Staging Eden; Staging Power: Landscaping the Royal Garden of the Kingdom of Haiti

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.21.1.2022.3855

Keywords:

Native ecosystems, decolonization, economics, Kingdom of Haiti, garden landscape, Royal Garden of Haiti, tropicality

Abstract

A uniquely successful slave revolt enabled King Henry (Christophe) I to lead an engagement with native plants, animals including humans, built structures, and landscaped gardens in The Kingdom of Haiti, a tropical country liberated from colonial rule. The new ruler’s political and economic exigencies and hopes had points of both collaboration and contention with the expectations of the new citizens. He would make full use of both local traditional knowledge and the latest for-profit agricultural management techniques. The engagement resulted in general prosperity, especially for the new proprietors of the largest landholdings. He set aside a portion of royal property that preserved the original flora and fauna, but most of the kingdom maintained the former plantations. There were schools and medical clinics for everyone. Yet the peasants worked even harder than they had as slaves and held little political power. Beyond the Royal Garden and the preserved forest, exploitation of the tropical ecosystem continued and even increased.

Author Biography

LeGrace Benson, State University of New York-Empire State College, USA

LeGrace Benson is Professor (Emerita) of the State University of New York-Empire State College and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Haitian Studies. Her interdisciplinary PhD at Cornell University primarily focused on studies in human perceptions as ecological systems, with the education of artists and the history of art as related to visual perception. Her major publication is Arts and Religions of Haiti; How the Sun Illuminates Under Cover of Darkness (2015). She is currently Co-chair of the Working Group on Environment for the Haitian Studies Association. 

References

Benson, L., Mangonès, F., & Marcelli. A. (forthcoming 2022). Citadelle Henry and Palais Sans Souci; Haiti’s Assertion of Liberty. EducaVision Caribbean Studies, to be published, 2022. It includes essays by preservation architects Patrick Delatour, Albert Mangonès, Frederick Mangonès, and ecologist Florence Sergile

Beauvoir, M. (2004). Lapriyè Ginen. EducaVision.

Buffon, G-L. L. (Comte de), (1749-1804). Histoire Naturelle, général et particulière avec la description du Cabinet du Roi. Paris. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.169101

Cheeseman, C. (2017). The Armorial of Haiti: Symbols of Nobility in the Reign of Henry Christophe. College of Arms.

Cleveland-Peck, P. (2011). “Plant dispersal: Atlantic crossings”History Today, 61, (9), September. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/plant-dispersal-atlantic-crossings

Descourtilz, M.E., (1935). Voyage d’un Naturaliste en Haiti 1799 -1803. Librairie Plon. (1809 Dufart). https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.44090

Fleurant. G. (1987). “The Ethnomusicology of Yanvalou: A Study of the Rada Rite of Haiti”. PhD dissertation. Tufts University.

Fuson, R. H., (1987). The Log of Christopher Columbus. International Marine Publishing Company.

Institut de Sauvegarde du Patrimoine Nationale, multiple documents, architectural plans, photographs

Josué, E. (Ed.) (2014). Bulletin du Bureau National d’Ethnologie: Haiti Fusions et Performances. 48 (1). 10 Musicologists, discography. Josué performances are on several websites.

Lomax Collection, U.S. Library of Congress

Ogilvie, B. W. (2003). The Many Books of Nature: Renaissance Naturalists and Information Overload. Journal of the History of Ideas, 64 (1), 29-40. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhi.2003.0015

Ritter, C. (1836). Naturhistorische Reise nach der Westinsischen Insel Hayti: Auf Kosten Sr. Majestaet des Kaisers von Oesterreich. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.149344

Clarkson, T. Collected documents, British Library, Rare Book Collection

eTropic logo

Downloads

Published

2022-03-30

How to Cite

Benson, L. (2022). Staging Eden; Staging Power: Landscaping the Royal Garden of the Kingdom of Haiti . ETropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 21(1), 70–82. https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.21.1.2022.3855

Issue

Vol. 21 No. 1 (2022): Special Issue: Tropical Landscapes and Nature~Culture Entanglements

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2022 CC-BY

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors who submit articles to this journal agree to the following terms:

1. Authors are responsible for ensuring that any material that has influenced the research or writing has been properly cited and credited both in the text and in the Reference List (Bibliography). Contributors are responsible for gaining copyright clearance on figures, photographs or lengthy quotes used in their manuscript that have been published elsewhere.

2. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License that allows others to share and adapt the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

3. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository, or publish it in a book), with proper acknowledgement of the work's initial publication in this journal.

4. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (see The Effect of Open Access or The Open Access Citation Advantage). Where authors include such a work in an institutional repository or on their website (i.e., a copy of a work which has been published in eTropic, or a pre-print or post-print version of that work), we request that they include a statement that acknowledges the eTropic publication including the name of the journal, the volume number and a web-link to the journal item.

5. Authors should be aware that the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License permits readers to share (copy and redistribute the work in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the work) for any purpose, even commercially, provided they also give appropriate credit to the work, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do these things in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests you or your publisher endorses their use.