The Revolutionary Intellectuals of the Kingdom of Henry Christophe (1811-1820)

This week our speaker will be Juan Francisco Martínez Pería, who received his Ph.D in History from the Universidad Pompeu Fabra, and is now an Assistant Professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and at the Universidad Nacional de San Martín. He is the author of ¡Libertad o Muerte! Historia de la Revolución Haitiana (2012), and the editor of Jean Louis Vastey, El sistema colonial develado (2018).

In this talk he will analyze the cultural institutions and the intellectual circle promoted by Henry Christophe during his reign in Haiti, from 1811 to 1820, with the intention of showing that Christophe and the intellectuals of the kingdom, especially the Baron de Vastey, tried to continue the legacy of the Haitian Revolution by using the pen instead of the sword. Through books, pamphlets and other printed documents, they attempted to celebrate the revolution, to promote abolitionism, anti-colonialism, antiracism and to consolidate the fragile sovereignty of the newborn state.