HSY2601 Assignment 1 Semester 1 2023 (763986)

Description of the French Part of the Island of Saint-Domingue - -Mederic-Louis-Elie Moreau de Saint-Mery Context: 1797. White colonist but not a plantation owner. Portrays the kinds of people living in Saint-Domingue at the end of the eighteenth century. Appears to have had an affranchi mistress. Content: Appreciates Voudou religion but also makes racist comments. Says he thinks the blacks are capable of running a country. Overdoes the Voudous and says it controls them too much. Significance: Shows how alien the blacks' religion was to the white and how they were afraid of it because it was different. Also gives us an idea of how Voudou relationship to the Enlightenment, similar when philosophes got together but yet different because the Enlightenment was about criticizing fanaticism.