François Mackandal

François Mackandal (also known as Makandal or Macandal) (Template:Circa- January 20, 1758) was a Haitian maroon and spiritual leader in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti). He is sometimes described as a Haitian vodou priest, or houngan.<ref name=":0" /> However other historians say he was a bokor.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite journal</ref> Mackandal's birthplace is not definitively known, but historians have made attempts to find probable areas of origin.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> French colonial authorities accused him of joining the maroons to kill slave owners in Saint-Domingue and executed him by burning him to death.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> The scandal over his case was seen as a precursor to the Haitian Revolution.

His significance as a figure in the history of Haitian independence has been immortalized through Haitian currency.<ref>Template:Cite journalTemplate:Cbignore</ref>

The association of Mackandal with "black magic" is due to his Congo-inspired religious practices<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and reputation as a poisoner. Recent scholarship has disputed the idea that Mackandal ever used poison to kill.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":02">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Speculated origins

Haitian historian Thomas Madiou states that Mackandal "had instruction and possessed the Arabic language very well."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Early sources identify him as coming from the Atlas Mountains which span the Maghreb,<ref name=":3">Template:Cite journal</ref> but contemporary scholars such as Sylviane Diouf have speculated that he may have been from the modern day nations of Senegal, Mali, or Guinea.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> According to contemporary accounts of the time, during his interrogation he repeated the Arabic-language Shahada (Muslim testimony of faith) several times and even translated its meaning to his French captors during his interrogation before being condemned to death.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":3" /> By tracing the etymology of Mackandal's name, historian Kathryn de Luna suggests that he may have been from an area located closely to the coast of Cameroon.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Biography

Mackandal was born in either Central or Western Africa and enslaved at a young age. "François" was a name he was referred to while enslaved.<ref name=":22">Template:Cite book</ref> It is speculated that Mackandal lost his right arm in a farming accident when it was caught in a sugarcane press and crushed between the rollers.<ref name=":6">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

When he was sent to work at a remote location, Mackandal was able to escape and live as a maroon beginning around 1748.<ref>Garrigus 2023, p.84.</ref> While living as a maroon, Mackandal made and distributed magical protective bags of various ingredients to enslaved people.<ref>Dubois and Garrigus 2017, p.41.</ref> He held rituals for the maintenance and creation of the charms, which created a large religious community among enslaved people. According to C.L.R. James, Mackandal had the eloquence to a European orator, differing only in strength and vigor.<ref name="Cheuse">Template:Cite journal</ref>

In 1758, the French, fearing that enslaved poisoners planned to kill all whites in the colony, tortured an enslaved woman named Assam, who also accused of poisoning, into naming dozens of people as co-conspirators.<ref>Garrigus 2023, p.71-74.</ref> She claimed there was a large group of enslaved people who were poisoning their enslavers, which confirmed the fears of the French.<ref>Garrigus 2023, p.70-71.</ref> Not long after Assam's confession, in 1758, Mackandal attended a celebration on a plantation, where someone told observing french men that there was a poisoner present.<ref name=":32">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Mackandal was captured and reported to the French government.

After a case that lasted only a few days, Mackandal was burned at the stake in the center square of Port-au-Prince. He never confessed to poisoning.<ref name=":22" /> There are several reports that suggest that Mackandal was able to make a brief escape during his execution, but was recaptured and killed.<ref name=":22" /><ref name=":32" />

However, people from the crowd, particularly the black enslaved people, believed that Mackandal rose out of the flames and transformed into a winged beast that flew to safety, others believe he slipped from the ropes after the flames started and ran away and was never seen again. Most information on Mackandal is scarce. <ref name="Cheuse" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Beyond the sketch of historical events outlined above, there is a colorful and varied range of myths about Mackandal. Various supernatural accounts of his execution, and of his escaping capture by the French authorities, are preserved in island folklore and widely depicted in paintings and popular art.<ref name=":6" />

Poisoning scandal

Around the time of Mackandal's capture and execution, there was a widespread panic among colonial enslavers that the enslaved people in Saint-Domingue were poisoning the white population in order to take over Saint-Domingue.<ref>Garrigus 2023, p. 57.</ref> The panic was largely caused by the statements of an enslaved man named Médor, who confessed to 'poisoning' the family who enslaved him.<ref>Garrigus 2023, p.37-52.</ref> At the time, "poison" was a term used by Africans for any powerful substance that was influenced by magic,<ref>Garrigus 2021, p.636-637 .</ref> and was linked to practices of witchcraft.<ref>Paton 2012, p.243.</ref>

Not long after Mackandal's death, doctors would speculate that the deaths were more likely caused by animals ingesting anthrax from the soil, then spreading the poison to humans through consumption, which caused people to fall ill after consuming the dead animals.<ref>Garrigus 2023, p.172 .</ref>

Rumors about Mackandal

Due to the violent nature of how interrogations were conducted in Saint-Domingue<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and the unverified information that spread in popular media after Mackandal's death,<ref name=":4">Template:Citation</ref> there is a vast amount of factually questionable data that gets spread about the life of Mackandal, even by historians.<ref>Garrigus 2021, p.619-620.</ref><ref name=":2" />

After Mackandal was executed, his case was widely publicized as evidence of discontent among enslaved people, which enslavers were already concerned with.<ref name=":4" /> As stories were spread in magazines, there were many fantastical features added on to Mackandal's story.<ref name=":5">Garrigus 2023, p.6-8.</ref> Unverifiable sources claimed that Mackandal sought a genocide of whites in Saint-Domingue, indiscriminately slaughtered people, planned a revolution, and was the leader of a massive maroon band who planned to take over Hispaniola.<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":2" />

According to some popular narratives, Mackandal created poisons from island herbs. He distributed the poison to enslaved people, who added it to the meals and refreshments they served the French plantation owners and planters.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He became a charismatic guerrilla leader who united the different maroon bands and created a network of secret organizations connected with enslaved people still on plantations. He led maroons to raid plantations at night, torch property and kill the enslavers.

In popular culture

One of the most well-known portraits of Mackandal is that in Alejo Carpentier's magical realist novel The Kingdom of this World.

Mackandal's public torture and execution (via burning at the stake) is depicted vividly in Guy Endore's 1934 novel Babouk. Both Mackandal's rebel conspiracy and his brutal killing are shown as influential on Babouk (based on Boukman), who helps to lead a 1791 slave revolt.

A fictionalized version of Mackandal also appears in Nalo Hopkinson's novel The Salt Roads and in Mikelson Toussaint-Fils's novel Bloody trails: the Messiah of the islands (in French, Les sentiers rouges: Le Messie des iles).

In Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods, a boy named Agasu is enslaved in Africa and brought to Haiti, where he eventually loses his arm and leads a rebellion against the European establishment. This account is very similar to Mackandal's.

C G S Millworth's novel Makandal's Legacy<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> tells of Mackandal's fictional son, Jericho, and the gift of immortality he received as a result of his father's pact with the voodoo spirits, the lwa.

The Harvard ethnobotanist and Anthropologist Wade Davis writes about Francois Mackandal in his novel "The Serpent and the Rainbow." In the chapter "Tell my Horse" Davis explores the historical beginnings of vodoun culture and speculates Mackandal as a chief propagator of the Vodoun religion.

In the video game Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, the character Agaté mentions François Mackandal as having been his Assassin mentor,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and also recalls how Mackandal was burned at stake following his failed attempt to poison the colonists of Saint-Domingue.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The game portrays a false Mackandal who is actually another character called Baptiste, who according to Agaté was once a brother and has also been trained by the real Mackandal, but betrayed the Assassins following his death.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The character uses a Skull face painting and is missing his left arm, which he amputated to impersonate his mentor, although the real Mackandal lost his right arm.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Mackandal is also mentioned several times in the prequel game Assassin's Creed Rogue as the mentor of the Saint-Domingue Brotherhood of Assassins, who maintains close relations with the North American Colonial Brotherhood.

Further reading

• "Prophetic Religion, Violence, and Black Freedom: Reading Makandal's Project of Black Liberation through A Fanonian postcolonial lens of decolonization and theory of revolutionary humanism" by Celucien L. Joseph, Black Theology: An International Journal (2012): 9:3

See also

• Dutty Boukman
• Toussaint Louverture