KRIK? KRAK! Background Knowledge

Edwidge Danticat

• Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian–American novelist and short story writer
• Her family left Haiti without her and her brother 
• Left Haiti for the US as a teenager and found her family
• When to Barnar and Brown, studied French and creative writing, her masters theis were her first book 'Breathe, Eyes, Memory' which told the story of a girl from Haiti

History of Haiti

• Christopher Columbus arrived in Haiti and claimed the land as 'little Spain'
• Haiti becomes a conoly of France with slavery 
• 1804 was the end of the Revolution and Haiti became an independent nation 
• 1915 US invades Haiti
• 1934 US withdrawls troops but kept fiscal control
• Dictatorship until 1990 when the first free election was held
• Current- vilolence from gangs and politics, supported by the President

Toussaint L'Ouverture

- Best known leader of the Haitian revolution, military and political

Boukman

- Another leader of the Revolution, black enslaved man who fought early in the war

1937, Dominican Massacre

President Rafael Trujillo wanted the Domican Republic to be very 'pure' and white so he gave the black Haitians time to leave and all those who didn't/couldn't were killed in a giant gencidal attack

Voodoo religion-  Orginated in African and the Caribbean, thought to be a religious mix of Catholic,  African and Native American trandtions and practices, no scripture or word authority, it is practiced around the world but not really recognized as an organized religion 

Duvalier (Papa Doc)

- Francois Duvalier was the president of Haiti from 1957-1971. He was elected upon a black nationalist platform and successfully prevented a coup d'etat in 1958 

Tonton Macoute

- a special operations unit created under the dictatorship of Papa Doc under Haitian parliamentary rule, Hatians named the force Tonton Macoute after a creole mythological 'bogeyman' who was known to kidnap children 

Jean Claude Duvalier (Baby Doc)

- Jean-Claude Duvalier, nicknamed “Baby Doc”, was the President of Haiti from 1971 until his overthrow by a popular uprising in 1986.  His father was Papa Doc, he improved US and Haitian relations immensely