François Mackandal

Mackandal on a 20 gourde coin, 1968

François Mackandal (died 1758) was a Haïtian Maroon leader in Saint-Domingue. He was an African who is sometimes described as Haitian vodou priest, or houngan. Some sources describe him as a Muslim, leading some scholars to speculate that he was from Senegal, Mali, or Guinea,^[1] though this assertion is tenuous given the lack of biographical information from this era, and is highly contested. Haitian historian Thomas Madiou states that Mackandal "had instruction and possessed the Arabic language very well." ^[2] But given the predominance of Haitian Vodou on the island, most assume Mackandal to be associated with this faith instead. In the book "Open door to Liberty," Mackandal was mentioned, talking about his life as a voodoo priest and joining Maroons to kill whites in Saint Domingue, till when he was burned alive by one of his allies.^[3]

The association of Mackandal with "black magic" seems to be a result of his use of poison, derived from natural plants:

The slave Mackandal, a houngan knowledgeable of poisons, organized a widespread plot to poison the masters, their water supplies and animals. The movement spread great terror among the slave owners and killed hundreds before the secret of Mackandal was tortured from a slave. ^[4]

Biography

Mackandal created poisons from island herbs. He distributed the poison to slaves, who added it to the meals and refreshments they served the French plantation owners and planters.^[5] He became a charismatic guerilla leader who united the different Maroon bands and created a network of secret organizations connected with slaves still on plantations. He led Maroons to raid plantations at night, torch property, and kill the owners.

The French feared that Mackandal would drive all whites from the colony. Mackandal was betrayed by an ally who was tortured into submission. He was captured and burned alive in 1758 in the public square of Cap-Français, now Cap-Haïtien.^[6]

Beyond the sketch of historical events outlined above, a colorful and varied range of myths about the man's life exist. Various supernatural accounts of his execution, and of his escaping capture by the French authorities, are preserved in island folklore, and are widely depicted in paintings and popular art.

It is speculated that Mackandal lost his left arm in a farming accident when it was caught in a sugarcane press and crushed between the rollers.

Mackandal in popular culture

One of the most well-known^{[says who?]} portraits of Mackandal is that in Alejo Carpentier's magical realist novel, The Kingdom of this World.

A fictionalized version of Mackandal also appears in Nalo Hopkinson's novel, The Salt Roads

In Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods, a boy named Agasu is enslaved in Africa and brought to Haiti, where he eventually loses his arm and leads a rebellion against the European establishment. This account is very similar to that of Mackandal's.

C G S Millworth's novel, Makandal's Legacy ^[7] tells of Makandal's fictional son, Jericho, and the gift of immortality he received as a result of his father's pact with the voodoo spirits, the lwa.

The Harvard ethnobotanist and Anthropologist, Wade Davis, writes about Francois Macandal in his novel "The Serpent and the Rainbow." In the chapter "Tell my Horse" Davis explores the historical beginnings of vodoun culture and speculates Makandal as a chief propagator of the Vodoun religion.

See also

• Haitian Revolution

Footnotes

1. ^ Diouf, Sylviane (1998), Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas, New York: New York University Press, ISBN 081471904X 
2. ^ Madiou, Thomas (1848), Histoire d'Haïti, Impr. de J. Courtois, ISBN 1142832074 
3. ^ Rockwell, Anne (2009). Open the Door to Liberty!: A Biography of Toussaint L'Ouverture. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 
4. ^ Corbett, Bob, The Haitian Revolution of 1791-1803, An Historical Essay in Four Parts, http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/history/revolution/revolution1.htm 
5. ^ Bryan, Patrick E. (1984), The Haitian Revolution and its Effects, ISBN 0435983016 
6. ^ Perhaps the best account in English is Fick, Carolyn E. (1990), The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, pp. 60–74, ISBN 0870496670 . Fick provides the translated testimony of one the slaves who confessed to being involved in Makandal's plot. See pages 251-259. See also Weaver, Karol K. (2006), Medical Revolutionaries: The Enslaved Healers of Eighteenth-Century Saint-Domingue, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, pp. 77–97, ISBN 0252030850 .
7. ^ C G S Millworth's website

External links

• The Louverture Project: François Mackandal
• Haiti 1804-2007

Persondata
Name	Mackandal, Francois
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth
Place of birth
Date of death	1758
Place of death