the importance of continuing to labour for the French Republic—a point that is taken up in the play and which would be emphasized repeatedly not just by French-born officials, but also, notably, by the black revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture who was firm in his belief that hard labour was a price worth paying for the preservation of freedom. The key event that is re-enacted in the play itself is news of the vote by the National Convention in Paris to abolish slavery throughout the French empire on 4 February 1794—the day on which the play is set. Specifically, the play takes place in the salon of one Madame Revêche who, in the opening scene, is warned by her neighbour—a free man of colour from Saint-Domingue, named Théodore—that the group of men who meet regularly in a room in her house are the self-appointed ‘envoyés des Colons de Saint-Domingue’ (scene 1) (colonial envoys from Saint-Domingue). Théodore tells Revêche about: le droit barbare que ces hommes s’étaient arogés, d’enchaîner leurs semblables, de les parquer, comme des bêtes de charge, de les livrer à un gérant, qui, après avoir épuisé sur eux les plus mauvais traitements, en faisait un traffic affreux, et les vendait comme de vils animaux. the barbarous right that these men have assumed to chain up people like them, to pen them in like beasts of burden, to hand them over to a manager who, having subjected them to the worst treatments, used them for the most appalling trafficking and sold them like mere animals.

These are graphic words for something that was normally hastily passed over in the theatre. Théodore’s explanation for the enslavement of some human beings by other human beings is that ‘ils étaient d’une couleur différente’ (scene 1) (they were a different colour). In an impassioned call for racial unity in Saint-Domingue, Théodore then reports that: Les Jaunes ont les premiers réclamés la jouissance de leurs droits, les Noirs ont combattu pour les conquérir … beaucoup de Blancs se sont joints à eux, ont fait la guerre avec eux, ont supporté la chaleur, la faim, la misère, pour la cause de l’égalité, et … enfin ce sont des Blancs qui, bravant les périls, la mort même et l’échafaud, ont osé les premiers proclamer la liberté générale. (scene 1)

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The yellows were the first to demand the enjoyment of their rights, while the blacks fought to win them and many whites joined them, went to war with them, endured heat, hunger and misery for the cause of equality. Finally it was the whites who, braving the perils of death and the scaffold, dared to proclaim universal liberty first.

We note Théodore’s use of colour terms to describe white Europeans, free people of colour and enslaved people. His account seeks to present all people of African ancestry in Saint-Domingue as having a common cause that was supported by many Europeans as well. As Vèvè Clark has noted, there is no hint here of the antagonisms that for much of the Haitian Revolution set people of mixed racial ancestry against people of African ancestry (Clark 1992, 242), and there is no explicit mention of the vicious white opposition to freedom in the colony. Théodore’s goal is to promote a common cause that unites all people. His point about white people (notably Sonthonax and Polverel) having been the first to proclaim universal freedom is factually correct—the enslaved people of Saint-Domingue were not in a position to proclaim their freedom officially within the context of the French governing system. But it overlooks the crucial fact that this was a proclamation hard won by the masses who claimed their liberty by participating in the uprisings in the first place (Fick 1990). It is, however, in line with Toussaint Louverture’s pragmatic approach: although Toussaint ‘knew well enough that liberty had been won, not given’ (Dubois 2004a, 192), he was willing to pay lip-service to the French narrative of freedom having been a gift from the Republic in order to maintain a (mitigated) form of freedom that he knew was still under threat. Théodore’s account also establishes a direct link between the declaration in Saint-Domingue and the one in Paris that is reported towards the end of the play. Mme Revêche is horrified to learn that men seeking to maintain slavery by any and all means are meeting in her house and vows to throw them out. Interestingly, Théodore asks that she be kind to his former mistress, Mme de Minaudière, even though she treated him badly—a request that strongly suggests Théodore was enslaved earlier in his life and not born free. In scene 3, Revêche confronts the colonials’ valet, Dubois, who confirms her worst fears by providing a highly unflattering portrait of each of them and their ruthless methods in turn (there is even mention of Galbaud who is mocked for having saved his two gold watches as Le Cap burned following his misguided attack on Sonthonax and Polverel). She agrees to

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hide and eavesdrop on the colonials as they meet and plot against abolition and all its proponents, including Sonthonax. The colonials include four historical individuals who did indeed travel from Saint-Domingue to Paris to seek representation for their interests—Bruley (or Brulley), Page, L’Archeveque-Thibault (who was one of the 85 who escaped on the Léopard) and Verneuil. Their portrayal as abhorrent is both satirical (as befits a comedy) and evidence-based, abounding in references to real events and often citing authentic documents, albeit sometimes with tweaks to chronology and detail.20 As Fischer has noted, Mme Revêche finally emerges from her hiding place in scene 7 when the character of L’Incroyable applauds the colonials’ application of the principle of equality to their murderous intentions (Fischer 2004, 221)—revenge will be taken on white people and black people in equal measure. This is a step too far. Now unmasked, the colonials make the feeble claims that they were only joking and are in fact motivated by kindness in their treatment of enslaved people, before L’Incroyable tries to shift the blame onto Revêche for taking sugar in her coffee (something that she is willing to renounce immediately, as many people did). Dubois arrives in scene 8 and, after much prevarication, reveals the news that ‘la Convention nationale venait de décréter, à l’unanimité, l’abolition de l’esclavage et la liberté générale’ (the National Convention had just unanimously decreed the abolition of slavery and general freedom). Revêche expresses her delight while the disbelieving colonials turn upon each other before Verneuil appears supported by the black figure of Télémaque who, it turns out, has saved Verneuil from the angry crowd. For Saint-Amand, Télémaque’s appearance is ‘the most prodigious feat accomplished by Bottu in the play’ (Saint-Amand 2021, 221). We are clearly intended to laugh at Mme de Minaudière’s response to it: she is described as ‘tombant dans un fauteuil et jetant un grand cri: Oh Ciel! un noir ici! Je suis morte’ (scene 9) (falling into an armchair and crying out loudly: Oh heavens! A black man here! I am dead). Télémaque nobly refuses Verneuil’s offer of a financial reward, saying ‘vertu dans cœur à nous, être place naturelle à li’ (virtue has its natural place in our hearts). The colonials disperse in (comic) chaos at the (false) news that the commissioner and his guards have come to arrest them, Revêche turns to Télémaque and asks him rhetorically ‘Et bien, mon ami, vous voilà donc libre enfin?’ (Well, my friend, you are now finally free?). Télémaque explains that he has been  For more on the play’s historical sources, see Benzaken (2010).

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free for a very long time, but we are not told how, when or where he became free. Revêche continues to treat him as a representative of enslaved people (which, for the purposes of the play, he is) pointing out the need for ‘nos frères des Colonies’ (our brothers in the colonies) to continue to work hard. The play concludes with L’Incroyable being (comically) coerced into joining the general celebrations and singing (no doubt with the theatre audience joining in as well) the Marseillaise. Crudely, this is a play about the triumph of good over bad and it is worth noting that all the ‘bad’ characters are white (though not all the white characters are bad) and that both the black characters are ‘good’. More specifically, all the white characters from, or with connections to, Saint-Domingue are presented as bad and both black characters from Saint-Domingue are seen as good. The pivot is the French Republic, which is of course presented as good and the bestower of freedom on a colony that cannot safely be run by white colonials or, yet, by freed black men. Although the play is set in 1794, it draws heavily—as Benzaken has demonstrated very clearly—on the discussions and published accounts of the Débats entre les accusateurs et les accusés dans l’affaire des colonies (1795)—a bitter quarrel in which the civil commissioners, Sonthonax and Polverel (the latter died in the course of the dispute), were accused by colonial representatives from Saint-Domingue, including Bruley and Page, of having betrayed the colony by failing to restore order there and, above all, by abolishing its underpinning system of slavery. Nearly nine months after the debates had begun on 30 January 1795, a report by the Commission for the Colonies found Sonthonax not guilty and, moreover, selected him to lead the next civil commission to Saint-Domingue (which included the free man of colour, Julien Raimond), where he arrived on 11 May 1796 charged with enforcing the abolition of slavery and the freedom and equality of men of all colours. La Liberté générale is rightly understood partly as a riposte to Sonthonax’s colonial enemies, and it is possible that Sonthonax himself commissioned the work. More specifically, Benzaken has suggested that the play was written during Sonthonax’s journey on the Watigny from metropolitan France to Saint-Domingue on which he was accompanied by, among others, its presumed principal author, the colonial administrator and pro-abolitionist, François Marie Bottu (Benzaken 2010, 85, 58). Bottu was explicitly named as the play’s author and lead actor in the local

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Impartial newspaper on 9 September 1796 (Benzaken 2010, 62). The play was published anonymously the same year, its author described on the title page as ‘le citoyen B***’, by P.  Roux—the publisher used by Sonthonax’s commission and by the Impartial. During the fierce controversy that the performance provoked, Bottu repeatedly denied being the play’s author, but it is clear that he was closely involved in its creation and performance, in collaboration with others who had first-hand knowledge of the Débats entre les accusateurs et les accusés. How was the play’s anti-slavery, pro-republican message received by its Saint-Dominguan audience? And how did that audience respond to its satirical portrayal of the villainous colonists and to its sympathetic portrayal of a man of colour (Théodore) and to that of a formerly enslaved man now living free in Paris, called Télémaque? And what was this performance intended to achieve in the context of Le Cap in Summer 1796? Benzaken insists on the role played by La Liberté générale in reassuring the formerly enslaved population—Saint-Domingue’s new citizens—that, contrary to rumours being spread by some colonials, Sonthonax had not returned to the colony to reinstate slavery there (Benzaken 2010, 56, 75–76, 172). For Benzaken, this is achieved by the portrayal of formal metropolitan approval of abolition. It is perhaps also achieved by the unusually frank (for a piece of theatre) account of the horrors of slavery and the candid reactions of the naïve and somewhat comical but fundamentally ‘good’ character of Mme Revêche. As Fischer puts it, ‘the story is the process of enlightenment of Madame Revêche’ (Fischer 2004, 217). Of course, any reassurance of the formerly enslaved population supposes that a good number of those people were present at the performance—now, surely, as official spectators rather than mitigated audience members. This was certainly the understanding (or accusation) of the play’s critics who claimed to see in the play not reassurance for the formerly enslaved population but an incitement to seek vengeance on all white colonials in the colony. Although Bruley, Page, L’Archeveque-­ Thibault and Verneuil—figures who were known to the people of Saint-­ Domingue—are exposed and mocked as ruthless pro-slavery counter-revolutionaries in the play, violent retaliation on the part of people of colour, free or formerly enslaved, is actively eschewed. As we have seen, Théodore asks for his former  ‘owner’ Mme de Minaudière to be treated kindly, while Télémaque appears onstage at the end of the play having chosen to rescue Verneuil from the angry crowd. It is possible,

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then, that the play sought to reassure not just the new citizens of Saint-­ Domingue that their freedom was official and permanent, but also to promote (or appear to promote) peaceful relations between all social groups in the colony. The play also took the opportunity to settle some scores against four prominent individuals against whom many people present had reason to bear a grudge.21 Certainly it sought to promote the return to work, under only somewhat improved conditions from before abolition, of the formerly enslaved population as expressed in the following speech by Mme Revêche, who addresses Télémaque in terms that recall Sonthonax’s proclamation of 29 August 1793: Voyez-vous, mon cher, quoique nous soyons libres ici, nous travaillons tous … et sans doute nos frères des Colonies vont en faire autant, ne fût-ce que pour faire mentir ce beau Monsieur (l’Incroyable) qui voulait me prouver tantôt que l’esclavage seule pouvait vous forcer au travail. (scene 10) You see, my dear man, although we are free here, we all work and no doubt our brothers in the colonies will do likewise, if only to prove this gentleman (L’Incroyable) wrong when he wanted to convince me earlier that only slavery could make you work.

This same argument about the need to prove critics of abolition wrong by working hard was used repeatedly by Toussaint Louverture. Télémaque responds enthusiastically: ‘Oh! ouï, nous autres tous travailler fort, pour bonne Patrie, qui vlé comme ça que nous autres tous libres!’ (Oh, yes, we all work hard for our good homeland, who wants us all to be free). It is more difficult to speculate about audience response to the play as we have contradictory accounts of the play’s performance venue and about the composition of its audience. Certainly this was not a work that was going to please all the inhabitants of Saint-Domingue even if it was one that would broadly have pleased the now emancipated black majority, whose influence was particularly strong in the north of the colony. During the controversy that followed the performance, the play’s attackers suggested that the audience was a public one that included many formerly enslaved people, while some of its defenders suggested that the performance was of a more private nature and its audience therefore more 21  L’Archeveque-Thibault was especially notorious: separate accusations of homicide and mutilation were made against him and his wife in relation to two enslaved women named Sophie and Fatime (Benzaken 2010, 216–21).

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restricted (Benzaken 2010, 332, 353, 356–57). The evidence, which includes the claim in the published edition that it was ‘représentée pour la première fois sur le Théâtre du Cap-Français, le 23 Thermidor, l’an quatrième de la République, jour anniversaire du 10 Août’ (performed for the first time at the theatre in Cap-Français on the 23 Thermidor, Year IV of the Republic, on the anniversary of 10 August), suggests quite a large audience. The newspaper, the Impartial, reported on the ‘nombreux applaudissements qui ont accompagné cette représentation’ (the considerable applause that accompanied the performance) and Benzaken is confident that the play was watched by ‘un parterre d’amis, de cadres, blancs, de couleurs et noirs, et sans doute aussi Sonthonax et ses collègues commissaires’ (Benzaken 2010, 84) (an audience of friends, white, coloured and black managers, and no doubt also Sonthonax and his commissioner colleagues). The fact that the cast of characters included a free man of colour (understood here as being of mixed racial ancestry) and a formerly enslaved black man from Saint-Domingue alongside a series of white characters raises some interesting questions about casting. No list of performers is given in the published version of the play, and we only know that Bottu performed the lead (male) role—that of the villainous Bruley—from the review that appeared in the Impartial on 9 September 1796. But who performed the roles of Théodore and Télémaque—were they performed by people of colour, perhaps by a person of mixed racial ancestry and one of African ancestry respectively? As mentioned briefly in the Mitigated Portrayals chapter (and discussed at more length in Prest 2021), local works featuring black characters were in the 1780s customarily played by white performers, sometimes in blackface. Might formerly enslaved men have played the roles of Théodore and especially Télémaque, who expresses his delight now that his brothers across the empire are free like him (scene 10)? This combined with the presence of new citizens among the audience will have brought a special charge to the topic under discussion. As Chalaye has observed, the figure of the emancipated slave was typically portrayed in contemporary French theatre as being overwhelmed by gratitude for his (or occasionally her) white saviour (Chalaye 1998, 110–11). For Leichman, these characters were ‘mobilised to reassure Parisian audiences of their moral superiority by depicting a spontaneous gratitude whose apparent sincerity absolves the metropole of its complicity in the French Atlantic slave trade’ (Leichman 2021, 189–90). But this is not what happens in La Liberté générale. Although Théodore and

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Télémaque are arguably too generous in spirit towards their former and would-be oppressors, they are not the meekly grateful black characters of contemporary metropolitan French theatre. They choose to behave in a generous fashion towards pro-slavery individuals (Mme de Minaudière and Verneuil respectively), but this is owing purely to their goodness of heart (Théodore suspects that Minaudière may be unhappy and imagines helping her if she were ever in want, while Télémaque rescues Verneuil from physical danger) and not to a misplaced sense of gratitude. The presence and likely participation of Saint-Domingue’s new citizens will also have added another layer to the work, whose abolition narrative is welcome but remains firmly paternalistic. The personal narratives of local people, especially formerly enslaved people, in relation to their emancipation will of course have diverged considerably from those told in the play. The play’s use of language is also significant. In a number of French plays written for a metropolitan audience, black characters were presented speaking what was historically given the (now offensive) term ‘petit-nègre’ and what Hoffmann has more accurately described as ‘ce pseudo-créole de convention’ (Hoffmann 1973, 106) (this conventional pseudo-Creole)—a form of language that recalls Creole but which is designed above all to suggest that the characters in question have a comically imperfect mastery of French. With reference to the use of this theatrical language in one of the first works to employ it—La Négresse ou le pouvoir de la reconnaissance, first performed in France in 1787 and in Saint-Domingue, using a different title, in 1788 (see Prest 2021, 47–48)—Friedrich Melchior Grimm described it as ‘à peu près le jargon de nos nègres de Saint-Domingue’ and having ‘une sorte d’énergie et de douceur assez originale’ (Chalaye 1998, 102) (more or less the jargon of our slaves in Saint-Domingue [and having] a kind of energy and softness that is quite original). But this is not the language used by Télémaque. Instead, his characterization as a formerly enslaved black man is made using authentic Créole—a language that would have been spoken (or at least understood) by the majority of the theatre audience in Le Cap. Télémaque’s Creole appears to be perfectly intelligible to his interlocutors in the play and is not a source of any mockery or amusement. It is treated quite naturally. As Saint-Amand argues, the play ‘grants political and moral prestige to Creole’ (Saint-Amand 2021, 223). By contrast, it is the foppish figure of L’Incroyable—a social type whose first theatrical appearance may have been in this work  (Benzaken 2010, 179)—whose language is a source of mockery among his fellow characters. Specifically, L’Incroyable has adopted the linguistic affectation of not

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pronouncing the French ‘r’ (be it trilled or uvular) because it was considered by some of his contemporaries to be too coarse. He repeatedly exclaims, for instance, ‘pa-ole d’honneu-’ (upon my word) instead of ‘parole d’honneur’, and calls himself ‘Inc-oyable’. Clearly this is done for comic effect (a fact that is confirmed in the review of the play in the Impartial) and, as Saint-Amand notes, the comic nature of his speech offers an interesting reversal of the more common mockery of the ‘missing’ ‘r’ in Creole (Saint-Amand 2021, 218n11). Indeed, Télémaque’s Creole speech is written with the r in place—a fact that underlines the naturalness with which his idiom is supposed to be received. Here Creole is rightly understood as a language in its own right and one that is used in this instance to promote peace and understanding between different social groups. Although Télémaque speaks Creole, Théodore, who formerly lived in Saint-Domingue, speaks what is presented as unaccented French. The discrepancy between the two characters of colour is probably to ensure that the distinction between Théodore, who represents the free people of colour, and Télémaque, who represents enslaved people (even though he is also now free), is clear—the overarching purpose being to represent in the play all three perceived socio-racial groups from the colony.22 Théodore is a ‘Jaune’ and Télémaque a ‘Noir’. For Benzaken, Revêche, Télémaque and Théodore are the theatrical equivalents of the tricoloured deputies from Saint-Domingue who appeared before the Convention in 1794 with news of emancipation but who are strangely absent from the play (Benzaken 2010, 234 and 307). These were, respectively, the white colonist, Louis Pierre Dufaÿ (1752–?1804), the black man, Jean-Baptiste Belley (1746–1805)—who was born in Senegal and raised in slavery in Saint-Domingue before buying his own freedom—and the Creole of mixed African and European ancestry, Jean-Baptiste Mills (1749–1806). More is known about (negative) responses to news of the play from people who were not present at its performance, although it is likely that some of this negative publicity was drummed up by colonials who had attended the performance or heard about it locally. The fact that the play was printed later the same year also made it available to people who were not present at its performance. As Benzaken has demonstrated, people in metropolitan France and French refugees in the United States read 22  Benzaken suggests that Télémaque may have been modelled on an individual known to Bottu (Benzaken 2010, 243–44).

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about—and commented on—the play in their newspapers, and Bottu was forced to defend the work publicly while denying that he was its author (Benzaken 2010, 322–64). In addition to the accusation of calumny against Bruley, one of the main complaints made against the play was that it ‘désigne aux Africains les victims qu’ils doivent frapper comme leurs ennemis, et les excite à la fureur et à la vengeance’ (Benzaken 2010, 327) (tells the Africans which victims they should attack as their enemies and incites them to fury and vengeance). As we have seen, this is not the thrust of the play at all—the two characters of African ancestry are extremely forbearing in their attitude towards pro-slavery colonials, and it is those colonials who actively incite violence against their enemies, famously urging each other to ‘assassiner, égorger, ou empoisonner’ (scene 6) (assassinate, butcher or poison) revolutionary slave leaders. One thing that this accusation demonstrates is a belief in the power of theatrical performance to influence its audience and to incite violence and revolt. Specifically, it demonstrates a fear of the reactions of black audiences. During the controversy, the deputy Vaublanc claimed that since the performance of La Liberté générale, ‘il n’y a plus de sûreté pour les propriétaires à Saint-Domingue’ (Benzaken 2010, 354) (there is no safety for the property owners of Saint-Domingue). Although Bottu no doubt believed in the power of the theatre to move and change its audience, in the context of the controversy he opted to mock this view, saying sarcastically that the play ‘a provoqué … tous les désastres présents et à venir de Saint-­ Domingue’ (Benzaken 2010, 356) (has provoked all the disasters present and future in Saint-Domingue).23 This was not the moment for him to assert the power of theatre.

Le Héros africain (Unknown, 1797) Newspaper announcements in the Bulletin officiel de Saint-Domingue (BOSD) provide evidence of sporadic flurries of theatrical activity of various types in Le Cap between 1797 and 1799. These fall into three main groups: first, a troupe of dancers, acrobats and rope walkers led by someone called Dumoulin, who performed on several occasions in August and September 1797 in a building at 145 rue du Panthéon (on the corner of 23  Similarly, in the context of the Débats entre les accusateurs et les accusés, it was claimed that Polverel and Sonthonax had requested a performance of the operatic parody, La Servante maîtresse ‘pour préparer les esclaves à un renversement general’ (Benzaken 2010, 30) (to prepare the slaves for a general revolt).

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rue du Commerce); second, a group of amateurs, who performed spoken comedies including Racine’s Les Plaideurs and Dancourt’s Le Colporteur supposé in an unspecified location (but mention is made in one of their announcements of a playhouse—see BOSD 27 July 1797, np); and third, a Lycée dramatique, for which there were subscriptions and therefore, probably, undocumented regular performances. The drama school collaborated with the actors, Dorival and Val (the latter of whom had appeared in several performances in the colony in the 1780s) in several events featuring comedies including Beaumarchais’s Le Barbier de Séville, Deville’s Pierre Bagnolet and Guillemain’s L’Enrôlement supposé between August 1798 and at least June 1799. What is most striking about the repertoire performed by all three groups is its seemingly unpolitical nature. These appear to have been events aimed at distracting local audiences from the troubled times through which they were living rather than performances conveying a clear political message. The notable exception to this trend is a performance in the theatre in Le Cap on 29 May 1797 (10 Prairial, l’an V), also announced in BOSD, of an unattributed three-act pantomime called Le Héros africain, ou la traite des noirs, which was performed on a double bill with Le Mensonge excusable by Guillemain—a one-act comedy that was popular in Paris throughout the revolutionary decade.24 Exceptionally, the plot of Le Héros africain is described in detail in the newspaper announcement and, in the absence of a published or manuscript copy of the work, this precious summary is reproduced here in full: SPECTACLE Au bénéfice des Musiciens attachés à la Commission, Demain 10 Prairial, an cinquième, LE HÉROS AFRICAIN, OU LA TRAITE DES NOIRS, Grande pantomime en trois actes. Le théâtre représentera un Rivage du Congo. Suivie DU MENSONGE EXCUSABLE, Comédie en un acte. 24  Benzaken describes Le Héros africain as ‘une pièce anonyme dont nous ne savons hélas rien’ (Benzaken 2010, 31) (an anonymous play about which, alas, we know nothing). Similarly, Fischer seems unaware of the detailed description in the newspaper (Fischer 2004, 212).

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ACTE PREMIER.

Ganza, chef africain, entretient Siza, son amante. Mosiloc, père de Ganza, à la tête d’une troupe d’africains, vient célébrer leur hymen. La liberté se présente au milieu de la fête, leur dicte ses lois, et donne au chef africain son bonnet, et ils jurent tous de mourir pour la Liberté; ils mettent le bonnet sur un arbre, et l’entourent de guirlandes. ACTE SECOND.

Un navire anglais arrive. Le capitaine et l’équipage débarquent pour faire la traite; ils voient le bonnet de Liberté (scène comique); ils font des présens aux chefs pour les gagner; ceux-ci refusent de vendre leurs semblables. Les anglais enlèvent des noirs pendant la nuit, et les enchaînent. Les africains voyant la trahison, font un abbé et des anglais prisonniers. ACTE TROISIÈME.

Le chef africain, irrité contre les anglais, rassemble ses concitoyens, et marche contre eux; il fait le capitaine prisonnier. Les matelots, en même temps, prennent le père et la femme de Ganza; celui-ci vient pour leur livrer combat, voit son père et son épouse dans les fers des anglais (scène touchante). La pièce sera terminée par un combat général, les africains à coups de flèches, et les matelots à coups de fusils. PERFORMANCE For the benefit of the musicians attached to the Commission Tomorrow 10 Prairial, Year V LE HÉROS AFRICAIN, OU LA TRAITE DES NOIRS, Grand pantomime in three acts. The theatre will represent a coast of the Kongo Followed by LE MENSONGE EXCUSABLE Comedy in one act. ACT ONE.

Ganza, an African chief, receives Siza, his lover. Mosiloc, Ganza’s father, leading a troupe of Africans, comes to celebrate their marriage. Liberty

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appears in the middle of their celebrations, dictates her laws to them and gives the African chief her cap, and they all swear to die for Liberty. They place the cap on a tree and cover it with garlands. ACT TWO.

An English ship arrives. The captain and crew disembark to trade [in African people]. They see the cap of liberty (comic scene). They make gifts to the chiefs to win them over but the latter refuse to sell people who are like them. The English kidnap some black people during the night and chain them up. The Africans, on seeing this betrayal, take an abbot and some English men prisoner. ACT THREE.

The African chief, angry with the English, assembles his fellow citizens and marches against the English. He takes the captain prisoner. At the same time, the sailors capture the father and wife of Ganza who, coming to fight them, sees his father and wife in the English chains (touching scene). The work will end with a big battle, the Africans fighting with arrows, the sailors with guns. Le Héros africain seems to have been inspired partly by Arnould’s L’Héroïne américaine—a work that was discussed in the Unsustainable Tensions chapter. This is clear from its form as a three-act pantomime and its title, as well as its sentimental portrayal of people in chains, its emphasis on battle scenes and its thematic focus on betrayal and the treachery of the English, by contrast with the steadfastness of the non-European characters. It may also have been inspired in part by Ribié’s Le Héros américain (first performed in France in 1786 and performed in Saint-Domingue in 1788)—a three-act scripted melodrama with pantomime that is in some ways similar to L’Héroïne américaine (we remember that Ribié had to insist in the Saint-Dominguan press that they were not one and the same work) and opens, like Le Héros africain, with the anticipation of a marriage ceremony and features a father-son relationship. But it is the ways in which Le Héros africain diverges from its predecessors that are the most revealing of its significance in Saint-Domingue. One key divergence is the work’s setting on the African coast, ostensibly that of the Kingdom of the Kongo, whose captives—taken in raids or as a result of the wars that raged there—made up the largest group of enslaved people sent to Saint-Domingue in the second half of the eighteenth century.

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People from the region were generally referred to in Saint-Domingue as ‘Kongo’ or, more commonly, ‘Congo’. Many people from the Kongo region were experienced warriors who had taken part in the local wars there and they played a prominent role in the slave revolts in Saint-­ Domingue. Indeed, it has been argued that Saint-Domingue’s exceptionally high proportion of ‘Congos’ was a factor in its exceptionally successful slave revolution (Davis 2016). It is likely that some ‘Congos’ were present at this performance of Le Héros africain—one or two may even have performed in the work, which featured a large number of black roles. The play thus references a place and a life that will have been familiar to many of the new citizens of Saint-Domingue, but which will only have been known by reputation to its white audience. The fact that the work is a pantomime will have made it more open than spoken French-language works to performers and audience members who did not speak fluent French; it will also have made it more open to interpretation along personal lines. Fischer calls the play a ‘return to Africa’ (Fischer 2004, 213), and it is possible that it is alluding to the notion that displaced Africans in the Caribbean would return to Africa when they died. The work’s subtitle ‘ou la traite de noirs’ (or the trade in black people) explicitly places it within contemporary discussions about the triangular slave trade—a reference that is supported by the work’s coastal setting and, of course, by the arrival of the English seeking to participate in that trade. Whereas L’Héroïne américaine portrays the English as perfidious slave traders—something that may have sought to deflect attention away from or to relativize France’s role at the time in the same trade—the context for Le Héros africain is rather different. Performed during the (first) French abolition of slavery and at a time when France and England were at war, Le Héros africain could far more reasonably point the finger at its neighbours.25 Moreover, since 1793, the pro-slavery British had been occupying parts of the Western and Southern provinces of Saint-­ Domingue, taking Port-au-Prince in June 1794, and would only leave the colony in September 1798. British involvement in re-establishing and maintaining slavery was thus a burning issue in Saint-Domingue in 1797 (if not as immediately in the town of Le Cap as in the British-occupied parts of the colony). When the British were forced out by Toussaint, the 25  One edition of BOSD includes an interesting piece praising William Wilberforce for his (as yet)  unsuccessful attempts at abolishing the slave trade in England (BOSD 22 June 1799, 105).

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re-enslaved people of the formerly occupied area of the colony would be re-emancipated—this time by a man of African ancestry. Another key divergence is the central role played by the allegory of Liberty (or Freedom). France’s alleged position as the purveyor and country of freedom par excellence was also a burning issue and one in constant need of corroboration and reassertion. Although the plot summary does not explicitly indicate that the allegory of Freedom who arrives in the first act is French, this is likely to have been the proposed reading. If the French are presented as unmitigated lovers of freedom, the fact that the English seek to trade with the Africans hints at (former) African complicity in the slave trade. But it is also possible that freedom is presented here as a ‘natural’ state in Africa, particularly if, as is likely, people of African ancestry (including ‘Congos’) were involved in the performance. Did Liberty’s costume and accessories refer to the iconography of French renderings of the concept at this time? Was the role performed by someone of European, mixed or solely African ancestry? The use of the liberty cap or Phrygian cap, which has its origins in antiquity, but which was adopted by revolutionary America and then by revolutionary France suggests conformity with contemporary ‘French’ iconography.26 We remember too that Sonthonax’s declaration of the abolition of slavery in the Northern Province on 29 August 1793 included an article noting that the news would be announced in public places throughout the province by officers ‘précédés du bonnet de la liberté porté en haut d’une pique’ (Benzaken 2010, 396) (preceded by the liberty cap carried on top of a spike)—an image that was commonly used in revolutionary iconography. (Interestingly, the bonnet would later make its way onto the Haitian coat of arms, where it appears atop a palm tree.) Whatever the details, Liberty, possibly—but not necessarily—in the guise of France, dictates her laws to the African people in Africa. The welcome arrival—or perhaps confirmation—of Liberty is threatened only by the arrival of the English. But the African people, led by Ganza, will not be bought.27 The summary does not indicate who wins the closing battle between the Africans and the English sailors: either the African people are martyred 26  For more on the liberty cap as a revolutionary symbol in America and France, see Korshak (1987). 27  According to an ethnographic study of the Banda people in Bambari (on the Ouaka river in what is now the Central African Republic), ganza means ‘qui donne la force’ (which gives strength). See https://archives.crem-cnrs.fr/archives/items/CNRSMH_E_1996_013_ 001_002_002/

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for the cause (they swear to die for freedom in Act 1) or they manage to overcome the English in battle. This uncertainty may reflect an ongoing uncertainty about the status of abolition within the colony, both because of continued doubts about France’s long-term intentions and because of the presence in the colony of the pro-slavery English. Indeed, it is possible to read the pantomime as a loose allegory of what was happening in British-occupied Saint-Domingue. Whereas, from the official French perspective, freedom had been brought to the colony by France amid much rejoicing among the African population, the arrival of the British threatened that freedom as they reinstated slavery in their portions of the island. Britain would not abolish their slave trade until March 1807 and slavery was only abolished by the British in 1833. The performance was in aid of the musicians attached to the Commission, who will have performed the accompanying music. Some of those musicians will have been new citizens and the work was surely condoned—and probably arranged—by the Commission (as we believe was the case for La Liberté générale a few months earlier). Although Sonthonax was still in Saint-Domingue at the time of the performance of Le Héros africain in May 1797, it was Toussaint Louverture (1743–1803) who was now in the ascendant. Sonthonax had made Toussaint Governor General the previous year, but it was Toussaint who would force Sonthonax to return to France in August 1797. It is possible to read the pantomime as a homage to the leaders of African ancestry who had played prominent roles in the uprisings that had led to the declaration of freedom and who now worked to maintain order in the colony. It may even refer (though not explicitly) to an attempted counter-revolutionary coup by some people of colour in Le Cap in March 1796, during which, among others, the General Laveaux and an administrator called Henry Perroud were imprisoned by force. In his narrative of events addressed to the Minister of the Marine, Perroud (in a rather dichotomized account) noted how, by contrast with the people of colour, ‘les Chefs des Africains … ont toujours respecté les Représentans de la République’ (Perroud 1796, 4) (the African chiefs have always respected the representatives of the Republic). He notes that all would have been lost ‘si le héros, Toussaint Louverture, ne s’était mis en movement, avec son armée, pour venir par la force rompre les fers des Représentants de la République’ (Perroud 1796, 11) (if the hero, Toussaint Louverture, had not risen up with his army to come and break the chains of the representatives of the Republic by force). Toussaint is called a ‘génie Africain’ (an African genie), hailed as the ‘sauveur de son pays’

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(saviour of his country) and credited with having saved Saint-Domingue and the lives of the unfortunate Europeans who were there defending its liberty (Perroud 1796, 14). Clearly for Perroud, Toussaint, despite having been born in Saint-Domingue, was essentially an African chief owing to his African ancestry and skills in battle (he was also thought to have been the descendant of a real African chief). The designation of Toussaint as a hero, saviour and protector of liberty, combined with the imagery of saving the representatives from ‘slavery’ (as well as Perroud’s account in the next paragraph of how the Africans all swore to their chief that they would take revenge or die for all those who supported and defended their freedom), suggests a strong link with the sub-text to Le Héros africain (ironically, the name of the ship that took the now captive Toussaint to France in 1802 was Le Héros). The fact that there is no obvious representative in the work of the ‘intermediate’ group of former free people of colour or people of mixed racial ancestry may also be significant.

Conclusion The revolutionary-era Saint-Dominguan plays examined in chronological order of performance in this chapter are set on different points on the transatlantic slave triangle. They demonstrate evidence of changing attitudes towards slavery and enslaved and formerly enslaved people in the colony between 1789 and 1797. They indicate that writing new theatre was no longer the preserve of playwrights but also, on occasion, that of journalists and politicians as the wider population sought to make sense of what was going on and others tried to influence them in certain ways. This confirms a belief in the power of the theatre to influence public opinion, and it is surely no coincidence that on the explosive and unfolding matter of slavery, people in Saint-Domingue sometimes preferred to create new bespoke works rather than to use works imported from metropolitan France. In different ways, each of the works seeks ultimately to portray— and perhaps thereby help bring about—a sense of unity that did not in fact reflect the reality of a still divided colony. When news of revolutionary change and its principles first arrived in the colony, the author of La Répétition interrompue embraced on the part of the theatre audience in Port-au-Prince the principles of unity and some kind of patriotism, but the implications of this for the enslaved majority were conveniently ignored. If Minette’s muted participation in the work can be read as either inclusive (she performed) or exclusive (her role was

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small), the absence of black or enslaved performers  is unambiguous. The careful avoidance of explosive matters is in direct contrast with the bold assertions of Le Triomphe du tiers état, which was performed in the same theatre only a few months later. Following the abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue and then across the French empire, we find increased representation of France’s new citizens in the characters of La Liberté générale and, no doubt, among its audience and performers. This is an overtly anti-slavery piece that comes closer than anything to date to portraying slavery and its proponents and opponents as they really were—or at least as many anti-slavery officials, including Toussaint Louverture, were willing to claim they were. Partly for this reason, it was the most controversial of our locally composed plays. Its portrayal of formerly enslaved people and the Creole language with which they were commonly associated is undoubtedly—and, for the time, exceptionally—respectful. The fact that it denies former slaves the possibility or even the desire of expressing their anger towards their former oppressors is worth noting, but this should be understood in the tinderbox environment of life in Le Cap and ongoing debates in Saint-Domingue and metropolitan France at the time. However, such a space was created in the minds of some of the play’s fiercest critics who imagined that it invited violent retribution despite the play’s text clearly indicating the contrary. Le Héros africain, in a sense, returns to one of the sources of transatlantic slavery by portraying the people of Africa (as represented locally by Toussaint Louverture) as both freedom-loving and (we think) able— and certainly willing—to defend themselves against the pernicious incursions of the Europeans, in this case (as in Saint-Domingue) the English. Our reading of this play hangs partly on how and by whom the allegory of Liberty was portrayed—something that we may never know. Whether she was figured as French or African, the work portrays French people and people of African origin as united in their rejection of slavery and the slave trade. Our examination has revealed a trend that moves towards universal freedom, as we might expect. We should, however, be careful not to suggest that attitudes towards slavery in Saint-Domingue more generally—or even among its theatre audiences there—were as clear-cut, still less that they were homogenous. They were neither of those things.

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Conclusion

The coup d’état by Napoleon Bonaparte in November 1799, which brought in the Consulate, marked the end of the French Revolution. Napoleon’s new French constitution decreed that the colonies were to be governed by special laws—a decision that paved the way for the reintroduction of slavery in some of the colonies. Meanwhile, the Haitian Revolution continued to evolve, and Toussaint Louverture tightened his grip on it when he oversaw the creation of a new constitution for Saint-­ Domingue that appointed him governor for life, eliminated distinctions of race and colour and (re)asserted that slavery was banished from the colony permanently. This was understood in metropolitan France to mark a step towards independence, and Napoleon’s vast expeditionary army, led by General Leclerc, arrived in the colony in February 1802 with the goals of removing Toussaint, reasserting French control and reintroducing slavery in order to re-establish a profitable plantation system. This provoked a phase in the Haitian Revolution sometimes known as the War of Independence. Toussaint was deported to France in June 1802, where he died in captivity in April 1803. The resistance, now led by Henri Christophe (later King Henry I of northern Haiti) and, above all, Jean-Jacques Dessalines (later Emperor Jacques I of Haiti), raged on. Meanwhile, a private notice published by a notary in the Gazette officielle de Saint-Domingue (GOSD) on 28 May 1803 announced the arrival of 200 plays (and the score of a ‘folie’, which © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Prest, Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22691-5_7

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he describes as a new kind of opera) that had not yet been performed in the colony. Beneath it is the first of a set of announcements for a new series of upcoming theatre performances in Le Cap.1 The public are told that the following day a group of actors and singers would perform a comic proverb called Le Directeur dans l’embarras ou les Comédiens de société followed by the three-act pantomime, L’Héroïne américaine. The given title of the opening work links it with two works that we know had been performed in France: Paul Ulrich Dubuisson’s L’Impresario in angustie ou le directeur dans l’embarras (a two-act opéra-bouffon with music by Cimarosa) and Thiemet’s proverb, Le Comédien de société. Its description here as a proverb with multiple roles for the lead actor links it more closely with Thiemet’s work, but it probably also included references to the challenges of being the director of a newly opened theatre. Certainly it seems appropriate to have opened with a new metatheatrical work alongside a more familiar one that decries slavery—the very object of fierce fighting in the colony at the time. Interestingly, the production of L’Héroïne américaine does not take the opportunity to recast its non-white characters as people of African origin. On the contrary, it clearly figures them as Native Americans: we are told that the organizer of the performance, a man named Chénier, who describes himself as a recently arrived artist from Paris, will play the ‘Chef de sauvages’ (savage chief ) and that a man named Labotière will perform a solo ‘pas de sauvage’ (savage dance), as well as a duet with an amateur, at the end of the work.2 The female lead is performed by ‘Mademoiselle Fleury aînée’, who is perhaps a relative of the Mademoiselle Fleury who performed for some time at the Odéon or of the Mademoiselle Fleury who had performed in the theatre in Le Cap in the 1770s and 1780s.3 The other named performers at this event are called Fournier and Saint-Martin. In subsequent announcements by a group now calling themselves the ‘artistes du théâtre du Cap’ (artists of the Cap theatre), performers’ names are scarce, but the female lead in several works, including a performance of Grétry’s Nina on 14 August 1803 (GOSD 13 August 1803, 264), is given as Mme Lecoutre, who we know performed regularly in the theatre 1  Prior to this, there are references to Citoyenne Mongeon running the theatre café and to an upcoming concert in the playhouse (GOSD 16 April 1803, 4). 2  This is probably the talented young dancer called Labotière who performed later at the Théâtre de la porte Saint-Martin (Lablée 1817, 102). 3  Various people called Fleury are mentioned in relation to the theatre in Rouen in Bouteiller (1860).

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in Rouen.4 Readers are also told that Lecoutre’s daughter, Honorine, will perform on several occasions. The actors thus appear to be (white) visitors from France rather than local performers, although it is possible that the unnamed amateur who, it is noted in the announcement, had not performed before and who was to appear on 11 September 1803 was local and possibly, therefore, a performer of colour (GOSD 10 September 1803, 296). Le Glaunec reminds us of the context in which these performances were put on, commenting that ‘le Cap-Français s’amuse alors que le poste de Vertières et les fortifications voisines se préparent à la mort et que les fiévreux rendent leur dernier souffle à l’hôpital’ (Le Glaunec 2014, 73) (Cap-Français enjoys itself as the military post at Vertières and the neighbouring fortifications are preparing for death, while those with yellow fever breathe their last in hospital). The last theatre announcement that I have found is from 10 November 1803—only eight days before the decisive Battle of Vertières, which took place at a military outpost south of Le Cap, in which Dessalines’s ‘indigenous’ army roundly defeated the French forces led by General Rochambeau. It is also only 19 days before the first declaration of Haitian independence (Jenson 2011, 127). The repertoire in the documented performances in the months leading up to the founding of Haiti is firmly French. It is mostly comic, includes a large number of musical works and seems relatively uncontroversial. The repertoire includes some works that had already been performed in the colony, such as (in addition to Nina) Hauteroche’s Crispin médecin, Dalayrac’s L’Amant statue, Molière’s Le Dépit amoureux, Grétry’s La Fausse magie and Dorvigny’s Janot ou les battus paient l’amende—a work that acquired new significance in the revolutionary context (Wrigley 1996). It also features some new works, including Pigault-Lebrun’s Claudine de Florian, Dalayrac’s Philippe et Georgette as well as his Adolphe et Clara, Pineu-­ Duval’s Le Prisonnier ou la ressemblance and the highly popular opéra-­ comique, Catherine, ou la Belle fermière by Julie Candeille.5 Some advertisements indicate that tickets are available in the parterre, first and second boxes and the paradis (GOSD 30 July 1803, 248). It is noteworthy that the third level of boxes (the paradis) is now explicitly mentioned and that it is no longer associated with any racial group—the distinctions are by price alone. This suggests that seating areas were now racially mixed, in marked distinction from the pre-revolutionary era.  There are several references to her (and to her husband) in Bouteiller (1860).  For more on this remarkable work and its creator, see Letzler and Adelson (2004–2005).

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Exodus The slave revolts of 1791 prompted an initial exodus from the colony that became a continuous stream of departures punctuated by a series of waves. The second wave was in 1793 after the city of Le Cap was burned down, and there were subsequent waves in 1798 (following the English evacuation of the colony) and 1803 (when what was left of the French army surrendered). Some people travelled to metropolitan France, a few went to neighbouring Santo Domingo (which came under French control in 1795), while many went to other Caribbean islands, notably Jamaica (including a large intake with the retreating British Expeditionary Force in 1798) and Cuba (which expelled most of them in 1809), which were close to Saint-Domingue and from where they could envisage a swift return if circumstances permitted. Some went to American cities including Charleston, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Large numbers of refugees from Saint-Domingue went directly to—or subsequently ended up in—New Orleans, which was officially under Spanish control until it was passed briefly back to France before Napoleon promptly sold it on to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. According to Lachance, the largest waves were to the East Coast of the United States in 1793, to Jamaica in 1798 and to Cuba in 1803, followed in 1809–1810 by the mass migration of newly expelled Saint-Dominguan refugees from Cuba to New Orleans (Lachance 1992, 246–47). We might also note the case of Charles Mathurin Villet (1779–1856), who was born in Saint-Domingue and went on to found an amateur French theatre company in Cape Town in 1803—it is likely that he was inspired in his theatrical endeavours partly by performances that he had seen or heard about in Saint-Domingue as a child.6 The francophone theatre of New Orleans was founded in 1792 by two brothers from France. In 1793, Mme Durosier, whose husband had performed on many occasions in both Le Cap and Port-au-Prince in the 1780s, took over, introducing ‘quadroon’ actresses (these probably included Minette and her half-sister Lise) and welcomed a number of performers from Saint-Domingue (Braun 2019, 21). The actor, Desassarts, who was the son of an actor at the Comédie-Française and who had been 6  His father was probably the merchant, Villet, who announced in 1789 that he was giving up his business in the town of Les Gonaïves to run his plantation in the same region (SAA 17 June 1789, 921).

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a beneficiary of performances in Le Cap in 1784 and 1785, relocated to New Orleans, where he performed, alongside other actors from Saint-­ Domingue, in a ballet pantomime version of Le Déserteur in the early 1800s (Debien and Le Gardeur 1992, 159). Mme Marsan performed in New Orleans between 1795 and 1797 and died there in 1807, and Minette ended up in New Orleans, where she also died in 1807, having spent time in Baltimore (1794–1796) and Philadelphia (1796), and possibly also Cuba (Memelsdorff 2020).7 Additional performers from Saint-Domingue who later appeared in New Orleans include Minette’s half-sister, Lise, who had performed in several theatres in the colony, Louis-François Clairville and Mme Clerville, both of whom had performed in Le Cap, and Destinval (or Destinville) who had performed in Port-au-Prince and who arrived via the theatre in Philadelphia (Braun 2019, 21). In addition, Fontaine, the actor, ‘slave owner’ and former director of the playhouse in Le Cap went via New  York in 1793 to New Orleans, where he became editor of the francophone newspaper, Le Moniteur de la Louisiane, founded by another refugee from Saint-Domingue, Louis Duclot (Debien and Le Gardeur 1992, 147).8 Others who did not pursue their former theatrical endeavours include the musician, François Bocquet, who was the organizer of a rare performance of a serious opera in the colony—Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice, performed in Le Cap on 13 November 1784 (Prest 2017a, 22). The early repertoire in New Orleans was mostly imported from France (some of it via Saint-Domingue), but it also included some Saint-­ Dominguan works.9 As others have noted, Papa Simon ou les Amours de Thérèse et Janot (i.e. Clément’s Jeannot et Thérèse), now labelled a Creole vaudeville, was performed in New Orleans in 1807 and again in 1811 (Braun 2019, 11).10 In addition, as outlined in the ‘Mitigated Portrayals’ chapter, Le Commerce de nuit (which had the main title of Les Nègres de place in Saint-Domingue) was performed there in 1808. Both works were probably adjusted to suit their new local setting, and it is interesting to  Memelsdorff has suggested that she may have been to France around 1798 (Memelsdorff 2021, 291–92). 8  Other refugees from Saint-Domingue were involved in the creation of other newspapers in New Orleans. See Debien and Le Gardeur (1992, 240). 9  For book-length studies of spoken theatre and opera, respectively, in antebellum New Orleans, see Braun (2019) and Bentley (2022). For a fascinating account of cultural performance in New Orleans and the ‘circum-Atlantic’, see Roach (1996). 10  Announced in ML on 18 and 21 March 1807 and 30 April 1811. 7

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note that, in New Orleans, the emphasis in the advertisement was on the Creole language and not on black performance as such (ML 24 September 1808). People departing post-abolition in 1793 (confirmed, as we have seen, by the metropole in 1794) were thus leaving a colony in which there were formally no enslaved people and relocating, in most instances, to places where slavery was still very much in existence. Specifically, they were joining communities that were afraid of the influence of any former slaves or people of colour coming from Saint-Domingue. As Hunt and White, among others, have shown, the spectre of the Haitian Revolution haunted the American south for decades (Hunt 1988, 107–46; White 2010, 124–65). These host colonies and cities were particularly wary of allowing white people to bring enslaved or formerly enslaved people with them as they were viewed as potential insurgents and fomenters of revolt. Refugees had to argue that their domestic servants were loyal and to promise to vouch for them before they were granted entry, but formerly enslaved people from Saint-Domingue—and also free people of colour, who did not have equal rights outside France—were regarded with deep suspicion. Many were turned away, quarantined or deported (Aje 2012, para 22–24; Debien and Le Gardeur 1992, 175–88). This concern about enslaved people, particularly those from Saint-­ Domingue, was felt in the local playhouses as well. As Braun has shown, different theatres in New Orleans adopted different approaches to the question, and their policies fluctuated over time. Enslaved people were allocated a small section on the second balcony within the newer and larger playhouse on the Rue St Philippe when it was renovated in 1810 (Braun 2019, 65). At around the same time, the director at the ‘French’ theatre on the Rue St Pierre, Louis Tabary published an interesting announcement in 1809 noting that spectators’ domestic servants ‘ne pourront entrer à l’avenir qu’avec un billet de 50 [?] cents pris au bureau’ (ML 20 December 1809) (will only be allowed to enter in future with a 50-cent ticket from the box office). Camier and Dubois have suggested that new arrivals from Saint-Domingue (who had recently been expelled from Cuba) were wrongly assuming that they could be accompanied by their enslaved domestic servants to the playhouse at no additional cost, as we believe they did in Saint-Domingue. But the reference to ‘à l’avenir’ (in future) suggests a shift in  local policy towards enslaved spectators. Whatever the case, it marks a moment when enslaved domestics were ticketed—and thus official—spectators.

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Meanwhile, the ‘French’ theatre in Charleston, set up by the refugee John Sollee and featuring among its performers Alexandre Placide (who later ran the anglophone theatre in the same town), was short-lived. Performances featuring actors from Saint-Domingue took place at the theatre on Church Street between 1794 and 1795 (when new refugees from the colony were banned).11 These included a revolutionary work called La Prise de Toulon par l’armée française and a pantomime about the storming of the Bastille, and featured corsairs in the chorus when the orchestra played the Marseillaise (Aje 2012, para 16). Responses to the new theatre were mixed, but among the many criticisms that were levelled against the French troupe was that of allowing people of colour both onstage and within the audience (Dillon 2014, 146–47).12 Dillon draws our attention to a letter written by the Englishman, John Lambert, who visited Charleston in 1810 (the year after the final wave of immigration from Saint-Domingue). Lambert was surprised to find that black characters in the theatrical repertoire were not performed by actors from the local black population or even in blackface or credible costumes: I expected to find the Charleston stage well supplied with sooty negroes, who would have performed the African and Savage characters, in the dramatic pieces, to the life; instead of which the delusion was even worse than on our own stage; for so far from employing real negroes, the performers would not even condescend to blacken their face, or dress in any manner resembling an African. (Lambert 1814, 138, original emphasis)

He offers the following explanation: This I afterwards learned was occasioned by motives of policy, lest the negroes in Charleston should conceive, from being represented on the stage, and having their colour, dress, manners, and customs imitated by the white people, that they were very important personages; and might take improper liberties in consequence of it. For this reason, also, Othello and other plays where a black man is the hero of the piece are not allowed to be performed; nor are any of the negroes or people of colour permitted to visit the theatre. (Lambert 1814, 138, original emphasis)

 For a list of works performed and details of the cast, see Sodders (1983, 382–413).  When the French theatre in Charleston was incorporated into the anglophone theatre, some performers made their way to New Orleans (Braun 2019, 187n113). 11 12

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The level of colonial anxiety with regard to the power of live theatre— especially in the wake of the Haitian Revolution—is revealing, and the solution is two-pronged: keep the black population out of the playhouse and keep theatrical representations of black people unconvincing and to a minimum in case any black people do find their way in. Once again, it is clear that the theatre was thought to shape the understanding and behaviour of black and enslaved people, especially if performances included representations of those people. White has noted that ‘white Charlestonians and New Yorkers … in assigning responsibility for the conspiracies in their own communities … laid the blame directly at the feet of black Saint-­ Dominguans’ (White 2010, 143). Although this is not explicitly stated, the implication of what Lambert was told is that the presence of black and enslaved people in the many playhouses of Saint-Domingue may, in some way, have influenced the Revolution there (the ultimate ‘improper liberty’) and might therefore have a similar effect in Charleston and elsewhere. This is especially interesting when one considers that the anxieties expressed in Saint-Domingue in relation to the threat posed by enslaved people prior to the revolution mostly refer to large gatherings or assemblies, particularly any that took place at night and especially those involving vodou rituals and dance (Prest 2019a). Although such gatherings were repeatedly prohibited (a fact that confirms that the prohibition was not effective), I am not aware of any colonials having expressed concern about—still less legislated against—the effects of enslaved people being in the playhouse. Rather, as we saw in the ‘Mitigated Spectators’ chapter, the presence of enslaved people there was mostly overlooked. One of the rare people to engage with the question—and who radically opposed the presence of free black (or enslaved) people in the playhouse—was Hilliard d’Auberteuil who, writing in the 1770s, did not express any concerns about rebellion, warning only that such people might have to resort to stealing in order to dress up to go to the theatre. It is perhaps only in retrospect that some colonials made any hypothetical connection between the presence of enslaved people at the theatre (which did of course offer the opportunity to gather together) and civil unrest. This chimes with the retrospective comments made by colonials in wake of the slave uprisings about what they perceived as their betrayal by enslaved domestics. Colonel Malenfant, for instance, noted in his historical memoir covering the early revolutionary period in Saint-Domingue that the insurgents knew what was going on thanks to the ruses of the enslaved domestics (Fouchard 1988b, 135n). Back in metropolitan France,

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Mathieu Dumas of the French Assembly complained in 1792 that the spirit of revolt had been fomented by domestic slaves who were practised spies and informants (Fouchard 1988b, 211). Although there is some debate among historians regarding the respective roles played in the early revolts by enslaved domestics and plantation workers of different ranks, it is significant that domestics were understood by contemporaries to have played such an important part in these events. This is not to say that the vibrant theatre tradition in colonial Saint-­ Domingue, overheard and glimpsed by hundreds of enslaved domestics, did play a direct role in the Haitian Revolution. Rather, the playhouses of Saint-Domingue were places where enslaved domestics were exposed to numerous plays and operas many of which promoted personal freedom and challenged social inequalities and unequal power relations—works that may well have fuelled an existing sense of injustice and a desire for change. As Fouchard is eager to point out, the enslaved population of SaintDomingue always wanted their freedom and always took steps towards that (Fouchard 1988b). The fact that the performers and other theatre-makers who created egalitarian works ‘owned’ domestic servants, as outlined in the ‘Unsustainable Tensions’ chapter, underlines the widely acknowledged fact that individuals—and social groups more broadly—can hold contradictory views simultaneously. Even allowing for the fact that individual actors are not expressing personal views when performing their roles, this underlines some of the ways in which the contradictions underpinning this slave society were untenable and would eventually be brought to an end by revolutionary principles and, above all, by the efforts of the enslaved—and formerly enslaved—people themselves. Similarly, the fact that many ‘slaveowning’ actors posted advertisements for the return of enslaved runaways demonstrates the fundamental instability of the slave economy with which they were complicit as well as the personal determination of those caught up in its nets. It was suggested in the ‘Mitigated Portrayals’ chapter that new theatre pieces composed and set in the colony served partly to tackle some of those tensions by acting both as a safety valve and as a source of containment as well as entertainment. We have also uncovered, in the ‘Concealed Contributors’ chapter, some of the hidden contributions of enslaved people who lent their skills to theatre-­making as well as, in the ‘New Citizens’ chapter, some notable developments in repertoire—and almost certainly casting practices—after slavery was abolished. The founding of Haiti on 1 January 1804 marks the official end of Saint-Domingue and the endpoint of this book, but not the absolute end

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of French-influenced theatre: a play and an opera were performed to mark the coronation of Henri Christophe in 1811, and on 1 January 1817 the opening performance for a new, large theatre in Le Cap, now Cap-Haïtien, featured Voltaire’s Zaïre, performed by a troupe of black actors (Dubois 2021, 107–08). Of course, Haiti has since created its own theatre traditions, while the story of Saint-Domingue, the Haitian Revolution and the founding of Haiti has subsequently been reworked not only by numerous European and American playwrights (Fig. 7.1) but also by playwrights of Haitian or (other) Afro-Caribbean origin who saw its ongoing significance. These include Glissant’s Monsieur Toussaint (1961), C.L.R. James’s The Black Jacobins (1967)—a reworking of his more famous historical account of the same title—and Métellus’s Toussaint Louverture, ou les racines de la liberté (2003). As Douglas has observed with regard to C.L.R. James, the switch from history-writing to dramatic writing enabled James to let ‘characters of whom there is little archival trace … speak more audibly’ (Douglas 2019, 141). The goal of un-silencing unknown and overlooked histories sits at the heart of the present volume, which has sought to achieve that by various means including reading colonial sources between the lines or against the grain, extracting as much as possible from the scraps that do remain, noticing hints that were there all along and, crucially, being open to surprises. It has also involved commenting on what is not mentioned and sometimes asking questions that cannot be answered but which still need to be posed and speculated on. This book has sought above all to demonstrate that the links between the vibrant public theatre tradition of Saint-Domingue and the lives of the enslaved population on which the colony’s wealth depended were inextricable, not incidental. Owing primarily to a lack of personal testimony, it has not been possible to write the stories of the enslaved people of Saint-Domingue whom we have encountered as fully as I would have liked. Owing to the urban nature of public theatre, the focus has been on enslaved domestics rather than on the majority of enslaved people who worked on the colony’s plantations. But the stories of enslaved people have at least been aired and written (back) into this important portion of theatre history; they have been opened up and reflected upon in ways that, it is hoped, will stimulate more research into the close—and now undeniable—links between theatre, slavery and enslaved people.

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Fig. 7.1  Poster for Federal Theatre Project performance of Haiti featuring Toussaint Louverture (1938). (Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons)

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Roussier, Paul. 1948. François Mesplès et sa fortune, pacotille et maisons de rapport. Revue d’histoire des colonies 35.123–24: 161–99. https://doi. org/10.3406/outre.1948.1108. Rubellin, Françoise, ed. 2005. Théâtre de la Foire: Anthologie de pièces inédites, 1712–1736. Montpellier: Espaces 34. Saint-Amand, Pierre. 2021. Finishing off the Revolution: La Liberté générale of Citoyen B.  In Colonialism and Slavery in Performance: Theatre and the Eighteenth-Century French Caribbean, ed. Jeffrey Leichman and Karine Bénac-­ Giroux, 213–24. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Saint-Lot, Marie-José Alcide. 2003. Vodou, a Sacred Theatre: the African Heritage in Haiti. Coconut Creek, FL: Educa Vision. Sarti, Raffaella. 2022. From Slaves and Servants to Citizens? Regulating Dependency, Race, and Gender in Revolutionary France and the French West Indies. International Review of Social History 67: 65–95. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0020859021000432. Sedaine, Michel-Jean. 1769. Le Déserteur, drame en trois actes en prose mêlé de musique. Paris: Hérissant. Smallwood, Stephanie E. 2016. The Politics of the Archive and History’s Accountability to the Enslaved. History of the Present: A Journal of Critical History 6.2: 117–32. Socolow, Susan M. 1996. Economic Roles of the Free Women of Color of Cap Français. In More than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas, ed. David B. Gaspar and Darlene C. Hine, 279–97. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Sodders, Richard P. 1983. The Theatre Management of Alexandre Placide in Charleston, 1794–1812 (South Carolina). PhD thesis. Louisiana State University. Steiner, Benjamin. 2020. Building the French Empire, 1600–1800: Colonialism and Material Culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Taber, Robert. 2015. The Issue of Their Union: Family, Law, and Politics in Western Saint-Domingue, 1777 to 1789. PhD thesis. University of Florida. Taffin, Dominque, ed. 2006. Moreau de Saint-Méry ou les ambiguïtés d’un créole des lumières. Société des amis des archives et de la recherche sur le patrimoine culturel des Antilles. Theatre in Saint-Domingue, 1764–1791, Play, Ballets and Operas database (TSD). 2018; 2020. https://www.theatreinsaintdomingue.org. Thomasson, Fredrik. 2021. Moors in the Caribbean, Sámi in the Seraglio: Swedish Theatre and Slavery around 1800. In Colonialism and Slavery in Performance: Theatre and the Eighteenth-Century French Caribbean, ed. Jeffrey Leichman and Karine Bénac-Giroux, 225–46. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Tissier, André. 1992. Les Spectacles de Paris pendant la Révolution: Répertoire analytique, chronologique, et bibliographique, 2 vols. Geneva: Droz.

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Index1

A Abolition of slavery, 217, 219, 222 by Britain, 230 by France, 189, 210, 215, 217, 228, 232 in Saint-Domingue, 15, 16, 189, 191, 194, 209–210, 214, 215, 218, 220, 229, 230, 232, 238, 241 Acquaire, 113, 115, 117, 118, 120–123, 161, 164 Acrobats, rope walkers, funambulists, 4, 113n16, 115, 121, 122, 224 Acting, 69–70, 82 Actors: see individual names Adolphe et Clara (Dalayrac), 235 Affiches américaines (AA), 9, 10, 10n6, 18–20, 23, 24n11, 25, 29, 31n19, 40, 44, 44n30, 45, 49n35, 50, 51n1, 52, 54, 55, 57n9, 58, 60, 61, 65, 66, 69, 77,

77n43, 82, 85, 88, 91, 92, 96, 102, 110, 113, 115, 121–126, 131, 135, 139, 142, 154, 158, 169–171, 173, 176–179, 182, 185, 186, 190n2, 194–198, 201, 202, 204n15 Africa/African people, 6, 8, 16, 62, 70, 73, 76, 79, 80, 85, 101, 101n1, 103, 106n9, 117, 118, 133, 157, 164, 176, 178, 190, 224, 227–229, 229n27, 230, 232 Alzire (Voltaire), 76, 76n41, 211 L’Amant déguisé (Philidor), 172 L’Amant statue (Dalayrac and Desfontaine), 83, 235 L’Ambigu Comique, théâtre de, 67–68 American Revolution/American Revolutionary War/American War of Independence, 49n34, 75, 77n43, 110, 145, 189

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Prest, Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22691-5

263

264 

INDEX

L’Amoureux de quinze ans (Laujon and Martini), 204 Amours de Bastien et Bastienne, Les (Harny and Favart), 104, 123, 132n26, 133, 136 Amours de Mirebalais, Les (Clément), 102n2, 104, 123, 135–136, 142 See also Jeannot et Thérèse (Clément) Amphoux, 136 L’Anglais à Bordeaux (Favart), 11 Annette et Lubin (Favart and Lourdet de Santerre), 156 Annette et Lubin (Marmontel and Laborde), 156 Anti-slavery sentiment, 13, 70, 72, 73, 75, 75n39, 88, 92, 100, 119, 189, 218, 219, 232 L’Antre magique (Mayeur de Saint­ Paul), 76n40 L’Archeveque-Thibault, 217, 219, 220n21 Arlequin des Sauteurs, 115 Arlequin/Harlequin/Harlequinades, 4, 95, 114–116, 118–120, 120n21, 121–123, 211, 212 Arlequin works Arlequin bohémienne, 116 Arlequin déserteur délivré par les poissardes, 95 Arlequin, fille malgré lui, 116, 119–120 Arlequin Hulla, 156 Arlequin mulâtresse protégée par Macanda, 105, 113–123 Arlequin musicien, 114 Arlequin poli par l’amour (Marivaux), 114 Arlequin restaurateur chez les halles, 113n16 Arlequin soldat milicien, 211 Arlequin sultane favorite, 116 Arnusi, 43

Artaud, 169 Artaud, Jean, 179–183 L’Attaque et la Prise de la Bastille (Ruggieri), 194 Aucassin et Nicolette (Sedaine and Grétry), 1–2, 78 Audience response, 37, 71, 72, 74, 76–77, 81–82, 84, 90–94, 99, 100, 111, 130, 133, 146, 151, 196, 200–208, 219–220, 231 Audiences/spectators, 5, 9, 13, 15, 17–50, 81, 102, 121, 197, 200, 224, 232 enslaved spectators, 15, 35–49, 102, 238 female spectators, 17–19, 23–24, 24n10, 25, 29–30, 30n17, 30–33, 42, 48, 110, 173 free spectators of colour, 5, 17, 20–25, 29–33, 42, 50, 207 male spectators, 17, 24, 33, 70n32, 85, 119 military spectators, 17–18, 20, 20n6, 22, 33n20, 38, 47, 90 mitigated spectators, mitigated spectatorship, 12–15, 17–50, 100, 102, 108, 124, 134, 150, 162, 166, 174, 219, 240 segregated spectators, 13, 17, 18, 21–23, 24n11, 28, 28n13, 29–34, 166 Avis divers ou petites affiches américaines (ADPAA), 10, 52, 99n50 B Baïocco et Serpilla (Sodi), 156 Balls, 3, 18, 122 Baltimore refugees to, 236, 237 theatre in, 167

 INDEX 

Bannister, Jack, 70n31 Barbados, 67, 71, 77n42 Barbé-Marbois, François, 201 Barbier de Séville, Le (Beaumarchais), 65, 109, 111, 112, 159–160, 225 Barbier de Séville, Le (Framery and Paisiello), 109 Bataille d’Antioche, ou Gargamelle vaincu, La (Fonpré de Francansalle), 165 Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de, 109–110, 110n12, 111, 112n15, 160, 192, 225 See also individual works Belin de Villeneuve, Paul, 161n7 Bellanger, 173 Bellanton, Zabeau, 58–60, 60n13, 60n14, 82n44, 180 Belle Arsène, La (Favart and Monsigny), 65, 88, 161, 169–170 Belley, Jean-Baptiste, 223 Benefit performances, 1, 2, 11, 19, 20, 21, 29n15, 47, 65, 67, 78, 85, 86, 91, 113, 121, 122, 137, 159–161, 167, 170, 204n15, 211, 237 Blackface, blackface performance, 65, 98, 102, 102n3, 112–113, 135, 142, 148–149, 221, 238–239 Black Jacobins, The (C.L.R. James), 242 Blaise et Babet (Dezède), 83, 104, 145–149 Bocquet, François, 237 Boisforest, Nicolas, 176, 183–184 Bonnes gens, Les (Guillemain), 78 Bordeaux, 11, 37, 66, 75n38, 92 Bordier jeune, 58, 59, 77, 180 Bossu, Jean-Bernard, 183 Bottu, François Marie, 214–224 Bourgeois gentilhomme, Le (Molière), 78

265

Bourgeois, Mme, 19, 70, 70n30 Boyer, Coco, 129 Brest, 90, 92 Britain/British people, 67, 70n32, 75, 119, 230 British occupation of Saint-Domingue, 228, 230, 236 Bruley, Augustin Jean, 217–219, 221, 224 Brutus (Voltaire), 192, 193n5 Bulletin officiel de Saint-Domingue (BOSD), 224, 225, 228n25 Burns, Robert, 70n32 C Cabarets/taverns, 142–145, 145n33, 146 Cadi dupé, Le (Monsigny and Lemonnier), 156–158, 157n2 Caïus Gracchus (Chénier), 192 Calenda, 118, 130–132, 150 See also Dance/dancers/dancing Canada, 111 Lower Canada, 51n1 Cap-Français/Le Cap, 4, 53, 58, 59, 60, 144, 208–212, 230, 232, 235, 236 markets of, 140, 141n31 performances in, 1–2, 10, 11, 15–17, 18n1, 19, 19n3, 20, 40, 64–65, 68–69, 69n26, 69n27, 73, 76, 78, 88, 90–96, 98, 103, 109, 114, 123, 137, 146, 154–156, 158, 159, 161, 163, 165, 167–168, 172, 187, 191, 193, 193n5, 194, 204n15, 208, 214, 219, 221, 224–225, 234, 237, 242 playhouses of, 3, 20–21, 28–35, 38–49, 50 Cap-Haïtien, 3, 242

266 

INDEX

Carabasse, 110 Caravane du Caire, La (Grétry and Chédeville), 86–87 Caribbean, Antilles, 2, 4, 8, 8n3, 14, 35, 36, 37, 51n1, 55, 67, 75, 80–81, 95, 100, 101, 102n3, 127, 133, 138, 140, 151, 189, 228, 236 Carronville, 166 Catherine (Candeille), 235 Censorship, 72, 72n35, 190 César, Joseph, 158n4 Chandler, Samuel, 72, 72n33 Charles (white instrumentalist), 159–160 Charles IX (Chénier), 193n5 Charleston, 16, 67, 240 markets of, 145–146, 145n33 refugees to, 236 theatre in, 36, 114, 137, 239, 239n12 Charpentier (performer and theatre director), 99n50, 186 Charpentier, Mme, 136 Chénier, 234 Chevalier, Mme, 20 Chinon, 61n15, 77 Choruses, 86, 89, 148, 166–168, 200, 202, 239 Christianity/Christians, 79, 81, 101, 117 Christophe, Henri, 16, 233, 242 Clairville, Louis-François, 237 Clarchies, Julien, 158–161, 159n6, 162n7, 164 Claudine de Florian (Pigault­ Lebrun), 235 Clément, 21, 65, 98, 103–105, 109–113, 123–137, 146–149, 161, 237 See also individual works Clerville, Mme, 237

Clowns, 115, 115n17 Code Noir, 55, 126, 127, 185n16 Colour terms, 5, 28, 28n13, 73, 166–167, 168–169, 215, 216 Colporteur supposé, Le (Dancourt), 225 Columbia Herald and Patriotic Courier, 36 Comédie-ballet, 138 Comédie-Française, 10n5, 56, 98, 236 Comédie Italienne, 11, 55 Comédien de société, Le (Thiemet), 234 Comedy, 4, 14, 62, 100, 105, 109, 111–112, 113–114, 129, 132n25, 137, 138, 143, 145, 157, 162, 163, 165, 165n9, 170, 192, 203, 214, 217, 225–226 See also individual works Commedia dell’arte, 4, 114, 211–214 See also Arlequin/Harlequin/ Harlequinades; Arlequin works Comte de Waltron, Le (Ebert and Möller), 96–98 Coriolan (de la Harpe), 208 Costumes, 23, 109, 112, 119, 142, 157, 171, 175, 210–211, 229, 239 of Arlequin, 211, 212 of Pierrot, 211–214 Coups de l’amour et de la fortune, Les (Quinault), 193 Creole, as concept, 4 Creole language, 8, 14, 103, 107, 113, 124, 137, 142, 148, 149, 222–223, 232, 238 Creole parody, 4, 14, 98, 104, 123–134, 135–137, 146–149, 237 See also individual works Creole theatre, 14, 101–151, 237–238 See also individual works Crispin médecin (Hauteroche), 235

 INDEX 

Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru, The (D’Avenant), 75, 76 Cuba, 236–238 Curaçao, 159, 186 D Dahomey, 133 Dainville, 211 Daligrand, 62–64 Dance/dancers/dancing, 3, 14, 87, 118, 121–122, 123, 130–131, 134, 137n30, 154, 211, 224, 234, 234n2, 240 Danseurs du roi, 114 Daveaux, 161 Débats entre les accusateurs et les accusés dans l’affaire des colonies, 218–219, 224n23 Delaire, 171 Delarue, Mme, 213 Dellony, 166 Delozide, Mme, 78, 82 Dépit amoureux, Le (Molière), 235 Desassarts, 236–237 Deserter plays, 14, 52, 87–99 Deserters/desertion, 14, 52, 71, 87–99, 117 Déserteur, Le (ballet pantomime), 237 Déserteur, Le (Mercier), 14, 89–95 ending of, 14, 89n47, 89–91, 92 Déserteur, Le (Sedaine and Monsigny), 88–89, 89n46 Desmarets, 10n5 Dessalines, Jean-Jacques, 16, 133, 177, 211n19, 233, 235 D’Estaing, Charles-Henri, 25, 185n17 Destinval/Destinville, 200, 201, 237 Deux amis, Les (Beaumarchais), 112n15 Deux chasseurs et la laitière, Les (Anseaume and Duni), 156–157

267

Deux génies, Les, 116, 120 Deux petits Savoyards, Les, 194 Devin du village, Le (Rousseau), 65, 78, 104, 123, 132n26, 133, 135, 136, 156, 157 De Wailly, 125 Diable à quatre, Le (Sedaine and Philidor), 159 Dialects, 137, 138, 146, 149, 163 Diderot, Denis, 69 Directeur dans l’embarras, Le, 234 Disability/disabilities, 2, 85, 116, 157–158 Doligny, Mlle, 168 Dorival, 225 Dorival, Mme, 200–201 Drame, 40, 88–91, 96, 98 See also individual works Drame lyrique, 55–56 Drury Lane Theatre, 119 Dubourg, 20 Dubuisson, Henri, 1, 2, 77, 77n43, 78, 82, 99, 172 Dubuisson, Pierre Ulric, 19n3, 40–42, 48n33, 234 Duclot, Louis, 237 Ducommun, 158 Dufaÿ, Louis Pierre, 223 Dufresne, 37, 160–161 Dugazon, Mme, 69 Dumoulin, 224 Dupietry, 154 Durosier, 62–63, 98 Durosier, Mme, 236 E L’ École des pères ou les effets de la prévention (Dubuisson), 40 England/English people, 13, 16, 36–37, 70, 72, 75 See also Britain/British people

268 

INDEX

L’Enlèvement des Proserpine (Destinval de Braban), 211 L’Enrôlement supposé (Guillemain), 225 Enslaved characters in theatre, 8, 14, 73, 101–151, 157 Enslaved people brandings of, 2, 55–57, 61–64, 66, 66n21, 67, 77, 78, 170–172, 177–179, 181–183, 185–186 country marks of, 85, 181 disabilities/injuries of, 2, 85, 116, 183 dwellings of, 124, 126–127 gardens of: see Places à vivres/ provision grounds/ slave gardens for hire/rent, 61, 23, 154, 164, 173, 176, 177, 179–182, 184 invisibility of, 12, 15, 35, 153, 175 punishments of, 55, 55n5, 57, 64, 80, 88, 93, 138, 157 for sale, 13, 51–53, 58, 60–61, 99, 154–155, 159–160, 171, 172, 177 testimony of, 7–8, 117, 128–129, 242 Enslaved people, by name Abba, 129n24 Adonis, 124–125 Angélique, 85, 86, 99 Augustin (Guillaume), 186 Augustine, 129–130 Baptiste, 178–179 Boulanger, 183 Céleste, 143 Champagne, 169 Charles, 177 Delphine, 128–129 Dick, 171, 172, 187 Étienne, 177 Fatime, 220n21

Fortin, 129 François, 170 Isidore, 82, 83, 99 Jacques, 180 Janvier, 2, 78, 99 Jean, 180 Jean-Baptiste, 171–172, 187 Jean-Pierre, 181 Jimmy, 129n24 Jolicœur, 181–183 Joseph-Manuel, 170, 187 Joson, 143–144 Judith, 58–59, 99 Lafleur, 177–178 Louis, 184–185, 187 Michel, 2, 78, 99 Narcisse, 177 Paris, 66–67, 99 Phaëton, 62–64, 78, 99 Robert, 183 Rosalie and son, 58, 99 Scipion, 185 Sophie, 54, 56–57, 99 Sophie-Elizabeth, 54–57 Thisbé, 129–130 Tony, 183 Valentin, 185 Victoire, 77 Voltaire, 183 Zaïre, 81, 82, 82n44 Zéphyr, 61–62, 95, 99 Enslaved people, by occupation apprentices, 60, 169, 171, 177, 181 barbers, 6, 155 blacksmiths, 177–178 bread makers, 177–178 builders, 15, 153, 175–187 butlers, 6 canoe men, 6 carpenters, 15, 153, 176, 176n10, 177, 179–181, 183, 186, 186n18

 INDEX 

coachmen, coach drivers, 6, 15, 36, 37, 153, 174 confectioners, 60, 177–178 cooks, 6, 58, 172, 183 coopers, 183 domestics/domestic servants, 2, 6, 12–13, 36–37, 38n26, 46–48, 48n33, 49–50, 52–53, 59n12, 73, 90, 94, 97, 100, 108, 113, 138, 147, 150–151, 154, 156, 158, 164, 169, 175, 181, 185n17, 186, 196, 203, 207, 208, 238, 240–241 fishermen, 6 gardeners, 6, 137 hospitalières, 6 housekeepers, 6 hunters, 6 joiner, 176–178, 182–183 market traders, 140, 146 masons, 176–178, 184 midwives, 6 musician, 15, 43, 153–161, 187 nurses, 6 pastry-makers, 60 physical trainers, 185n17 plantation workers, 49, 53, 62, 80, 105, 116, 124–127, 130–131, 138, 139–140, 151, 175–177, 179, 183, 208, 241, 242 porters, 166, 174–175, 187 postillions, 57 roofers, 177 seamstresses, 6, 77, 171 set painters, 15, 153, 170, 186 supernumerary performers, 162–169, 187 tailors, 6, 169 valets, 6, 150 washerwomen, 6, 58, 61 watchmen, 6 wigmakers, 6, 15, 82n44, 153, 154, 171–173, 183, 186

269

Enslaved people, unnamed, 61, 77, 99, 172–173, 185n17, 187 L’Épreuve villageoise (Desforges and Gossec or Grétry), 209 Europe/European people, 8, 13, 16, 33, 65, 74, 76, 84, 86, 87, 100, 106n9, 216, 231, 232, 242 Évènements imprévus, Les (d’Hèle and Grétry), 43, 44 Exclusif, 201 F Fadeville, 173–174 Famille patriote, La (Collot d’Herbois), 193 Faurès, Mme, 148 Fausse magie, La (Grétry and Marmontel), 132n25, 170, 235 Fédération du 14 juillet, La, 193 Fédération villageoise, La (Pellet Desbarreux), 193 Félix (Monsigny and Sedaine), 19 Femmes vengées, Les (Sedaine and Philidor), 138 Ferronays family, 50 Fête du grenadier, La, 194 Feudalism abolition of, 197, 203, 204, 210 comparison with slavery, 16, 191, 203n14, 210 Figaro au Cap-Français (Clément), 104, 105, 109–113 See also Mariage par lettres de change, Le Fireworks, 1, 3, 77n43, 194, 208 Fleury, Mlle, 234, 234n3 Folle journée, La/Le Mariage de Figaro/Les Noces de Figaro (Beaumarchais), 110n11, 192 in France, 109–111 in Saint-Domingue, 110, 209

270 

INDEX

Fontaine, Jean-Baptiste Le Sueur, 57–64, 57n9, 60n13, 60n14, 77, 99, 162, 172–173, 177–178, 182, 209, 237 Fontaine (music director), 57n9, 61n9, 96–97, 159 Forges du Vulcain, Les, 208 Fort-Dauphin, 3, 35n22, 88, 95, 169, 179 Foucault, Jean-Baptiste, 184, 185–186 Fournier, 234 France: see Metropolitan France Freedom Principle, 66 Free people of colour, 5, 5n1, 6, 8, 12, 17, 20–25, 29, 32–36, 38–41, 47, 48, 48n33, 59, 83, 124, 125, 135, 159, 190, 193, 201, 202, 204, 207, 216, 223, 231, 238 Free women of colour, 23, 29, 33, 41, 42, 129 French Revolution Bastille, storming/fall of, 190, 192, 194, 195n7, 196, 199, 201, 239 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 190, 191, 214 end of, 233 Estates General, meeting of, 189–190, 196, 203, 207 Federation, 192, 193n5, 195, 202–203 municipal revolution, 201 National Assembly, 192, 193, 197, 202, 203 National Convention, 192, 210, 215, 217 reporting of, 15, 190–191, 193, 196, 197, 199 Tennis Court Oath, 197 unification of the three orders/ estates, 15, 196–197

Friou, 182 Funadel, Jean, 169 Furibond or Harlequin negro, 119 G Galbaud, General, 209, 216 Galvez, General, 103 Gardens, provision grounds: see Places à vivres/provision grounds/ slave gardens Gaston et Bayard (de Belloy), 9, 198–199 Gazette de Saint-Domingue (GSD), 10, 149 Gervais, 170 Girod-Chantrans, Justin, 49n34, 80, 103, 138–140, 143 Glissant, Édouard, 16, 242 Gluck, Christoph Willibald, 4 See also individual works Grétry, André, 4 See also individual works Guadeloupe, 8, 35–36, 51n1, 129–130, 144, 160 Basse-Terre, 35 Pointe-à-Pitre, 178 Guieu and Grandpré, 24 Guillaume Tell (Grétry), 209 Guillaume Tell (Lemierre), 192 Guyana, 7 H L’Habitant de la Guadeloupe (Mercier), 89, 90 Haiti, 1, 16, 103, 133, 177, 189, 233, 235, 241–242 founding of, independence of, 16, 189, 235, 241 Haitian Revolution, 15, 64, 190, 208–232, 238

 INDEX 

271

Battle of Vertières, 235 exodus during, 236–242 Pillage du Cap/Battle of Cap­ Français, 210, 212, 213 slave revolts of August 1791, 3, 15, 75n39, 193, 208, 228, 236 War of Independence, 233 Harlequin Mungo, 119 Harpiminis (Clément), 104, 104n5 Haymarket Theatre, 72 Henri I, v, 55, 56, 163 Henri IV (Durosoy and Martini), 55–56 Henriette (Raucourt), 98 L’Héroïne américaine (Arnould), 13, 67–77, 70n30, 75n38, 76n40, 86, 87, 100, 151, 227, 228, 234 Héros africain, Le, 16, 191, 224–232 Héros américain, Le (Ribié), 68, 69n27, 227 Hesse, Charles-François, 176 Hilliard d’Auberteuil, Michel-René, 38–42, 38n26, 46, 240 Histoire philosophique/Histoire des deux Indes (Raynal), 68, 68n24, 71, 73, 75n39

J Jacmel, 3, 24n11 Jail lists, 51, 52, 52n2, 66n21, 82, 99, 169, 170, 180–181, 183 Jaimond, Claude-Augustin, 67 Jamaica, 36, 51n1, 71–72, 117, 129n24, 186n18, 236 James, C.L.R., 16, 242 Janot ou les Battus paient l’amende (Dorvigny), 159, 170, 235 Jarnović, Ivan Mane, 160–161 Jeannot et Thérèse (Clément), 65, 98, 103–105, 104n6, 123–134, 136, 137, 145, 146, 149n34, 151, 200, 209, 237 Jeu de l’amour et du hasard, Le (Marivaux), 156 Jeune indienne, La (Chamfort), 67 Jolicœur (free black man), 81, 82, 82n44 Journal général de Saint-Domingue (JGSD), 10 Julien (black musician): see Clarchies, Julien Julien (white performer), 213 Julien et Suset (Clément), 104, 105, 123, 146–149, 151

I Île Bourbon (La Réunion), 8, 128–129, 143 Imitation, 70n29, 102, 109, 112–113, 119–120, 131, 135, 137, 142, 205, 239 Impartial, 218–219, 221, 223 L’Impresario in angustie (Dubuisson and Cimarosa), 234 Inkle and Yarico (Colman), 67, 70n31, 77n42 Isert, Paul Erdman, 28n13

K Kelly, Frances Maria, 70 Kongo, Kingdom of, 227, 228 Kreyòl, 103 See also Creole language L Labbé, Jean-Louis, 22, 23, 23n8 Labotière, 234, 234n2 Labruyère, Jean Jacques, 209 La Caze, Antoine, 77

272 

INDEX

Lambert, John, 239–240 Langlais, Mlle, 122 Lasserre Delafon, 24, 24n12 Laujon, Alfred de, 25, 27–28, 28n13, 166–169 Laveaux, General, 230 Leclerc, Charles (General), 143, 233 Lecoutre, Honorine, 235 Lecoutre, Mme, 234, 235 Légataire universel, Le (Regnard), 10n5 Le Gros, 199–201 Le Havre, 183 Lemercier de la Rivière, Paul Jean François, 161n7 Léogane, 3, 21n7, 22–24, 37, 46n31, 53n3, 89, 90, 123, 156, 162 Leroy, Mlle, 19, 92 Les Cayes, 3, 24n11, 123, 137, 146, 162, 208 Liberté conquise, La (Harny du Guerville), 195 Liberté des nègres, La (Gassier), 214 Liberté générale, La (Bottu), 16, 191, 214–224, 230, 232 Libres de fait, 41 Libres de savane, 41, 125, 126n23, 127 Ligon, Richard, 67, 68n24 Limonade, 141, 183 Lise, Mlle, 23n8, 102n2, 135–136, 162, 162n8, 209, 236, 237 Longuet, Louis Alexandre, 82 Louis XV, 55 Louis XVI, 55, 56, 189, 197 Louisiana, 7, 8, 51n1, 55n4, 127, 186n18 See also New Orleans Louisiana Purchase, 236 Lundi du Cap (Clément), 104, 137

M Macandal, 14, 87–88, 105, 114, 116–120, 123, 123n22, 131, 150, 157 plays featuring, 14, 116–123, 123n22 Macandals, fetishes, 133, 199, 120, 191 Magic/magical practices, 114, 115, 117, 120, 120n21, 122, 131, 133, 134, 170 See also Vodou; Wanga/ouanga Mahomet (Voltaire), 193 Manumission, 83, 125, 127–128, 161, 176 Marchand de Smyrne, Le (Chamfort), 66n20 Maréchaussée, 22, 87 Mariage fait par lettre de change, Le (Poisson), 111 Mariage par lettres de change, Le, 109–113 See also Figaro au Cap-Français (Clément) Mariages samnites, Les (Grétry and Durosoy), 167–168 Marronage: see Running away/marronnage Marsan, 66n21 Marsan, Mme, 13, 64–70, 64n19, 66n21, 69n27, 73, 88, 100, 102, 136n28, 159, 172, 237 Marseillaise, 218, 239 Martinique, 8, 35–36, 72, 101, 105, 108 Fort-Royal, 108 Saint-Pierre, 28, 28n13, 35, 35n23, 36, 40n27, 106, 181 Mauduit, Colonel, 193–194 Mensonge excusable, Le (Guillemain), 225–226 Mercier, Louis-Sébastien, 71, 88–95, 142, 163

 INDEX 

See also individual works Mercure de France, 118 Mesplès, François, 24–25, 24n12, 55, 57, 183–186, 184n15, 185n17, 208–209 Métellus, Jean, 16, 242 Metropolitan France, 10, 16, 17, 38, 50, 56n7, 60n14, 66, 80, 92, 101, 106, 109–110, 111, 130, 142, 160, 187, 190, 191, 193, 199, 201–202, 205, 207, 210, 214, 218, 219, 222–223, 231–232, 233, 236, 240–241 Middle Passage, 79, 106, 106n9 Mile, 200–201 Military, the, 6, 14, 17–18, 20, 22, 38, 46–47, 52, 144–145, 183, 198, 209, 235 army, soldiers, 20, 71, 73, 87, 90, 91, 93, 95, 96, 98, 176 navy, sailors, 50, 87, 209, 226–227, 229 participation in theatre performances, 15, 73n36, 200–201 themes in theatrical works, 52, 73, 75n39, 87–99, 100, 147, 198, 200–201 See also Audiences/spectators Military pantomime, 163, 165 Milleau and Fouché, 125 Mills, Jean-Baptiste, 223 Minette, Mlle, 23n8, 54, 69–70, 70n29, 82, 83, 135, 136, 136n28, 162, 167–170, 200–202, 202n12, 231–232, 236, 237 Minstrelsy, 102, 102n3 Mirebalais, 135 Mirza (Dubuisson), 40 Mitigated spectators/mitigated spectatorship: see Audiences/ spectators

273

Mongeon, citoyenne, 234n1 Moniteur colonial, 10, 208 Moniteur de la Louisiane (ML), 57, 137, 138, 237, 237n10, 238 Moniteur général de la partie française de Saint-Domingue (MGPFSD), 81, 209 Monsieur Cassandre (Coquelay de Chaussepierre), 62–63 Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (Molière), 138 Monsieur Toussaint (Glissant), 242 Montesquieu, baron de, 75, 80 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Médéric Louis Élie, 10n5, 12n8, 19, 19n4, 20n6, 21–25, 23n8, 24n11, 29–35, 30n17, 30n18, 39–42, 45–50, 46n31, 53n3, 54, 55n5, 72, 72n35, 77, 82, 87, 88, 103, 104, 107, 116–118, 131, 132, 134, 135, 140–144, 141n31, 156, 169, 175, 179, 180, 183–184 Mort de César, La (Voltaire), 193n5 Mort du bœuf gras, La (Taconet), 67 Mozard, Charles Théodore, 15, 191, 196–203 Mulâtres/mulâtresses, 22, 24, 27, 29–30, 31, 35, 35n22, 38–39, 41, 42, 42n29, 54, 56–59, 60n13, 61, 82n44, 116, 119–121, 127–129, 171, 173, 180, 187 Musicians, 13, 15, 43, 83, 85–87, 99, 153, 154–161, 156n1, 158n4, 169, 170, 187, 201, 204, 210, 226, 230, 237 See also Enslaved people Muslims/Muslim people/Islam, 65, 79–81, 84, 101, 158, 158n3 See also Ottoman Turks

274 

INDEX

N Nadir ou Thamas-Kouli-Kan (Dubuisson), 40 Nantes, 66, 92, 196, 199 Napoleon Bonaparte, 16, 189, 233, 236 Native Americans/American Indians, 5, 8, 67–68, 73, 75, 75n39, 76, 101, 115n18, 211, 234 Négociant de Bordeaux à Paris, Le (Dampierre de la Salle), 112n15 Nègres de place, Les, 135, 137–146, 237 Nègres/négresses, 29–31, 35, 35n22, 38–46, 42n29, 48, 49n34, 50, 52, 57, 58, 61, 63, 66n20, 74n37, 77, 80, 87, 99, 107–109, 117, 123, 125–127, 131, 135, 137–142, 144–147, 154–155, 157, 162–165, 170–174, 176–179, 182–184, 186, 187, 205, 222 See also Enslaved people Négresse, La/Les Créoles africaines (Barré and Radet), 74n37 New citizens, 15, 16, 83, 189–232, 241 New Orleans, 57, 237, 237n8, 237n9 refugees to, 16, 64, 236 theatre in, 16, 137, 236–238 Newspapers: see individual titles Nina (Grétry and Dalayrac), 69, 234, 235 Notarial documents, 13, 15, 22, 51, 58, 60, 77, 82, 85, 99, 143, 162n8, 176n10 O On fait ce qu’on peut et non pas ce qu’on veut, 122

Opera, 1, 4, 19, 49, 58, 65, 155, 156, 163, 166, 168, 202, 204n15, 234, 237, 237n9, 241, 242 Opéra-comique, 2, 4, 65, 69, 83, 86, 88, 136, 138, 146, 161, 167, 204, 208, 235 See also individual works Orientalism, 80 Oroonoko, 164 Orphée et Eurydice (Gluck), 69n27, 237 Ottoman Turks, 13, 86, 100 P Page, Pierre-François, 217–219 Palloy, Pierre-François, 195n7 Pantomime, 4, 13, 67, 70–72, 77, 87, 89n46, 95, 98, 105, 113–123, 123n22, 162–165, 194, 214, 225–227, 228, 230, 234, 237, 239 Papa Simo, 237 See also Jeannot et Thérèse (Clément) Paris, 11, 38, 46n31, 48, 55–56, 66–69, 71, 73, 74, 76n40, 92, 105n8, 110, 161n7, 163, 165, 167, 191, 193–195, 200, 203n13, 205, 207, 210, 214–217, 219, 221, 225, 234 Partie de chasse de Henri IV, La (Collé), 56, 163, 193, 198–199 Patrat, Joseph, 90–93 Peinier, Governor, 204 Pepe, 161 Performers, 2, 4–5, 11, 21, 50, 54, 77, 83, 100, 122, 160, 173, 175, 211, 221, 234, 236, 237, 239, 241 amateur, 10n5, 88, 96, 102, 109, 112, 113, 121, 135, 137, 142, 225, 234, 235, 236

 INDEX 

Creole, local, 15, 16, 72, 77, 161, 166–168, 221, 228, 232, 235 (see also Minette, Mlle; Lise, Mlle) enslaved: see Enslaved people visiting, 67, 72, 95, 113n16, 114, 121–122, 199, 235 Perroud, Henry, 230, 231 Petit, 159–161 Petit diable, le, 113n16 Petit-Goâve, 126 Petits blancs, 6, 17, 140, 193, 201 Peyret, Jean, 169–170 Philadelphia, 39, 72, 75n39, 104n6, 203, 236, 237 Philippe et Georgette (Dalayrac), 235 Phrygian cap/liberty cap, 229, 229n26 Pierre Bagnolet (Deville), 225 Pinel, 114–115, 121–122, 211 Pinel, Mme, 114, 115, 121 Places à vivres/provision grounds/ slave gardens, 124–126, 126n23, 139–140 Placide, Alexandre, 114, 239 Plaideurs, Les (Racine), 225 Plaisance, 62–63, 171–172 Plantations, 6, 49, 53, 62, 79, 80, 105, 108, 113, 116, 118, 124, 125–127, 130–131, 139–140, 151, 157, 175–177, 179, 183, 208, 233, 236n6, 241, 242 coffee, 124, 135, 159 Hecquet plantation, 125, 126–127, 138 indigo, 125, 126–127 sugar, 50, 80, 125 Planters/plantation owners, 4, 17, 22, 24n11, 62, 93, 108, 119, 126, 129n24, 139, 147, 171–172, 175–176, 178, 189, 205, 207

275

Polverel, Étienne, 16, 87, 209–210, 216, 218, 224n23 Polyeucte (Corneille), 171 Pommier, Le (Clément), 104, 161 Port-au-Prince, 20, 21, 34, 38, 44, 53, 54, 56, 57, 62n17, 68, 68n26, 82, 113, 122, 123, 124, 128, 135, 156, 156n1, 158n4, 160, 161, 162n8, 167, 169, 176, 179, 181, 189, 193, 197–198, 201, 204, 208, 228 performances in, 10, 15, 19, 20, 69–70, 70n30, 83, 85, 88, 89, 91–92, 103, 113–115, 120–121, 124, 127, 132n25, 137, 138, 141, 142, 146, 149, 149n34, 160–162, 166, 168–169, 191, 193, 194, 198–199, 200–201, 203–209, 211, 236–237 playhouse of, 3, 17, 20–21, 22, 24–28, 49n35, 50, 55, 170, 175, 183, 185n17, 194, 199 Poupet brothers, 179, 180 Prevost, Joseph, 171–172 Prince Gonzinet, role of, 162–166, 187 Prise de la Bastille, La, 194, 199 Prisonnier ou la ressemblance, Le (Pineau-Duval), 235 Proverb, 234 Pygmalion (Rousseau), 83 R Racial ancestry, 5, 16, 17, 22, 24, 27–28, 28n13, 30, 32–33, 41, 53, 54, 58n10, 60, 61, 67, 73, 82n44, 136, 149, 158n5, 160, 164, 167, 176, 202, 211, 216, 221, 223, 224, 229, 230, 231 Rameau, Jean-Philippe, 104

276 

INDEX

Ramir (Mailhol), 113 Renaud, Jean, 28, 178–179 Répétition interrompue, La (Mozard), 15, 83, 191, 196–203, 231 Répétition interrompue, La (Pannard, Favart and Fagan de Lugny), 198 Retour d’York, Le (Clément), 104 Revolutionary-era theatre, 15, 189–232 ‘Revolutionary’ theatre, 192–196 Revolutions: see American Revolution/ American Revolutionary War/ American War of Independence; French Revolution; Haitian Revolution Ribié, François-César, 67, 68, 68n25, 69n27, 162–166, 168, 187, 211, 227 Richard cœur de Lion (Ribié), 67, 162–163, 166 Richard cœur de Lion (Sedaine), 167 Rifaux, 137, 137n30 Rioux, 186 Robbers, The (Schiller), 71 Rochambeau, General, 235 Rolland, 204, 204n15, 207 Romanville, 43–46 Rouen, 37, 163, 166, 234n3, 234–235 Roy, J.B., 177–178, 182 Runaway advertisements/fugitive notices, 2, 13, 51, 51n1, 52–53, 54, 56–57, 61–64, 66, 73, 78, 85–86, 170–172, 177–179, 181, 182, 186 Running away/marronnage, 3, 8, 53, 55, 57, 62, 62n16, 67, 78, 82, 93, 94–95, 178, 180–181, 185 S Sabotier, Le (Landrin), 162–163, 165 Sainte-Rose, Charles, 129–130

Saint-Georges, chevalier de, 159, 160 Saint-Loup, 199–201 Saint-Marc, 3, 21, 21n27, 72n35, 82, 103, 123, 162, 181–182, 193, 194, 207–208 markets of, 141–142 performances in, 85, 88–90, 92, 135–138, 141, 142, 146, 167–168, 204n15 theatres in, 21–24 Saint-Martin, François, 53–57, 53n3, 169 Santo Domingo, 50, 61–62, 236 Sarr, Mohamed Mbougar, 106 Schubert, 85–86 Sémiramis (Voltaire), 104 Sensée, Mme, 200–201 Sentimental drama, 56, 138, 192, 227 See also individual works Sérénade, La (Regnard), 156 Servante maîtresse, La (Pergolesi), 224n23 Seven Years’ War, 8, 75, 117 Sexual abuse, 86 Sexual coercion, 83, 84, 94–95, 128, 151 Sexual relations, 14, 127, 129–130, 132, 146, 150, 151 Sieur B, 102 Simon (wigmaker), 170–173, 187 Simon, Albert, 156n1 Skin/skin colour, 5, 17, 23, 28, 28n13, 29–31, 33, 39, 41, 42, 54, 67, 114, 123, 127, 136, 148, 162, 167, 168 See also Colour terms ‘Slave owners’/’slave ownership’, 2, 5, 13, 41, 51–100, 102, 112, 126, 196, 237 Slave revolts, 3, 15, 33, 75n39, 117, 193, 196, 208, 228, 236

 INDEX 

Slavery distancing from, 13, 74, 80–81, 87, 100 as metaphor, 86, 86n45, 194, 202, 205 projection of, 75–76, 80, 84, 101, 157 theatrical portrayals of, 13, 65–66, 79, 86–87, 99–100, 101–151, 157, 191 Slave trade local, 23, 57–59, 60, 77, 82–83, 85, 99, 180 transatlantic, 66, 75n38, 79, 80, 101, 114, 119, 190, 191, 206, 208, 221, 228, 228n25, 229, 230, 232 Soldat magicien, Le (Philidor), 156 Sonthonax, Léger-Félicité, 16, 209–210, 214, 216–221, 224n23, 229, 230 ‘Sou lan mè’ (Rasin Kanga de Wawa), 106 South Carolina, 51n1, 186n18 Spain/Spanish people, 13, 50, 75–76, 103 Spectators: see Audiences/spectators Stage prompts, 169, 199 Stage properties, accessories, 102, 145, 211, 229 chains, shackles, 71–73, 81, 86–87, 96–97, 102, 151, 226–227 Stage sets, décor, 23, 88, 122, 124–127, 145, 168–170 Suin, 88 Supplément aux affiches américaines (SAA), 1, 2, 10, 11, 18–20, 35, 35n22, 40, 44n30, 51n1, 52, 56–58, 61–64, 66, 66n21, 68, 77n43, 78, 82n44, 90, 97, 105, 109, 110n13, 113n16, 120–121, 124–126, 147, 148, 160–163, 168, 170–172, 174, 176, 177, 179, 181–183, 204, 211, 213, 236n6

277

T Tabary, Louis, 238 Tableau parlant, Le (Grétry), 213–214 Tambour nocturne, Le (Néricault), 132n25 Tasset, 154–156, 158 Tesseire, Mme, 171 Tessier, 137 Texier, 129, 130 Theatre directors, 13, 23, 33, 53–64, 68, 77, 99, 99n50, 103, 113, 162, 172–173, 175, 177–178, 182, 209, 234, 237, 238 Theatre lighting, 45–46, 46n31 Theatre-makers, 13, 15, 16, 51–100, 118, 153–169, 175, 241 Theatre repertoire, 4, 11–12, 13, 14, 19, 51, 65, 72, 73, 78, 99, 101n1, 109, 156, 200, 209, 225, 235, 237, 239, 241 French works premiered in Saint-­ Domingu, 4, 14, 89, 92, 163 See also individual genres and works Theatre subscriptions/subscribers, 11, 18–20, 18n1, 19n4, 20n6, 29, 47, 58, 167, 225 Theatre tickets/ticketing, 17, 18, 20, 22, 31, 34, 35n22, 36, 43, 169, 172, 235, 238 Thibaudot, Mlle, 91 Thistlewood, Thomas, 129n24 Tonnelier, Le (Quétant, Audinot and Gossec), 136 Toussaint Louverture, François Dominique, 16, 215, 216, 220, 228, 230–233, 243 as hero, 231 as leader, 215, 230 Toussaint Louverture, ou les racines de la liberté (Métellus), 242 Tragedy, 9, 40, 76, 79, 81, 87, 104, 165, 170, 171, 192, 208 See also individual works Transatlantic slavery: see Slave trade

278 

INDEX

Trémondrie, 158–160 Triomphe du tiers état, Le (?Calian), 16, 191, 203–208, 203n13, 232 Trois Gascons, Les (Boindin and de La Motte), 156 Trois sultanes, Les (Favart), 65 Troupe des Grands Danseurs, 95

Villet, Charles Mathurin, 236, 236n6 Vodou, 14, 130–134, 150, 240 Voltaire, François Marie Arouet, 4, 79, 80 See also individual works Voyages de Rosine, Les (Piis and Barré), 83–85, 208

U Un-silencing, 7, 9, 15, 187, 242 Unsustainable tensions, 13–14, 15, 51–100, 241

W Wanga/ouanga, 133, 133n27 Wigs, wigmakers, 6, 15, 82n44, 153, 154, 169–173, 183, 186, 211 Wilberforce, William, 228n25 William Henry of England, 11, 103 Wimpffen, Alexandre-Stanislas baron de, 4

V Vall, Jean, 137 Valville, Mme, 198n9, 200–201 Vanhove, 199–201 Vaublanc, Vincent-Marie Viénot de, 224 Vaudevilles, 83, 123, 146, 200, 208, 237 Vauxhalls, 24n11, 137n30 Vendangeurs, Les (Piis and Barré), 43–44 Verneuil, 217, 219, 222 Veuves créoles, Les (anonymous), 14, 101, 105–108, 108n10, 150, 168, 173 Villeneuve, Jean Michel, 209 Villeneuve, Paul Belin de, 161n7

Y Yoyo, 34n21 Z Zaïre (Voltaire), 78–82, 86, 87, 172, 242 Zamor et Mirza (Olympe de Gouges), 101n1 Zélicourt, 143 Zémire et Azor (Grétry and Marmontel), 160, 172