Romaine-la-Prophétesse: Difference between revisions

'''Romaine-la-Prophétesse''' ("Romaine the Prophetess") was born around 1750 in the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo and [[Sexes#Assigned_male_at_birth|assigned male at birth]].<ref>Terry Rey, ''The Priest and the Prophetess: Abbé Ouvière, Romaine Rivière, and the Revolutionary Atlantic World'' (2017, ISBN 978-0190625849), pp. 27-28, 48 (discussing the lack of clarity over whether ''Romain(e) Rivière'', given in French records, is Romaine's exact birth name or only a gallicization of ''Román Rivera''; it is also unclear whether the feminine spelling ''Romaine'' or the masculine ''Romain'' is original), 50-51, 232</ref><ref name="Heywood">Terry Rey, "Kongolese Catholic Influences on Haitian Popular Catholicism", in Linda M. Heywood (editor), ''Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora'' (2002), pp. 270-271</ref> Romaine moved to the French colony of Saint-Domingue and became a free black coffee plantation owner and an influential figure there.<ref>Rey (2017), pp. 30, 137</ref>

In 1791, as the Haitian Revolution began, Romaine and wife Marie-Roze Adam<ref name="Taber">Robert D. Taber, ''[//ageofrevolutions.com/2016/01/06/the-mystery-of-marie-rose-family-politics-and-the-origins-of-the-haitian-revolution/ The Mystery of Marie Rose: Family, Politics, and the Origins of the Haitian Revolution]'', January 6, 2016</ref> gathered supporters at their plantation (Trou Coffy) to defend it from armed whites nearby,<ref>Rey (2017), pp. 27-31</ref> and led an uprising of thousands of slaves, who took weapons and supplies from and sometimes burned plantations and businesses across southern Haiti, and freed other slaves there.<ref>Rey (2017), pp. 32-35, 44, 48-49</ref> At the same time, Romaine began to identify as a prophetess,<ref name="Heywood"/><ref name="Rey-2014-119">Terry Rey, ''Bourdieu on Religion: Imposing Faith and Legitimacy'' (2014, Routledge, {{ISBN|9781317490883}}), pp. 119-120</ref> dressed like a woman,<ref name="Albanese"/><ref>Maria Cristina Fumagalli, ''On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic'' (2015), p. 111</ref><ref>Maria Cristina Fumagalli et al. (eds.), ''The Cross-Dressed Caribbean: Writing, Politics, Sexualities'' (2014), p. 11</ref> and spoke of being possessed by a female spirit,<ref name="Heywood"/><ref name="Popkin-51">Jeremy D. Popkin, ''A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution'' (2011), p. 51</ref> but also reportedly identified as a godson of the Virgin Mary,<ref>Rey (2017), pp. 58-59</ref> intended (according to one critic) to become "king of Saint-Domingue",<ref name="Fick 1990 128">Carolyn E. Fick, ''The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below'' (1990), p. 128</ref> and reportedly used masculine pronouns in self-references in dictated letters. Romaine has therefore been interpreted as perhaps [[genderfluid]]<ref name="R52">Rey (2017), pp. 52-53</ref> or [[transgender]],<ref name="R52"/><ref name="Albanese">Mary Grace Albanese, "Unraveling the Blood Line: Pauline Hopkins's Haitian Genealogies", in ''J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists'', volume 7, number 2, Fall 2019, p. 234</ref> or might have been [[bigender]].

For a time, Romaine controlled much of the countryside of southern [[Haiti]], and two of its main cities, Léogâne and Jacmel.<ref>Rey (2017), pp. 14, 30, 39-43, 52, 137, 152</ref><ref name="Palmer">Colin A. Palmer, ''Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History'' (2006), p. 1972</ref><ref name="Middell">Matthias Middell, Megan Maruschke, ''The French Revolution as a Moment of Respatialization'' (2019), p. 71</ref><ref name="Fick 1990 128"/> In 1792, however, a coalition of whites and conservative free blacks<ref>Rey (2017), p. 137</ref><ref name="Popkin-51"/> and French forces defeated the Trou Coffy uprising, although Romaine escaped capture and disappeared from history.<ref>Rey (2017), p. 137, 157-159</ref> Romaine-la-Prophétesse appears in Victor Hugo's novel ''Bug-Jargal'' (as a man), and Mayra Montero's fiction ''In the Palm of Darkness'' (as a woman).<ref>Rey (2017), p. 219</ref><ref>Persephone Braham, ''From Amazons to Zombies: Monsters in Latin America'' (2015), p. 160</ref>

* [http://nonbinaryq.blogspot.com/2020/06/romaine.html "Romaine-la-Prophétesse and Marie-Roze: the black trans woman and her wife who led the early Haitian Revolution"]