All Souls' Rising (65 page)

ouanga:
a charm, often worn round the neck

paillasse:
a sleeping pallet, straw mattress

pariade:
the wholesale rape of slave women by sailors on slave ships. The
pariade
had something of the status of a ritual. Any pregnancies that resulted were assumed to increase the value of the slave women to their eventual purchasers.

parrain:
godfather. In slave communities, the
parrain
was responsible for teaching a newly imported slave the appropriate ways of the new situation.

patois:
dialect

Patriots:
name assumed by Jacobin factions in Saint Domingue; see also
Pompons Rouges
.

pavé:
paving stone

petit blanc:
member of Saint Domingue’s white artisan class, a group which lived mostly in the coastal cities and which was not necessarily French in origin. The
petit blancs
sometimes owned small numbers of slaves but seldom owned land; most of them were aligned with French revolutionary politics.

petit marron:
a runaway slave or maroon who intended to remain absent for only a short period—these escapees often returned to their owners of their own accord

la petite vérole:
smallpox

petro:
a particular set of vodoun rituals with some different deities—angry and more violent than
rada

pois-gratter:
itching pea, an abrasive plant

Pompons Blancs:
members of the royalist faction in post-1789 Saint Domingue; their name derives from the white cockade they wore to declare their political sentiments. The majority of
grand blancs
inclined in this direction.

Pompons Rouges:
members of the revolutionary faction in post-1789 Saint Domingue, so called for the red cockades they wore to identify themselves. Most of the colony’s
petit blancs
inclined in this direction.

poteau mitan:
central post in a vodoun
hûnfor
, the metaphysical route of passage for the entrance of the
loa
into the human world

pwasô
(Creole):
fish

quarteronné:
a particular combination of African and European blood: the result, for instance, of combining a full-blood white with a
mamelouque

rada:
the more pacific rite of vodoun, as opposed to
petro

rada batterie:
ensemble of drums for vodoun ceremony

ramier:
wood pigeon

ratoons:
second-growth cane from plants already cut

redingote:
a fashionable frock coat

sacatra:
a particular combination of African and European blood: the result, for instance, of combining a full-blood black with a
griffe
or
griffonne

salle de bains:
washroom

sang-mêlé:
a particular combination of African and European blood: the result, for instance, of combining a full-blood white with a
quarteronné

serviteur:
vodoun observer, one who serves the
loa

siffleur montagne:
literally, “mountain whistler,” a night-singing bird

tafia:
rum

ti-bon-ange:
literally, the “little good angel,” an aspect of the vodoun soul. “The ti-bon-ange is that part of the soul directly associated with the individual…. It is one’s aura, and the source of all personality, character and willpower.”
^*14

tisane:
infusion of herbs

vévé:
diagram symbolizing and invoking a particular
loa

vodûn
or vodoun:
generic term for a god, also denotes the whole Haitian religion

yo di:
they say

zaman:
almond

z’étoile:
aspect of the vodoun soul. “The
z’étoile
is the one spiritual component that resides not in the body but in the sky. It is the individual’s star of destiny, and is viewed as a calabash that carries one’s hope and all the many ordered events for the next life of the soul.”
^†15

zombi:
either the soul (
zombi astrale
) or the body (
zombi cadavre
) of a dead person enslaved to a vodoun magician

ALSO BY
M
ADISON
S
MARTT
B
ELL

MASTER OF THE CROSSROADS

In
Master of the Crossroads
, Madison Smartt Bell brings to life the rise to power of the great Haitian military general Toussaint Louverture and the story of the only successful slave revolution in history. Beginning in 1794, Toussaint led his troops to victory over English and Spanish invaders, over the French political establishment, and in a civil uprising for control of the infant island republic of Haiti. He extended the ideological triumph of the French and American revolutions by offering universal liberty and human rights to all races. In chronicling Toussaint’s victory and its aftermath, Bell gives us a kaleidoscopic portrait of this extraordinary figure as seen through the eyes of the men and women whose paths he crossed. English, French, Spanish, and African—the intersection of peoples who inhabited this wartorn island creates a rich social canvas against which the astonishing story of Toussaint Louverture—his beliefs, passions, and compulsions—unfolds over the course of nine tumultuous years.

Historical Fiction/1-4000-7838-5

VINTAGE BOOKS

Available at your local bookstore, or call toll-free to order:

1-800-793-2665 (credit cards only).

Coming in Fall 2004 from Pantheon Books

The Stone That the Builder Refused

“Bell’s work teaches historians a thing or two about what it means to have an intimate relationship with the past.”

—
Los Angeles Times Book Review

A
ll Souls’ Rising
(a finalist for the National Book Award)…
Master of the Crossroads
…and now, Madison Smartt Bell gives us a final, climactic novel about Toussaint Louverture, the legendary leader of the only successful slave revolution in history.

In 1791, what would become known as the Haitian Revolution began as a rebellion of African slaves against their white masters in the French colony then known as Saint Domingue. By 1793, Toussaint had emerged as the leader of the revolt, and by 1801 he was the de facto ruler of all of Saint Domingue. His proclamation of a new constitution that abolished slavery incited Napoleon to dispatch troops to reestablish control of the island.

The Stone That the Builder Refused
spans the last two years of Toussaint’s life and the triumphant struggle for a free Haiti. It paints an astonishingly detailed and riveting portrait of the new nation that arose from the cauldron of revolution, of the vision that impelled Toussaint to create a society based on principle and idealism, and of the dreadful compromises he was forced to make in order to preserve it.

A masterly weave of the factual and the imagined, a triumphant work of fiction, and a grand finale to Bell’s Toussaint Louverture trilogy.

Madison Smartt Bell is the author of 13 previous works of fiction, including
Soldier’s Joy
and
Anything Goes
. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

PANTHEON BOOKS

www.pantheonbooks.com

Madison Smartt Bell

ALL SOULS’ RISING

Madison Smartt Bell is the author of fourteen works of fiction, including
The Stone That the Builder Refused; Master of the Crossroads; Save Me, Joe Louis; Dr. Sleep; Soldier’s Joy
; and
Ten Indians
. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with his family and teaches at Goucher College.

ALSO BY MADISON SMARTT BELL

The Stone That the Builder Refused

Anything Goes

Master of the Crossroads

Narrative Design

Ten Indians

Save Me, Joe Louis

Dr. Sleep

Barking Man and Other Stories

Soldier’s Joy

The Year of Silence

Zero db and Other Stories

Straight Cut

Waiting for the End of the World

The Washington Square Ensemble

Acclaim for Madison Smartt Bell’s

ALL SOULS’ RISING

“A work of breathtaking stylistic expertise on a large scale, easily [Bell’s] most daring and accomplished novel.”

—
The Baltimore Sun

“A passionately engaged opus.
All Souls’ Rising
reflects both a sustained imaginative audacity and great intellectual resourcefulness.”

—
The New Yorker

“Remarkable….
All Souls’ Rising
deserves to be read for its fictional representation of history and for its compelling characterizations. But its political importance should not be underestimated…. Bell’s excursion into revolutionary Haiti is the attempt of an undaunted novelist to stand face-to-face, as it were, with the prehistory of our own racial divisiveness…. An important book.”

—
The Oregonian

“I’ve known Madison Smartt Bell’s work for quite a while, and this is the best thing he’s ever done—and probably the best thing he’ll ever do, which is my definition of a masterpiece.
All Souls’ Rising
is simply breathtaking.”

—Gloria Naylor

“The scope of this ambitious narrative is heroic…. Bell demonstrates that each race destroys itself in doing evil to the other.”

—
Chicago Tribune

“A major work, a triumph of both storytelling and inspired historical analysis.”

—Robert Stone

“A vivid, visceral tale…. [Bell] has taken the events of eighteenth-century colonial Haiti and made them a prism for the most divisive issues confronting us today.”

—
The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Bell’s luminous, intelligent novel…is magnificent. It restores my faith in the energy of American fiction.”

—Barbara Probst Solomon