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Contenus

• Structure pitt Saint-Pierre, 2010. [04]
• Structure pitt Saint-Pierre, 2010. [03]
• Structure pitt Saint-Pierre, 2010. [02]
• Structure pitt Saint-Pierre, 2010. [01]
• Structure baie des mulets, 2010. [02]
• Structure baie des mulets, 2010. [01]
• Pitt Colonette caloges Ducos, 2010. [02]
• Pitt Colonette structure Ducos, 2010. [01]
• Pitt Casérus structure Sainte-Marie, 2010. [02]
• Pitt Casérus structure Sainte-Marie, 2010. [01]
• Nicole Jean-Baptiste, propriétaire du pitt Malgré-Tout, Saint-Pierre, 2010.
• Maurice Delivry dit Gros-Maurice, ancien propriétaire de pitt, meneur de séance, Le Lamentin, 2010
• Christelle Crusol & Francky Quatrevent, éleveurs, Le Vauclin, 2010
• Nicole Souffran, éleveur et meneur de séance, pitt Pont-Vert, Morne Gommier, Le Marin, 2010.
• Frantz & Wenceslas Viersac, éleveurs, Choco, Saint-Joseph, 2010.
• Lucien Saxemard, petit éleveur, Fort-de-France, 2010.
• Éric Rosemain, éleveur et propriétaire du pitt Thomassin, Barrière-la-croix, Sainte-Anne, 2011.
• Fernand Rinto, propriétaire du pitt Pont-Vert, Le Lamentin, 2010.
• M. Pinel, éleveur et meneur de séances au pitt Flamboyant, Baie des Mulets, Le Vauclin, 2010.
• Félix Casérus, propriétaire du pitt Central Libre, Sainte-Marie, 2010.
• Baby Coco, éleveur et soigneur, Le Robert, 2010.
• Lise-Anne Voltine & ses filles (Magalie, Rose-Hélène, Léandre), propriétaire du pitt Flamboyant, Baie des Mulets, Le Vauclin, 2010.
• Didière & Eddy Hardy-Dessources, éleveurs et anciens propriétaires de pitt, Ajoupa-Bouillon, 2010.
• Mesmin Moderne dit Minmin, éleveur et meneur de séance, & Pierre Moncoq, soigneur, Saint-Pierre, 2010.
• Objets pitt - soins, 2011.
• Objet pitt - épron synthétique, 2011.
• Objet pitt - épron, 2011. [02]
• Objet pitt - bague, 2011.
• Objet pitt - soins, 2011. [02]
• Objets pitt - soins alimentation, 2011.
• Objet pitt - protection d'entrainement, 2011.
• Objet pitt - soins, 2011. [01]
• Objet pitt - épron et support, 2011.
• Objet pitt - éperon, 2011. [01]
• Pitt preparation coq, 2010.
• Eleveur - Mr Saxemard, 2010.
• Soins des blessures d'un coq, 2010.
• Serie pitt - Mme Agot eleveur, 2010.
• Combat coq, 2010.
• Pitt - les paris, 2010. [03]
• Pitt - les paris, 2010. [02]
• Pitt - les paris, 2010. [01]
• Pitt - ambiance la pesées, 2010.
• Pitt - combat, 2010.
• Pitt - ambiance, 2010.
• Femme au pitt, 2010. [02]
• Femme au pitt, 2010. [01]
• Combat de coq, 2010.
• HOINDEH family on the beach in Hewé, during a private ceremony of the MAMI TCHAMBA cult, the only Voodoo cult to question the memory of African slaves.
  The history of the Atlantic slave trade is not very active in Africa in a narrative form but it has found other forms of expression. Historical narrative and memory of the past are a part of the ritual space: the body is “owned” in the dance and music, in the incantations, in the process of divination and magic items. The Tchamba cult is one of the most significant expressions of this ritual heritage. It is represented among the populations of Ewe and Mina dialects in the coastal areas of Ghana, Togo and Benin. It is a voodoo cult dedicated to slaves, where the spirits of those who died in captivity and far from their motherland are worshiped. Ironically, those spirits have chosen their former masters’ descendants to take care of the Tchamba altar as well as their bodies, which they possess during ceremonies.
• GRAFFITI in Da Silva Museum of Arts and culture, Porto Novo, Benin.
  Although, according to Urban-Karim-Elisio da Silva’s story, he was a descendant of a slave trader, on his father’s side, he rather identifies himself as a descendant of a slave, through his mother’s family, Paraiso. In his case, being the descendant of a slave becomes a source of pride and generates a political capital, in order to increase the legitimacy of his museum. Porto Novo, Benin
• CLEMENT OLIVIER DE MONTAGUERE, descendant of Olivier de Montaguere in the family cemetery, Ouidah.
  Clement is a member of this family originally from Marseille, France. His ancestor, Olivier de Montaguere, was the nineteenth steward of the French Fort for Louis XVI. He arrived in Ouidah in 1776. He brought with him his wife and their three children, Joseph, Nicolas and Jean Baptiste and organized the slave trade with the French West Indies, «He disappeared during one of his trips to the Caribbean and he is never returned to Ouidah» said Clement Olivier of Montaguere. Their descendents still live today in the old compound of their ancestor. Unlike many other local families, they have no voodoo altars in their homes, and while claiming their European origins, they strictly observe the catholic religion. Today, in the family cemetery (where I got the pictures), the oldest tomb is to Nicolas Olivier de Montaguere’s. According to the tradition, Nicolas grew up with the king of Dahomey Agonglo (1789-1797). After his adolescence spent in Abomey with the king, he returned to Ouidah in his father’s family home when he continued to deal palm oil . Nicolas and Joseph’s descendants still live in the old compound of their ancestors. They have maintained a position of prestige in the society, and historically occupy important positions in the public administration. Ouidah, Benin.
• Honorè Feliciano DE SOUZA, CHACHA VIII in the memorial of Chacha I, Ouidah.
  Honore Feliciano de Souza is the current head of the Aguda community and the direct heir of Don Francisco Felix de Souza, Chacha I (1754-1848), the foremost middle-men in the slave trade between the Kingdom of Dahomey and the Europeans, early XIXth century. To honor their ancestor, the family has a memorial in Singbomey, with the tomb of Chacha I. This memorial existed for many years, but became accessible to the public only in the 1990s. Paradoxically, slavery heritage official projects also helped to promote the memory of the slave merchant Francisco Felix de Souza. According to Honore Feliciano‘s unlikely opinion, “the Chacha was not involved in such a slave trade as this. At the time when the Kingdom of Dahomey was killing people, he preferred to take them to Brazil to make them work. He was in fact saving people and that is the reason why today there is some admiration for him,” he says. “Nowadays, no one would want to be a Chacha. Being Chacha is facing many hardships. I haven’t chosen to be one. On October 1995, everyone gathered here and I was appointed Chacha VIII, I cried that day. It’s a life-long mandate.” Ouidah, Benin.
• His majesty MITO DAHO KPASSÈNON, king of Ouidah and supreme head of the voodoo cult, sitting in the Audience hall, Royal Palace.
  Mito Daho Kpassenon is a member of one of the oldest families of Benin, heir and descendant of King Kpassé, the first one to make business with the Europeans, particularly through the slave trade, when the Portuguese arrived in the Benin Bay around 1580. “According to the oral tradition, KPaté, one of the king’s servants, was fishing crabs on the shore when he saw white people on the beach. He took them to King KPASSE, and from that day they started trading,” tells King Kpassenon. In the early 1990s, relying on the cultural and religious exchanges established during the period of the Atlantic slave trade, and in parallel with the debates aimed at developing the Slave Route Project, he joined the project “Ouidah 92”, the world festival of voodoo culture. Like the president Songlo, by promoting the Vodun religion and the exchanges between Africa and the Americas, he presented slavery and the Atlantic slave trade not as a rupture between generations, families, and traditions but as events that produced continuity across the Atlantic. Ouidah, Benin.
• The apex of the Slaves’ Route is the «GATE OF NO RETURN», the only monument in Ouidah sponsored by the Slave Route Project. Situated at the end of the road, on the beach, the imposing gate was unveiled in November 1995, and still attracts numerous tourists and leading foreign visitors, such as the Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who visited the monument during his travel to the country in 2006.
  The monument, designed and ornamented by Beninese artist Fortune Bandeira, evokes the monumental Soviet aesthetics that dominated the country’s public monuments until the beginning of the 1990s. Placed on a large cement platform, higher than the level of the ground, the Gate’s arcade marks the transition between the beach and the Atlantic Ocean, which is visible through it. On each side of the gate, giant copper sculptures created by Gnonnou Dominique Kouass, represent a group of captives breaking their chains. Close to the monument, tourists can stop at a kiosk to buy “African” sculptures, wooden masks, jewellery, and calabashes. In addition to these “authentic” objects, the visitors can also buy actual Vodun fetishes, taken from neighbouring temples. Ouidah, Benin.
• Ahi, doing some repairs on the “Slaves’ Route”.
  The Slaves’ Route is a two-miles road starting in downtown Ouidah, close to a former slave market, and ending at the beach, where the captives were allegedly put on pirogues that brought them to the slave ships. In fact, because the coastal lagoon separated the town from the shore, it is more likely that the captives covered part of the way to the outer shore by canoe. Despite the relative success of the Slaves’ Route, only the local population living in the neighbourhoods is sufficiently audacious to walk along the road. The two-miles road is long and because the traffic is intense and there is no allotted space for pedestrians, it is rather difficult to safely observe the monuments. Indeed, individual tourists experience the Slaves’ Route by zemidjan (local motorcycle taxis). If with groups, they see the route by car or bus, and stop only at the end of the road, at the beach. Ouidah, Benin
• A detention cell for reluctant slaves, according to Philip Atta-Tawson’s story, Fort William, Anomabu.
  Philip Atta-Tawson is today the keeper of the place where he lives with his family. In most castles of Ghana, there is a family living and working as a custodian on behalf of the government. An estimated half million of captives were sent from Anomabu to the Americas, among which 30 000 to the French West Indies. In the past, the fort was then used as a jail, then a post office, until it became a national registered site. Anomabu, Ghana
• A bunch of flowers offered by the passengers of the Ship Prince Albert II of the Silversea Cruises Company in a room of the Elmina Castle.
  Several travel agencies based in West Africa and in the United States offer numerous slavery heritage tours. Generally, the length of these trips can vary between eight and twenty days. «Spector Travel, a travel agency based in Boston and specializing in African roots tours, offers packages for Benin, Ghana, Senegal, and The Gambia. Elmina, Ghana
• Mr. Ogougnidé BABALOLA, great grand-son of LAGOUNAN, Ketou, Benin Mr. Ogougnidé is a peasant and the guardian of the Akaba Idena (the magic door) of the former fortified entrance to the old Ketou Kingdom.
  According to him, his great great grandfather Lagounan was “abducted and deported by the Portuguese to Bahia”. “Only his name and the memory of these raids remain as a souvenir”. A testimony from the royal records states that Lagounan was deported during the destruction of the city of Ketou in 1883, by the troops of Glele, King of Dahomey (1858-1889). This story is consistent with the politics of slavery the Kingdom of Dahomey led, as early as the XVIIth century, when it organized and built its wealth on the trade of war prisoners, who were sold to European traffickers. Ketou, Benin
• Headless, embalmed parrot. Alexandre-Franconie Departmental Museum, Cayenne, French Guiana.
  According to Maroon tradition, forest animals are often associated with divinity. They are considered vehicles for spirits, such as Komanti, Diadja & Opete. During colonization, these animals were studied, analyzed, ranked, and finally, placed at the service of colonial propaganda to show the richness and biodiversity of French Guyana. Some of these animals are now preserved at the former colonial museum Alexandre-Franconia, Cayenne, French Guiana.
• Na dong mi dong lobihe Groupe of Captain women showing their decorated textiles at the funeral ceremonies in the Asindopo village.
  In the middle Captain Alele Amoida, «Booko de» ( the day before the burial), Saamaka territory, Surinam. They wear skirts held by a kind of scarf (folded into a triangle shape) with embroidered texts in tribute to the deceased. Women’s textile arts, produced as exchange gifts for a husband or lover or for special events such as a burial, have transformed greatly as access to trade cotton from the coast has increased. Trends in fashion change quickly, utilizing elaborate embroidery, appliqué, and patchwork, with women freely borrowing from others while making it their own.
• A Saramaka musician (member of Soeti Amini group) plays Kawina music at the opening of the Arts and Research Center, Carma, Mana, French Guiana.
  The folklorisation trend of the culture is an inevitable process for Maroon city dwellers. Music or dance often represent rare job opportunities for young Bushinengue. While still maintaining its playful aspect, these performances are void of ritual significance.
• The Belfon Aboikonie coffin goes from the burial room to the secret cemetery in the forest. Asindopo, Saramaka territory, Surinam.
• Albert Aboikonie’s speech, (Belfon Aboikonie’s successor), in front of dignitaries and government officials, Booko-de, or the burial vigil, Asindopo, Surinam.
• A slave, in bronze, anonymous, from the 19th. Century. Alexandre-Franconie Departemental Museum, Cayenne, French Guiana.
• Aboikonie family members dance and celebrate their dead chief on a village canoe.
  During these performances, the canoe makes several turns rotating around itself. As a part of the ritual, this is a way to represent the hesitations of the deceased’s soul, wandering between the worlds of the living and the dead. The Booko-de ceremony (two days before the burial ). Asindopo, Saramaka territory, Surinam.
• Tebini Aboikonie, one of the men who dig the Granman grave., Asindopo, Saramaka territory, Surinam.
  During the days preceding the funeral, the closest family members go several times to the burial plot. This pilgrimage is punctuated by the metallic trumpet sound played by a Basia from the village to the tomb.
• [Obia]
• Imrou, Asindopo, Saramaka territory, Surinam.
  Many come to Asindopo for the Granman Aboikonie ceremonies. Imrou is a Saramaka teenager who comes from Paramaribo, the capital of Surinam. For him and other youth, funerals are the opportunity to reconnect with their heritage. A funeral is also a time to socialize, to have fun and to make new connections.
• Basse Terre
  The members of the group reach the sea to bathe and liberate themselves from the mas. In the group’s symbolism, the bathing in the sea or river concludes the “charge” on «Mardi Gras», the last day of the Carnival in the catholic calendar. It is an emblematic moment that allows the members firstly to purge themselves from the “mas” to reclaim their individual identity, and secondly, to be reconciled with the “treacherous” sea and to reaffirm their relationship to the island’s history: the place of the bathing is just beneath the Fort Delgrès, a hotbed of the resistance to slavery.
• [Mas]
• Fort Delgrès, Basse Terre
  The passing of the «Charge» at Fort Delgrès, Voukoum Group. The passing of the “charge” at the Fort Delgrès marks the ending of the «Mardi Gras» day, loading it with a very strong symbolic value: the Fort Delgrès is a French fort that dominates the city of Basse-Terre in Guadeloupe. It was a hotbed of Guadeloupe’s people fight against slavery, led by the resistant officer Louis Delgrès. After Napoleon re-established slavery in 1802 (after a first abolition in 1794 by Victor Hugues), Delgrès and Ignace’s rebellious colonial army occupied the fort. They abandonned it on May 22nd 1802 and took refuge at the foot of the Soufrière volcano, in Matouba. On may 28th 1802, as he saw himself lost, Delgrès and his 300 companions committed suicide with explosives, following the revolutionary motto: “to live free or to die”.
• Petit-Paris district, Basse Terre.
  Preparation of the “Mas-a-kongo déportaisyon”, Voukoum group The phenomenon of the reinterpretation of the past and the African origin is clearly present in the case of the «Mas-a -Kongo». This mask consists of coating the body and the face with a mixture of sugarcane syrup and soot collected in the chimneys of the sugar factories. Once again here, the elements have lost a part of their original meaning (referring to the cult of the bear or the savage man in the Indo-European carnival), to assume a new symbolism derived from the local context. Indeed, the Congo Mask is presented as symbolizing the African origin of the Caribbean people, because of its exacerbated black color. On the other hand, this image reflects of very occidental and colonial vision of the African savage. Nevertheless, this “Congo mask”, with its ambiguous origins, is considered the strongest symbol of the Antillean people’s Negro origins.
• Cité Le Raizet, Les Abymes, 2012.
  Enrick features a “Mas-a-fwet”, “Mas Ka Klé” group In the context of the “Mas”, the only one missing is the white colonizer, who still appears through strong symbolic objects, like the whip, and through the figure – after all omnipresent – of the white oppressor one wants to fight and in opposition of whom one is defined. For instance, the use of whips reminds of the violence of the enslavement practiced during slavery. The masks then re-appropriate the main instrument of the slavery oppression, the symbol of a traumatic submission, in a mechanism of strategic reversal. Yet, the whip is never used to physically injure. The physical violence of the whip at the hands of the master becomes here a symbolic and moral violence in the hands of the Masks, which aims to shake the memories like an electroshock.
• Skull of an anonymous person, slaves cemetery of Sainte-Marguerite Bay In 1995, two cyclones furrowed the beach of the bay of Sainte-Marguerite, in the municipality of the Moule, in rapid succession.
  This is a very well liked picnic place for the inhabitants. In their fury, the sea and the wind uncovered many human bones, which no one expected. The following year, a team of archeologists exhumed dozens of new graves, dating from the 18th and 19th centuries. “The morphology of the skulls presented characteristics of black African populations. Some individuals had their teeth cut to a sharp point, a mutilation some people of this continent were practicing”, explains Patrice Courtaud (UMR 5199 CNRS- Anthropology unit), who led the excavations. A whole slave cemetery had been revealed from nothingness. This very rare skull, belonging to grave S225, had dental mutilations, a very rare proof of the African origin of this person and their position as a slave. More and more, important archeological excavations take place on Guadeloupe’s beaches, following fortuitous findings by the tourists or inhabitants. Indeed, slaves cemeteries were often situated near the sea or even on the beaches or unworkable and uninteresting plots for the planters. Archeological depot, Regional Archeology Unit, le Moule.
• [Mas]
• Remy features a “Mas-a-Kon”, “Voukoum” group The role of the rebel, the resistant, the “Slave maroon” is staged through a particular technical and musical choice.
  The masks are chosen very simply and made from natural materials. The aim of these technical choices is to result in a direct incarnation of history in the individual’s body, who can claim their multiple origins and reaffirm their putting down of roots in the Guadelupian ground. The body is then becoming a direct carrier for the Caribbean identity and history, which scalds and wounds are expressed in the flesh, through the corporeal moves, through the sounds of the chains and whips. Voukoum headquarters, Basse Terre.
• The “whippers” during the «charge», Voukoum Group The “whippers” are the «Mas» sentinels, those who open the “charge” with the clacking sound of the their long whip, which handiness is only equaled by the deafening sound it produces.
  The whip liberates energy and symbolizes the physical punishments inflicted to the slaves by their masters. Ahead of the group, the whippers move the crowd aside, by swirling their instrument in a physically controlled expertise they learn at young age. In fact, it is the favorite game of the children who try the whip, it becomes an initiatory ritual when they’re teenagers, and only pass it when the whip “clacks” like the ones used by the adults. Petit Paris district, Basse Terre
• The call to “charge”, members of the “Mas-ka-klé” group These young members of the “Mas Ka Klé” group are called to the “charge” by the most senior ones.
  This moment, that borrows a lot from the imaginary of the maroon slaves communities, is also an occasion to reaffirm the group’s identity values and to emotionally load the youth for the “charge”. The “charge” is an unwavering, almost military march, at the side of the Carnival’s official parade. Cité Le Raizet, Les Abymes.
• Graffiti with the Black Christ and the African American history, Youth Ministry Room, St. Peter Vlaver Ricardo, Members of the Buffalo Soldiers, Claiborne Avenue, Tremé Church, Tremé, New Orleans.
• Mass, «The Sisters of the Holy family» convent, New Orleans.
  The Sisters of the Holy Family, founded in New Orleans in 1842, were the first African American Catholics to serve as missionaries. Twenty years before the Civil War of the United States, and before it was legal for a Black Congregation to exist, the Sisters of the Holy Family were founded in New Orleans, Louisiana by Henriette Delille, a free woman of color. Their religious identity did not prevent the discriminations associated with their racial identity. Even permission to wear the habit that would mark their religious identity was delayed for over thirty years after their founding. The Sisters of the Holy Family remain active today, with over 200 members by operating free schools for children, nursing homes, and retirement homes in New Orleans, in US,and the Central American country of Belize. Our community had to fight to arrive here...It has always been a challenge. Even today we still go through an experience, a time where we have to consider racism, we have to work very hard to get some opportunities. In many cases it’s because of racism. The fight continues. The reason for what we fight is for the people we serve, you can see that there are some injustices and we are here to promote justice. Sister Greta Jupiter Vice-Congregational Leader.
• «Portrait of Lady» presumed to be a free woman of color, dated 1857, Le Musée de free people of color, New Orleans.
• Bettye Jenkins, Hawthorne House, Natchez Mississippi.
  My parents bought this house in 1930. It was built in 1840. They got it in really bad condition and my family restored it. This was not really a plantation; it was a Spanish land ground of sixty-six acres. The plantation was some miles away from here. This house was a urban home. My husband’s family were cotton planters, they were some of the early settlers here. My family came from Virginia in the early 1800’s and moved to Natchez in 1938. My mother gave me this house and gave me this tradition of pilgrimage. I’m a member of the Pilgrimage Garden Club and my mother was one of its founding figures. Bettye Jenkins
• “The British” scene, Natchez Historic Tableau, Mississippi.
  Extraits from the Tableau schedule: «Be transported to the shores of Ole Man river with the arrival of the Showboat. Celebrate spring while children dance around a Maypole. Witness romance as couples weave intricate waltzes at 1850s soiree. And bid the era adieu when the queen of the ball says farewall to her Confederate sweetheart» / «The May Festival and Maypole Dance were a lovely early custom enjoyed by children of English descent in long ago Natchez was the celebration of spring was marked each year with May Day, a social event especially popular in England. The day of celebration included children dancing around a birghtly bedecked May Pole».
• Production Cast Volunteers of the Natchez Tableau, before the performance, Natchez City Auditorium Mississippi.
  The Natchez Pilgrimage Tour was founded by a group of white women, in 1930, to compensate for the loss of resources that came with the collapse of the cotton industry and the 1929 financial crisis. Twice a year, the tour displays what is known as the «Historic Natchez Tableau», a replay of the history of Natchez, capital of the «Cotton Kingdom» until 1863. The scenes depict a presumed history of Natchez from its foundation until the present day, focusing on the splendour of landed gentry, aristocracy and the wealth of the city, without any mention of slavery on which such wealth depended. According to Cheryl Rinehart, artistic director of the «Tableau», the objective is primarily didactic: «teach young people the glorious history of the city.»
• «I have a dream», Graffiti in N Prieur Street, Faubourg Tremé, New Orleans, Louisiana According to New Orleans’s official tourist agency.
  «The Faubourg Tremé or as it is more frequently referred to, Tremé, is not only America’s oldest black neighborhood but was the site of significant economic, cultural, political, social and legal events that have literally shaped the course of events in Black America for the past two centuries. Yet, few outside of New Orleans except for scholars and historians know its enourmous importance to Americans of African descent ». The neighborhood has at least three dominant positive identities : as a place of unique African American cultural performance traditions ; as a place of significant African American political achievement and as a place of historic architecture. Tremé is a neighborhood of colorful parades and funerals. It a place of secondlines parades, DJs, jazz music and jazz funerals, corner bars and black Mardi Gras. Tremé is also noted for the radical political activism carried out by its Creole of Color residents in the nineteenth century. Though they may be enjoyable for both partecipants and spectators, these traditions do not exist simply to entertain. They also serve as the basis for community building and political resistence. As Stephan Nathan Haymes writes, «Within the black urban communities place making and therefore the production of public spaces is linked with day-to-day survival. But it is within the realm of day-to-day life, of daily survival, that black urban communities create public spaces that allow them to develop self-definition or social identities that are linked to a politics of resistance. Over the past forty years, Tremé’s longterm black community has chosen to fight for its culture. Michael E. Crutcher JR.
• Bobby Williams wearing blackface in the Hall of the Hotel Hilton, Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club New Orleans.
• David Ducros, rap singer, during the filming of his first clip «One Mic». Tremé
  I Was born November 15,1993. My stage name is Big David; I’ am American rapper from New Orleans, Louisiana. Throughout my early childhood, I was a witness to the many lives that were lost and victimized by the streets. My life changed July 20.2002 after witnessing the death of my mother. I began rapping as a way to cope with the passing of my mother. By the time I was 16 I had began to work on my first mixtape as well as recording and mixing my own music. On September 24, 2010 officers acting in the undercover capacity attempted to detain me in an unlawful fashion after I struck a plain-clothes officer. I was brutally kicked and beat by as many as 3 or 4 officers. After being struck in the head with a gun, which lacerated the top of my head I was handcuffed and stomped in the head while in handcuffs. Doctors concluded that I suffered a concussion as a result of the brutal assault. After many court dates and trials I was adjudicated for resisting arrest and assaulting an officer despite the fact that I was the one who was assaulted due to the cops suspicion of me distributing narcotics. Narcotics were never found. I received 6 months of probation. I want to disseminate the injustices of my community. I have faced many impediments and have come to discern that in this day and age an oppression of our people is very much prevalent. We have been oppressed for so long that bigotry has become deeply ingrained into our minds and we remain ignorant to knowledge. Throughout my life I have remained strong allowing me to endure without despondence. Many of us cannot acknowledge the obstructions that are the foundation of an oppression but as I have said in my song Nas 1 Mic Remix, «I swear to God dope money got brothaz riding round in a member see we at war and the hood is hiroshima see they got bombs that they dropping on un but these brothaz dont’ see it yea they plotting on us cant’ put us in chains so they put us in cuffs in these underdeveloped neighborhoods brotaz call a jungle the government dont’ care about us we living a struggle». David Ducros
• Mardi Gras Indians on Claiborne Avenue, Tremé.
• Blondine, prête à danser dans le temple de Badjo, Festivités annuelles de Badjo, Ville de Gonaïves, 2013.
  Les couches paysannes, désormais en grand partie urbanisées, ont intégré la mémoire de l’esclavage dans d’autres formes de narrations que celles du récit familial. Elle portent une mémoire collective ancestrale qui a choisi la religion Vaudou comme lieu principale d’expression. Le couvent de Badjo fait partie de ce qu’on appelle le Triangle d’Or, qui comprend les trois lieux sacrés les plus importants du pays: le lakou de Badjo, le lakou de Souvenance et lakou de Soukri. A chaque lakou, littéralement, «couvent», correspondant trois rites différents, respectivement Nago, Dahomey et Congo. Les trois lakou conservent des objets sacrés de Jean Jacques Dessalines qui, dans le système complexe du panthéon Vaudou haïtien, correspond à première divinité Ogou, dieu de la guerre.
• La prière du mardi sur les ruines de l’habitation «Duplaa», Lieu de culte Vaudou, Ville du Cap-Haïtien, 2012.
  Dans le bassin d’eau, se manifeste un esprit nommé Lovana, qui prend la forme d’un poisson. Ses fidèles viennent prier autour du bassin, le mardi et le vendredi. Une grande fête s’y déroule le 5 septembre, la veille du pèlerinage à Bord-de-Mer-de-Limonade en l’honneur de la divinité Vaudou Sainte Philomène, ou Lasyrenn (La Sirène). Aujourd’hui en Haïti, la plupart des lieux sacrés Vaudou sont situés à la campagne sur les ruines des anciennes habitations coloniales, qui font ainsi l’objet d’une réappropriation identitaire de la part de la communauté.
• Portrait de femme, Collection privée de la famille Chéné, Ville du Cap-Haïtien, 2012.
  D’après le récit de Mme Chéné, sa famille aisée et d’origine mulâtre «libre de couleur» arriva en Haïti en 1804 de la Louisiane, à la suite de la cession de la Louisiane aux Etats-Unis de la part de la France, qui a eu lieu juste après l’indépendance d’Haïti. Avec la Révolution haïtienne, les relations entre la Louisiane et Haïti s’intensifièrent. Entre les années 1790 et 1809, la Louisiane, deviendra la destination de milliers de réfugiés en provenance d’Haiti. En particulier en 1806, la Louisiane devenue l’un des États des États-Unis en 1803, voit arriver plus de 10 000 créoles, des riches planteurs de sucre d’Haïti, selon Carl A. Brasseaux, historien et directeur du centre d’études Louisianaises de Lafayette.
• Lorraine Manuel Steed, avec le portrait de son ancêtre Marthe Adélaïde Modeste, femme africaine d’Ethiopie, arrivée comme esclave en Haïti en 1781, sur l’habitation de François Testas propriétaire au XVIIIe siècle d’une sucrerie dans le sud de Saint-Domingue. Photographie prise dans la maison familiale de Mme Steed à Pétionville, 2013.
  «J’entends que tous mes nègres et négresses avec moi ici, et auxquels j’ai donné et donne la liberté soyent nourri et maintenu à mes dépens jusqu’à ce qu’ils ayent déclaré s’ils veulent ou ne veulent pas retourner à Jérémie...» 13 Juillet 1795, sept heures et demi du matin, Philadelphie. Dernières volontés de François Testas propriétaire au XVIIIe siècle d’une sucrerie dans le sud de Saint-Domingue. «Parmi les «nègres» et «négresses» à qui François Testas donne la liberté et lègue des biens se trouve mon ancêtre Marthe Adélaïde Modeste, esclave africaine». C’est ainsi qui commence le récit biographique de Lorraine Manuel Steed, qui, après cinq ans de recherche entre les Etats-Unis, la France et Haïti, et malgré une certaine opposition des parents, a pu reconstruire la vie de son ancêtre «Modeste l’Africaine».
• Altesse, Ferronnier, alias «Toussaint Louverture», membre du «Mouvement pour la Réussite de l’image des Héros de l’Indépendance». Photographie prise à la Croix-des-Bouquets, 2013.
• Un pèlerin touche le Kita Nago, le tronc d’arbre, devenu symbole de l’unité nationale, après un itinéraire de deux semaines à travers le pays. Site de la Statue du «Marron inconnu» au Champ de Mars, Ville de Port-au-Prince, 2013.
  L’esclave fugitif – ou marron – occupe une place centrale dans l’imaginaire haïtien. Il est l’ancêtre des pères de la nation. Le marron est l’assurance d’une généalogie ininterrompue en dépit des multiples soubresauts qu’a connu la jeune nation depuis sa création en 1804. Il est survie, résistance et refus d’abdiquer. Il est Haïti et vice versa, incarnation de la Révolution haïtienne.
• Miniatures, Toussaint Louverture avec les membres de sa famille Isaac Louverture, Placide Louverture et Louise Chancy Louverture, Collection Mupanah, Ville de Port-au-Prince, 2013.
  Le mythe de Dessalines fait ombre à celui de Toussaint Louverture : Toussaint Louverture n’a pas laissé de descendance et la plupart des anciennes familles haïtiennes revendiquent une ascendance directe du général Dessalines. En effet, dans l’imaginaire collectif haïtien, Dessalines est considéré le vrai libérateur de l’île et non Toussaint Louverture, comme voudrait la tradition républicaine européenne.
• Jessie Gilbert avec son fils Louis, Descendant de Célimène, une des filles de Dessalines. Photographie prise à Pétionville, 2012.
  En Haïti, la mémoire de la Révolution ne peut pas ignorer l’organisation spécifique de sa société, de type vertical, où, à chaque groupe sociale correspond une histoire particulière. D’un côté, celle de l’élite au pouvoir, constituée, en plus grand nombre, par les descendants des «affranchis» ou des «libres de couleur», et de l’autre côté, la mémoire populaire des paysans, à la campagne ou dans les périphéries urbaines, descendants des esclaves africains et créoles.
• Classe en visite à la citadelle Laferrière, Ville de Milot, 2012.
  En Haïti, la mémoire de l’esclavage ne coïncide pas vraiment avec la période coloniale mais plutôt avec la période des luttes de résistance, avec la Révolution et l’Indépendance. Ainsi, la plupart du patrimoine date de cette période. La forteresse Laferrière est construite après l’indépendance en 1804 par Henri Christophe, pour défendre la partie nord de l’île d’Haïti contre un éventuel retour des Français. C’est la plus grande forteresse des Caraïbes : à 900 mètres d’altitude, elle se trouve à 15 km au sud de Cap Haïtien. La citadelle possède un parc d’artillerie de plus de cent soixante canons qui n’ont été jamais déplacés. Ces pièces de bronze viennent de France, de Grande-Bretagne, d’Italie et d’Espagne et sont de véritables chefs-d’oeuvre de l’art militaire et de la technologie du XVIIIe siècle. Nombreuses sont les visites au complexe de la part de classes scolaires haïtiennes. À l’inverse, le tourisme international demeure presque inexistant, à exception des certains passagers de la compagnie de croisière Royal Caribbeen. Depuis le mois de mai 2012, des petits groupes des passagers ont commencé à visiter la citadelle Henri, en sortant pour la première fois de l’aire clôturée, qui leur est normalement réservée, pendant leur séjour en Haïti.
• Destiné Jean Marcellus, alias Jean Jacques Dessalines avec Jean Adrien Saint Vil, alias Charlotin Marcadieu, membres du groupe «Mouvement pour la Réussite de l’Image des Héros de l’Indépendance d’Haïti», 2013.
  Photographie prise à la Croix-des-Bouquets, dans la banlieue de Port-au-Prince
• Organisation de séance au Pitt Malgré Tout de Saint Pierre, 2012. [04]
• Pitt Pont Vert du Lamentin, espace restauration, 2012. [02]