Papers by Lauren (Robin) Derby
Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 I. European Encounters 9 II. Pirates, Governors, and Slaves 6... more Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 I. European Encounters 9 II. Pirates, Governors, and Slaves 61 III. Revolutions 91 IV. Caudillos and Empires 141 V. The Idea of the Nation: Order and Progress 191 VI. Dollars, Gunboats, and Bullets 233 VII. The Era of Trujillo 279 VIII. The Long Transition to Democracy 325 IX. Religious Practices 387 X. Popular Culture 417 XI. The Dominican Diaspora 467 Suggestions for Further Reading 507 Acknowledgment of Copyrights and Sources 515 Index 527
New West Indian Guide, 2024
This essay analyzes popular Haitian tales about sovereign theft by stealth which seek to expose m... more This essay analyzes popular Haitian tales about sovereign theft by stealth which seek to expose machinations of graft and usurpation by outsiders and politicians. The foundational act for this genre of popular narratives in Haiti I argue is the indemnity that the Haitian State was forced to pay France of 150 million francs in exchange for international recognition to compensate for losses in property incurred by the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) which Haitian statesman Frédéric Marcelin described as an "act of dispossession." But popular rumors of national theft kept returning. I argue that these stories linking sovereignty, debt, and theft represent truth claims on the part of those who have long been "hermeneutically marginalized" and should be seen as a call for testimonial justice that challenges the triumphalist story of Haitian independence through revealing and denouncing deceitful chicanery on the part of those in power.
Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 I. European Encounters 9 II. Pirates, Governors, and Slaves 6... more Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 I. European Encounters 9 II. Pirates, Governors, and Slaves 61 III. Revolutions 91 IV. Caudillos and Empires 141 V. The Idea of the Nation: Order and Progress 191 VI. Dollars, Gunboats, and Bullets 233 VII. The Era of Trujillo 279 VIII. The Long Transition to Democracy 325 IX. Religious Practices 387 X. Popular Culture 417 XI. The Dominican Diaspora 467 Suggestions for Further Reading 507 Acknowledgment of Copyrights and Sources 515 Index 527
African American Studies Center, 2016
Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 2014
ABSTRACT This essay argues for the utility of fugitive speech forms as primary sources for Caribb... more ABSTRACT This essay argues for the utility of fugitive speech forms as primary sources for Caribbean historical research. It seeks to shift the discussion from forms such as autobiography and the memoir to more ephemeral speech forms such as hearsay, rumor, and gossip on the grounds that peripheral genres enable a glimpse of subaltern agency that often evades public discourse. The essay argues that unsanctioned speech forms get us closer to everyday experience, offer a more processual understanding of the unfolding of events, and enable a glimpse at embedded affect that is often occluded from view. It thus follows James Scott’s call for research on “hidden transcripts,” including gossip, sorcery, and spirit possession as well as other anonymous speech genres that may reveal a critique of domination, an approach with particular salience for the Caribbean, a region deeply shaped by colonial biopower.
Istor Revista De Historia Internacional, 2012
Masacre de 1937. 80 años después, 2018
Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research, 2020
This book is a literary and cultural history which brings to the fore a compelling but, so far, l... more This book is a literary and cultural history which brings to the fore a compelling but, so far, largely neglected body of work which has the politics of border-crossing as well as the poetics of borderland-dwelling on Hispaniola at its core. Over thirty fictional and non-fictional literary texts (novels, biographical narratives, memoirs, plays, poems, and travel writing), are given detailed attention alongside journalism, geo-political-historical accounts of the status quo on the island, and striking visual interventions (films, sculptures, paintings, photographs, videos and artistic performances), many of which are sustained and complemented by different forms of writing (newspaper cuttings, graffiti, captions, song lyrics, screenplay, tattoos). Dominican, Dominican-American, Haitian and Haitian-American writers and artists are put in dialogue with authors who were born in Europe, the rest of the Americas, Algeria, New Zealand, and Japan in order to illuminate some of the processes and histories that have woven and continue to weave the texture of the borderland and the complex web of border relations on the island. Particular attention is paid to the causes, unfolding, and immediate aftermath of the slave revolt of 1791, the massacre of Haitians and Haitian-Dominicans in the Dominican Northern borderland in 1937 as well as recent events and topical issues such as the earthquake of 2010, migration, and environmental degradation
History of Religions, 2015
A powerful sorcerer and clairvoyant who is said to have been the first person to clamor for Haiti... more A powerful sorcerer and clairvoyant who is said to have been the first person to clamor for Haiti’s independence, runaway slave François Makandal expressed his wrath against the horrors of Saint Domingue slavery by ravaging colonial society: assaulting people, refineries, and livestock and evading the law for years before his final capture in 1758. Makandal commenced the assault on French plantations through mass poisonings of the cattle and oxen of French colons, until he was said to have eluded French troops by metamorphizing into a bird or an insect. This act became a social fact when it was can-
Past & Present, 2008
... of Michigan, 2000), 132; and Sidney Mintz, Worker in the Cane: A Puerto Rican Life History (N... more ... of Michigan, 2000), 132; and Sidney Mintz, Worker in the Cane: A Puerto Rican Life History (New York, 1960). Judith Bettleheim makes this point in her essay, 'Espiritismo Altars in Puerto Rico and Cuba: The Indian and the Congo', in Andrew Apter and Lauren Derby, (eds ...
Hispanic American Historical Review, 2011
Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1994
Sitting on the banks of the shallow riverine waters separating the northern border towns of Dajab... more Sitting on the banks of the shallow riverine waters separating the northern border towns of Dajabón of the Dominican Republic and Ouanaminthe of Haiti, one can see children wade, market women wash, and people pass from one nation to another. They are apparently impervious to the official meaning of this river as a national boundary that rigidly separates these two contiguous Caribbean island nations. Just as the water flows, so do people, goods, and merchandise between the two countries, even as the Dominican border guards stationed on a small mound above the river watch. The ironies of history lie here, as well as the poetics of its remembrance. This river is called El Masacre, a name which recalls the 1937 Haitian massacre, when the water is said to have run scarlet red from the blood of thousands of Haitians killed by machetes there by soldiers under the direction of the Dominican dictator, Rafael M. Trujillo (1930–61).
A Contracorriente: Revista de Historia Social y …, 2011
The Americas, 2019
These two chapters have the potential to begin a much overdo conversation in the field of Costa R... more These two chapters have the potential to begin a much overdo conversation in the field of Costa Rican history over how the nation fit into the broader Cold War processes that are well documented in other parts of Latin America. Unfortunately, they do not begin that conversation. The chapters make only passing reference to the Paris protests of 1968 and the Cuban Revolution as events that likely shaped the Costa Rican state’s approach to the protest.
New West Indian Guide, 2013
This essay examines popular narratives that a spirit demon or bacá lurked in an export garment pl... more This essay examines popular narratives that a spirit demon or bacá lurked in an export garment plant in the Santiago trade zone of the Dominican Republic in the early 2000s. By interpreting thebacástory, and the transformation of the bacá itself from a rural context to an urban factory, we unpack the changing nature and meaning of employment under neoliberal capitalism, and tease apart complex geographies of status, exploitation, technology and debt.
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Papers by Lauren (Robin) Derby