Abstract
The book begins by presenting evidence of the links between theatre-making and ‘slave ownership’ in colonial Saint-Domingue. Key information about the repertoire, audiences and performers of the public theatre traditions of eighteenth-century Saint-Domingue is provided, and some of the benefits and limitations of the available sources, notably local newspapers, are explored. Key information about the enslaved population of Saint-Domingue is presented in the context of the particular challenges posed by the lack of personal testimony from those people. The principal strategies for achieving the book’s goal of writing enslaved people back into the story of public theatre in Saint-Domingue are outlined, and summaries of each chapter are given.
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Notes
- 1.
For more on the free people of colour, see Garrigus (2006) and Rogers (1999).
- 2.
I am grateful to Trevor Burnard for sending me an electronic copy of his book when I was unable to source one myself.
- 3.
For more on the methodological challenges of researching colonial-era Caribbean theatre, see Prest (2023).
- 4.
For Hartman, this is part of the creation of ‘critical fabulation’—something that narrates the impossibility of the task at the same time that it seeks to accomplish that task (Hartman 2008, 11–13).
- 5.
Prior to the 1760s, there were various private amateur performances, and a court decision from 7 March 1740 requires an acting troupe in Le Cap, led by two actors called Tancein and Desmarets, to inform the colonial authorities of any permissions they may receive to perform (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1784–1790, III, 592). This is clear evidence of some formal theatrical activity before the newspaper records began. CÉSAR, following Parfaict, records an actor called Desmarets, who debuted the role of Crispin in Regnard’s Le Légataire universel in 1741. Fuchs also records a Desmarets who debuted unsuccessfully at the Comédie-Française in 1741 and who performed in Mannheim with his wife between 1750 and 1754 (Fuchs 1944, 60). I have been unable to find anyone with a name like Tancein.
- 6.
For details of the changes that AA underwent in the course of its history, see Menier and Debien (1949).
- 7.
For more on the complex history of these new newspapers, see Menier and Debien (1949) and Popkin (2018).
- 8.
I am grateful to Bernard Camier for sending me photographs of the diaries. Camier believes the diarist to be the Martinican-born lawyer, Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry (1750–1819) (Camier 2021).
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Prest, J. (2023). Introduction. In: Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22691-5_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22691-5_1
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