The Spirits and the Law

by Ramsey, Kate

• ISBN13: 9780226703794
• ISBN10: 0226703797
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-04-30
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

After Haiti's recent earthquake, various American commentatorsfrom Pat Robertson to David Brooksjoined a long tradition of blaming Vodou for the country's woes.The Spirits and the Lawexamines that vexed history, asking why, from 1835 to 1987, Haiti banned many popular ritual practices. To find out, Kate Ramsey begins with the Haitian Revolution and its aftermath. Fearful of an independent black nation inspiring similar revolts, the United States, France, and the rest of Europe ostracized Haiti. Successive Haitian governments, seeking to refute the image of Haiti as primitive as well as contain popular organization and leadership, outlawed "spells" and, later, "superstitious practices." While not often strictly enforced, these laws were at times the basis for attacks on Vodou by the Haitian state, the Catholic Church, and occupying U.S. forces. Beyond such offensives, she argues that in prohibiting practices considered essential for maintaining relations with the spirits, anti-Vodou laws reinforced the political marginalization, social stigmatization, and economic exploitation of the Haitian majority. At the same time, she examines the ways communities across Haiti evaded, subverted, redirected, and shaped enforcement of the laws. Analyzing the long genealogy of anti-Vodou rhetoric, Ramsey thoroughly dissects claims that the religion has impeded Haiti's development.

Author Biography

Kate Ramsey teaches in the Department of History at the University of Miami.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Note on the Spelling and Use of Terms in Kreyòl	p. xix
Introduction	p. 1
Crimes of Ritual Assembly and Assemblage in Colonial and Revolutionary Saint-Domingue	p. 24
Popular Spirituality and National Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Haiti	p. 54
Penalizing Vodou and Promoting ôVoodooö in U.S.-Occupied Haiti, 1915-1934	p. 118
Cultural Nationalist Policy and the Pursuit of ôSuperstitionö in Post-Occupation Haiti	p. 177
Epilogue	p. 248
Notes	p. 257
Bibliography	p. 369
Index	p. 405
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