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• 1 media/Haiti Embodied.png media/Haiti Embodied.png media/Haiti Embodied.png 2024-10-21T19:30:39-07:00 Haiti Embodied 60 Haiti Embodied focuses on the collaborative autonomy and agency that the Haitian people share with the land they inhabit. image_header 2024-12-18T07:14:52-08:00

  By my overthrow the trunk of the tree of Negro liberty at Saint-Domingue [Haiti] is laid low – but only the trunk; it will shoot out again from the roots for they are many and deep.”

  Toussaint L'Ouverture in C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, 1938

  
  The fertile land of Haiti was valued by the French only for its potential for profit. For enslaved Haitians, however, Haiti was both home and the site of their exploitation. Jacob Lawrence uses organic forms to capture this duality—Haiti as a place of colonial trauma and also of empowerment during the revolution. To combat this exploitation, a diverse community of Haitian revolutionaries planned, endured, and fought for their own freedom. Jacob Lawrence’s radical prints reflect on the collective fight against white supremacy, Western imperialism, and economic slavery that transcend historical periods into the modern era. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
                     
• 1 media/Dondon.jpg 2024-11-06T13:05:13-08:00 Dondon 29 plain 2024-12-18T07:46:10-08:00
  Left: Toussaint captured Dondon, a city in the center of Haiti, 1795 / Right: Dondon

  Dondon portrays Toussaint L'Ouverture at a crucial turning point in his journey. L'Ouverture weighs his previous loyalty to the Spanish with a new offer from the French Republicans, promising the abolition of slavery with his allegiance. The lush, mountainous town of Dondon seems like an unlikely place for the fury of battle, yet it serves as the site for an early strategic skirmish that expands the revolutionaries' reach further into Western Haiti. Lawrence portrays L'Ouverture’s victorious return from battle, highlighting the support of a vibrant community of Haitian women. Draped in rich tones, the women stand against the bold, fluid lines of the forest that surrounds them. In this scene, Lawrence shows how the women and the land of Haiti act together as both a sanctuary and a site of resistance. The women depicted here remind us of the diverse networks of relationships and thought that were required to organize the Haitian Revolution, and the ongoing networks Jacob Lawrence maintained throughout his artistic career.