Abstract
This chapter presents the contributions made by enslaved people to public theatre-making in Saint-Domingue as can be extrapolated from sources including newspaper announcements, notarial documents and personal correspondence. Some contributions are relatively prominent—as is the case for the enslaved musicians in the theatre orchestras (who have already attracted some critical attention) and the intriguing performance of the role of a prince by a black Creole man who was probably enslaved. Further evidence of black and enslaved supernumeraries is also uncovered. Other contributors 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. 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 labour of some enslaved individuals prevents them from slip** back through the archival gaps completely.
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Notes
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- 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).
- 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.
- 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).
- 11.
For a more detailed account of group escapes, see Eddins (2019).
- 12.
For a reproduction and discussion of the design for la place royale, see Bailey (2018, 258–64).
- 13.
The term Nago is generally used to describe someone belonging to the Yoruba language group.
- 14.
See Bailey (2018, 155–58) for more on the role of engineer-in-chief.
- 15.
See the ‘Dossier Mesplès’ in ANOM F3 187.
- 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).
- 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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Prest, J. (2023). Concealed Contributors: Enslaved Participation in Theatre-Making. In: Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22691-5_5
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