Babouk: Voices of Resistance

by Guy Endore, Michel-Rolph Trouillot (Afterword), David B. Gaspar (Afterword)

Loosely based on the Haitian slave insurrection of 1791, Babouk is a biting account of colonialism at its peak. By using the imagination of the novelist to fill in the gaps in the historical record, Endore is able to show us how slavery felt to the slaves who experienced it. His novel is rare for its depiction of the shared history of the slaves and its attention to the variety of the slave experience. It provides the reader with a vivid history of Haiti and a compelling account of slavery and rebellion.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Race, Novels

352 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1991

About the author

Samuel Guy Endore (4 July 1900 - 12 February 1970), born Samuel Goldstein and also known as Harry Relis, was a novelist and screenwriter. During his career he produced a wide array of novels, screenplays, and pamphlets, both published and unpublished. A cult favorite of fans of horror, he is best known for his novel The Werewolf of Paris which occupies a significant position in werewolf literature, much in the same way that Dracula does for fans of vampires.
He was nominated for a screenwriting Oscar for The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), and his novel Methinks the Lady . . . (1946) was the basis for Ben Hecht's screenplay for Whirlpool (1949).

Reviews

[Kiran Dellimore · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must confess that Babouk: Voices of Resistance confounded me. Before reading this intriguingly titled novel, my interest was piqued, because of the subject matter, the Haitian Revolution, and the genre, historical fiction. I expected this novel to surely leave a lasting impression on me, much like Segu by Maryse Conde. However, after finishing this book I am left with mixed feelings. On the one hand I recognize Babouk as one of the earliest and few historical fiction novels to focus on Caribbean history, in particular that of Haiti, the first free black nation in the Western Hemisphere. On the other hand, I found the narrative unfortunately to be uninspired and caricature-like. Clearly written by a non-Black author, Guy Endore, it reads more like a fanciful, paternalistic parody of how a white person imagines slavery was experienced by enslaved Africans. The naive reactions and platitudes of the African slaves and of Babouk, to the vile dehumanizing acts of European slavers and slave master's, begs belief. Nevertheless, I still give this book three stars since Endore clearly did his homework on Haiti at the time of the Haitian Revolution. His depiction of the setting and atmosphere of the period is quite convincing; from the Don Pedro dance to the cutting off of ears of runaway slaves. Moreover, the protagonist in the story is based at least in part on a real Saint-Domingue (i.e., Haitian) slave named Boukman Dutty, who in fact played a crucial role in the early stages of the Haitian Revolution, before the rise of Toussaint Louverture. Babouk (or Boukman if you prefer) therefore is an important historical figure who deserves to be recognized. Yet in the final analysis Babouk the novel falls short of this noble objective. A few other things diminished my enthusiasm for this novel. The portrayal of the encounter between Babouk and a Carib Indian and his family was bizarre and completely unrealistic. Moreover, the author gratuitously peppered the narrative with the N-word, which seemed to convey his pejorative disposition towards Black people (and perhaps is reflective of prevailing sentiments in the US in the 1930s). Yet at the same time I felt that his agenda in writing Babouk was to shine a light on modern day racism towards Blacks. In fact, that brings me to another minus point. There were several anachronistic references to civil rights and present-day discrimination against Blacks in America, which occasionally disrupted the flow of the novel. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who is a serious student of Haitian history and who is openminded and not easily put off by racially offensive language.

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a historical fiction spanning the time from Babouk’s capture in Africa until the Haitian Revolution, which occurred near the end of the 18th Century. This is a very shocking account of the obscenity of slavery, transmitted in the form of a mesmerizing novel.

The author, Guy Endore (1901-1970) is a graduate of Columbia University who wrote many film scripts, as well as biographical novels of Voltaire, Joan of Arc, and Alexandre Dumas. However, in the McCarthyism of the 1950’s, Endore was accused of being a communist and his writings were blacklisted, which may account for the relative obscurity of this fascinating novel. That’s really unfortunate, because in this novel Endore brings to life the most tumultuous segment of Haitian history, with artful and captivating prose.

This story of Babouk is quite obviously based upon solid historical research; but because Haitian slaves were largely illiterate, and because white historians have rarely documented the slaves historical record, this novel must go beyond research to fully reflect the most probable truth. Endore does just that, bringing the history of Haiti to the forefront, with eloquent and fascinating descriptions.

The main character, Babouk, is based upon a Haitian slave known as Boukman, a famous rebel leader of the 1791 insurrection that ultimately resulted in overthrow of the French. The introduction characterizes as blissful ignorance, the African days of Babouk, as reflected in the following excerpt:

“I am living in a nice village situated in a nice forest, surrounding by some beautiful mountains, their tops changing color with the changing position of the sun. I go fishing every day, and every day I catch some fish – just the right number to satisfy me. I cultivate a small plot of land and I always have as much food from this land as I need, so that I never have to have a larder. To keep myself company, I make up tales about how I got here and where I will go when I am not here anymore. This is a nice little set-up I have here, my definition of contentment; and the thought of going off somewhere to pile brick upon brick in the hot desert sun to make monuments commemorating vicious people and their vicious deeds, or working in someone else’s fields, or doing any of the horrible things that a civilization requires in order to be a civilization – none of this appeals to me at all.” –Jamaica Kincaid

The writer depicts poor Africa, as sitting contentedly in all of its innocence and beauty, suddenly attracting the gaze of the miserably powerful, who parasitically descend upon it to enslave its population, in the same manner as one would mine minerals, cut forests, or exploit any other natural resource. The slave trade was an endeavor providing substantial monetary benefits; but requiring the moral sacrifice of inflicting misery upon other human beings. The slaveholders rationalized this moral breach by thinking of the African as less than human, in the same context as animals, even though, as one slaver remarked: “they do look so damnably like a human being”. Endor’s book depictes accounts of sadistic brutality drawn from actual history, requiring one ultimately to ask: “who is the savage here and who is the uncivilized”?

As the slave ship bearing Babouk nears the Haitian shores, Endor erupts in some of his most eloquent prose:

“Whence came this new current of mildness that swept over the floating prison, and softened the hearts of jailers and captives alike? It was the odor of a continent, still invisible. The ship was flooded with the sweet smell of land. She sailed through a perfumed atmosphere. Crew and cargo, tired of the thick, chill odor of the sea and the sour odor of the hold, sniffed at the breeze, signed, breathed deep, and signed again. The odor of America! The geologic odor of America, a powerful and intoxicating perfume spread by thousands of miles of steaming earth and exuberant vegetation, an odor that caused early explorers to sink upon the deck, their hands clasped in prayer, tears streaming from their eyes, their mouths babbling poetry. This was the perfume of America, flower of continents! This was the perfume of America, land of flora, as Africa was of fauna. Oh, continents, what has man done to you?” -Guy Endore

Upon arrival into Haiti, Babouk witnesses the burning at the stake of rebellious slaves, which is apparently a dramatization of the death of the rebellious historical figure known as Makandal , who has become a legend in Haiti and Cuba. Endore describes the scene as follows:

“Three pyres of wood had been built up of crossed fagots, surrounding three stakes. To each stake, by means of iron chains, a black was attached, standing upon a small platform raised to the level of the highest tier of fagots. The wood, dry resinous material from the mountain candlewood trees, had scarcely been lighted when great flames began licking upward, eating the melting resin with a loud greedy crackle. Soon great purple and yellow plumes of fire curled up and gently brushed the bodies of the blacks. The great one-armed Negro in the center did not seem to mind much, though he winced and drew back as if he could find protection nearer to his stake. He began suddenly to sing in a loud resonant voice that was distinctly audible above the shrieks of the Negress, who was perishing vociferously to one side of him, while to his other side the other Negro, his face set, burnt quietly as a candle. ‘Eh! Eh! Bomba! Heu! Heu! Canga…’ He stopped, swallowed, his tongue worked in his mouth, striving to keep it moist. The smoke stung his eyes closed. His head, his neck, his vast pectorals ran with sweat that steamed and hissed as it met the upward climbing feathers of flame. He opened his mouth again and chanted, shouted rather, in his deep bass: ‘Aya! Bombaya! Bombay!’ He choked and gasped. Then he was silent for a spell, standing there, chained to his stake, midst the steam, the smoke, the curling flames, as if he were taking thought. The other Negro had not made a sound or a move. But the Negress caused a disturbance and some commotion in the crowd. The burning of her legs gave her much anguish and produced such wild contortions of her body that she had managed to slip the chains down from her bosom and free one arm. Now, shouting unintelligible imprecations at the mob, she stooped and picked up blazing fragments of wood, and flung them at the mob of sightseers, who scurried aside with little noise of fright. She bent and rose, again and again, picking cinders from the flames as one might bend to pick pebbles from a stream. But finally she bent down and did not rise again from the sea of fire. The great Negro in the center had resumed his singing. The melted oil and gum from his elaborate coiffure poured down his face. ‘Lama sumana kana!’ His hair caught fire! In a moment it was like a great red coal, a fiery sponge stuck to his skull. Then he threw back his head as if to roar. His chest swelled like a great barrel, thrusting out each rib, hollowing his belly. But no roar, no gigantic earth-shaking, heaven-rousing bellow came from that corded throat where the Adam’s apple worked convulsively, seeking a moisture that had evaporated. Nothing but a weak gasp. While the great chest remained inflated, the muscles swelled, the body looked as if it would burst with the distension of the gases within it. But it did not burst. The Negro was dead. Life ceased to buoy up that great frame but it did not collapse, for the heat of the fire substituted very well for the force of life. He stood erect, head back, belly slowly swelling. On his skull the fiery sponge still glowed. And now his body burnt briskly giving off occasionally a heavy dark smoke as new areas of fat flesh caught fire. The enticing smell of roasted meat that spread over the Place d’Armes was ruined by the sharp odor of singed hair and nails. But all odors were soon swallowed up by the pleasant tonic odor of the resinous wood. The flames from the fagots rose higher and enveloped the corpses. But behind the wind-stirred curtain of flame one could still see the bodies, blacker now than ever in life.” –Guy Endore

Endore’s newly enslaved characters are baffled by this deathly spectacle, as they debark from their treacherous journey, from the nasty hold of the ship. One of them, a Mohammedan, remarks: “It is thus that the Christian dogs sacrifice human beings to their gods.”

The work of slaves beneath the hot Haitian sun was so intense and torturous that it resulted in a death rate higher than that of soldiers in the most terrible wars. One of every eight died annually. To replace the dead, and maintain high production levels, more and more enchained Africans were poured into the colony, at rates sometimes exceeding 400,000 a year. These conditions were such that many slaves became inclined toward suicide by the consumption of dirt. Endore describes this practice as follows:

“He was first to scrape lightly over the damp ground and gather up the thin layer of white salt that exuded therefrom. This saltpeter, gray, even brown from the dirt that was picked up with it, he swallowed greedily. A number of slaves practiced and taught others this habit, though many more warned them against it, pointing out that the first symptom would be the inability to embrace a woman. But those whose despondency was such that the attraction of women could no longer cure it resorted to earth-eating. Then one no longer hated the morning gong. One rose and went to work. And work was no trouble. One performed one’s tasks diligently, albeit slowly. Hunger and tiredness were things of the past. One labored on, caring for nothing, lacking the desire for either food, or rest, or woman. No longer did the commander’s lash fall on one’s back. On the contrary, one was praised, although now and then the master stopped suspiciously and wondered at the lack-luster eyes, the skeleton body. ‘Here there, you! Look at me! Are you eating dirt?’ ‘Oh, no. Oh, no. I never eat dirt.’ And so one worked on, until one day, not many months later, one did not wake up from sleep. On many a plantation one could see these emaciated figures. Their eyes were dull and unseeing. Their skins were hot in the sun, cool in the shade, never wet with perspiration. The dust clung to them and they did not crave to wash it off. The night did not bring them any great desire to sleep. They dozed, or walked about. And yet in the morning they were not tired. From the presence of these dried, dusty skeletons walking along, shoulders bowed, arms dangling, children fled in terror. ‘Zombie!” they cried, remembering the tales their elders told of horrible men that were neither alive nor dead, but corpses dug up from graves and made to work. ‘Zombie!’ A creole corruption of the French meaning: ‘the shadow of himself.’” -Guy Endore

Babouk quickly decides to flee the plantation and Endore creates a chance encounter between Babouk and the indigenous Indian, Hatuey . Hatuey has become a folk hero in Haiti and Cuba, in memory of the exterminated Taino Indians that were native to the islands (there’s even a beer named after Hatuey). The author relates how, when the Spanish attempted to teach the Taino Indians that it was a sin to go naked, the Indians laughed and pointed to the Spanish crucifixes and remarked: “This naked man that you worship on the cross taught you that it is a sin to go naked?”

Of these exterminated Taino Indians who were absorbed within the swarms of Negro slaves, Endore writes as follows:

“Even in the late eighteenth century, at the time of Babouk, there occasionally appeared among the Negroes a child, usually female, with abundant sleek blue-black hair, with eyes full of a racial heaviness, expressing an inborn melancholia, an incurable nostalgia for a home and a folk that had perished three centuries before. That was all that was left of the two or three million natives who greeted Columbus: an occasional neat-looking throwback! That, and such words as canoe, hammock, hurricane, calabash, a few skeletons, and bits of pottery. They had been creatures of a beautiful symmetric shape and graceful indolence.” –Guy Endore


The Rare Appearance Of Taino Indian Characteristics

Under the harshness of forced labor and primitive living conditions, Babouk becomes initiated into the voodoo of those whom share his suffering:

“One night he squatted lazily against a post and from a distance watched a crowd milling about under a bower of palm fronds. He looked with a sullen uninterested eye upon the antics of men and women dancing under the compulsion of drumming, shouting and chanting. He was half asleep. The wavering lights coming from many splinters of candlewood had lengthened to luminescent bands in his eyes. He was about to shut them and doze off into full sleep when a simple but subtle drum beat called out to him, reached over to him with a beckoning finger, and then suddenly struck him, brutally, full in the chest. Out of that noisy crowd came that drum beat, rising clear from their midst, and reaching out to him and knocking at his chest. Oh, exquisite was the pain of it, tonic like the keen stab of a knife upon a dull ache. Without knowing why, he heaved a great sign and slowly let himself roll over on the ground. A great nausea overcame him. He felt that he was about to vomit, and he did vomit, but what he brought forth was only noise. He squirmed upon the ground, expelling the strangest sounds that ever were heard on earth. He was aware that people had come running over from the bower and were surrounding and staring at him. But he did not mind. His body continued to twitch and his mouth to pour forth a cataract of words and sentences, not merely in his native African language, not only in Creole, but in unknown tongues: ‘Eh! Eh! Bomba! Heu! Heu! Canga Bafio Te!’ His reputation was made now that he had been possessed by a spirit. He began to learn the names of the innumerable spirits and the many ways that a long line of priests and sorcerers had discovered for seducing these spirits into obeying the wishes of man. And he remembered Macandal, the one-armed sorcerer that had been burnt with two of his accomplices when he had landed. The one who had poisoned many of the whites. He realized that Macandal had sang the same song of death to the whites that he had sang on the night of his possession. “ –Guy Endore

Endore describes an encounter between Babouk and a Catholic priest in which the priest preaches Christianity, telling the slaves about the promise of heaven after death if they would just be good. If they would just love their fellow men, black and white, obey their superiors, work honestly, and not be vindictive. If they would just refrain from stealing from the garden, chicken flock, or orchards of their masters. If they would but learn to suffer as Christ showed them how to do and to turn the other cheek when accosted. The priest discovers Babouk is wearing a small serpent on a string around his neck that has been carved of wood and beseeches Babouk to give it up, for it is an idol. In response, Babouk breaks the serpent and fastens the lesser half across the greater, and asserts that he is now wearing a cross. Through such symbolism, Endore reflects how Catholicism is loosely integrated into the voodoo of the blacks. Endore emphasizes how, due to prejudice, the blacks were not allowed to enter the Catholic Church and the priest just came out onto the yard and spoke briefly to the blacks, after the whites had concluded their service.

Such syncretic religiosity is exemplified by Babouks fusion of the story of Cain and Able in which he asserts that God had a huge plantation called Paradise that naturally gave forth all sorts of luscious produce and needed no workers. But one day God sat on the porch of his plantation house and thought it would be nice to have some men to consume all the fruit that was going to waste from the productiveness of his plantation. So God made Adam, who was white. But then the Devil came and took some mud and made another man, like Adam, that was also white. But God was upset with the devil because the men were so alike and couldn’t be differentiated, so he painted the Devil’s man black. The Devil was angry at this and so he stalked away, but the black man followed him. The Devil told the black man not to follow him, but the black man didn’t know what else to do so he continued to follow the devil. But the devil told the black man to go away because he didn’t like him because he was black. The black man didn’t know what to do since God had banished him black. Because the black man delayed, the devil struck him down so that he fell on his face and squashed his nose and his lips swelled up. But then the devil felt sorry for him and made him a black woman to cheer him up. But the white man was jealous of the woman and stole her away and that’s how mulattoes came to be...

And on and on go the infusions of the Biblical stories with additions and corruptions intended to relate them more directly to the plight of the slaves. The people laughed heartily at Babouk’s story, with the knowledge that a mulatto child was unwlling to recognize its Negro slave mother, while its white father would not recognize it, such that most often the mulatto stood fatherless and motherless.

Endore relates the visit of a French Nobleman to Haiti in which he observed young black lads fanning the guests, slaves wetting down the canvas curtains to provide additional coolness, and young black girls stroking the soles of their mistresses’ feet. All this amidst the stiff mincing gestures of the whites, their lofty air of disinterest, their nonchalant show of elegance, and their derogatory mannerisms veiled as courtesy. The French guest finally remarked that he could not heartily approve this system of human servitude. To which, the planter replied:

“Human servitude!” the planter exclaimed, so aroused that the veins on his temples stood out. “Human servitude indeed! And what do you say of the workers I have seen in France? Those day laborers who can scarcely earn enough to add garlic to their diet of bread. Whose wives must give birth on the wayside. Whose children must walk barefoot in the snow. Who are so miserable that they call down blessings on the judge who condemns them to lifelong slavery in the galleys of Toulon! Have you seen any such misery here?” –Guy Endore

With such a response Endore clearly illuminates for the reader the congruence between the afflicted in France, as depicted in Victor Hugo’s amazing novel Les Miserables, and the African slave. French liberals hypocritically accused the Haitian planters, while sitting comfortably on the backs of the French poor, failing to recognize the suffering in their very midst.

CONTINUED IN COMMENT SECTION DIRECTLY BELOW

[Hillary · Rating 5 out of 5]

A graphic, honest, highly-politicized (naturally) slave narrative set in West Africa and later Haiti, based in part on actual events, sprinkled with sarcastic and snide remarks condemning those who continue to foster the same prejudices in the author's time (1930s). Violent and disturbing but very well-done and worth the read. Too bad no one seems to know it exists.

[Naeem · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to understand the Haitian revolution from the inside, read this extraordinary slave narrative.

Avoid the introduction by Jamaica Kincaid until you have finished the novel and the afterword by Michel Rolph-Trouillot.

What amazes here is deft story telling -- steeped in three years of research; his experiments with form; and his ability to hone in on the wound. I have read no other book like this.

Compare to the first 50 pages of C.L.R. James's The Black Jacobins.

[Simon B · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's remarkable that a white New Yorker wrote this dramatic paean to the Haitian Revolution in 1934. It's a neglected classic of committed literature. After surviving the middle passage to Haiti, young Mandingo man Babouk is enslaved on a sugar plantation & eventually leads a failed uprising against the white slaveowners. The slaveowners respond with depraved brutality. Endore's novel is an overt piece of artistic social commentary and he disdains to conceal his views. I've read better novels, but few have better depicted the self-delusions of oppressors or the convulsive and violent dignity of the oppressed who choose to rebel.

"Our historians, who always shout reign of terror when a few rich people are being killed and see nothing much worthy of comment when poor people are slaughtered by the thousands in the miseries of peace cry out unanimously: the pen cannot describe the cruelty of these savages!

"My pen is not so delicate; it can say, and it will never cease to say: not over a thousand or so of whites killed in this reign of terror, while the legal and protected slave trade killed over a hundred thousand Negros a year. Buried its victims in Africa and America and strewed them over the Atlantic Ocean."

[Eugene Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fictional story of a leader of the 1791 revolt of the slaves in Santo Domingo, on the island of Hispanola, which resulted in the first Black republic, Haiti. It begins in Africa, and details the horrors of the Middle Passage across the Atlantic to the French colony in the Caribbean, and the workings of colonial slave economy. The Haitian Revolution is too little know in the US, since news of it was kept as much as possible from the American slave population..

[James Bunnelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

BABOUK is one of the most important social justice novels written by a white person in the 20th century. Its author, Guy Endore, believed in Socialism, was a champion of the weak, and merged his activism with his art. In both THE WEREWOLF OF PARIS (1933) and BABOUK (1934), he used genre to address racism and capitalist violence. This makes him unpopular, then and now, because the Academy, despite its leftist veneer, hates activism and activist writers. So BABOUK vanished. It continues to vanish. In the wake of BLM and white cops killing black people for selling loose cigarettes, I reread it again. Nothing has changed. Nits still turn into lice.