Item
Agent
Romaine Rivière (1750-1792)
- Name
- Romaine Rivière (1750-1792)
- Date of Birth
- 1750
- Date of Death
- 1792
- State Assigned Gender
- Male
- Hometown or Region
- Saint-Domingue
- Freedom Status
- Free
- Occupation
- Plantation Owner
- Biography
- Romaine Rivière was born around 1750 on the Spanish side of Hispaniola, Santo Domingo. He moved to the French side (Saint-Domingue) and purchased around 32 acres of land in 1784, and in 1785 he married his wife, Marie Roze Adam. His plantation, Trou-Coffy, was in a difficult to access valley, becoming a perfect base camp for the insurgency he would lead starting in 1791. Rivière, motivated by interpersonal conflicts with his neighbors, as well as divine guidance from the Virgin Mary, rallied thousands of free and enslaved black folks to conquer the neighboring Jacmel and Léogâne. In addition to adopting a feminine title, “Romaine-la-Prophétesse,” Rivière also “adorned [himself] with ribbons, rosaries, and a cross[,]” suggesting an allusion to the “rather traditional [male gender inversion for spiritual purposes] in eighteenth-century Africana religious culture”. Rivière expressed this femininity as an indication of devotion to the Virgin Mary. In March of 1792, after the conquering of Jacmel and Léogâne, Romaine-la-Prophétesse disappeared from the record, never to be seen again.
- Revolution Observed
- Romaine Rivière was a leader in the early revolts of the Haitian Revolution, but his motivations were somewhat different than most other revolutionaries. While he opposed slavery generally, what really drove him was tension with his neighbor and more importantly his feeling “inspired by the Virgin Mary to take up arms to defend his people, king, and Church” . More broadly, it is known that the Haitian Revolution was very violent, and Romaine-la-Prophétesse certainly was part of that narrative, with Trou-Coffy being “the most feared and destructive of the militant camps” in the West Province . But even though Rivière had more nuanced and spiritual motivations, his conquering of Jacmel and Léogâne were integral wins for the people of Haiti and he was greatly feared by the colonial leaders.
- Student Researcher
- Benjamin Prince
- Connected Historical Actor(s)
- Felix Pascalis Ouvière (Abbe Ouvière),
- Source(s)
-
David Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies (Indiana University Press, 2002).
Julius S. Scott. The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution (Verso Books, 2018).
Kate Ramsey, The Spirits and the Law: Vodou and Power in Haiti (University of Chicago Press, 2011).
Kathleen Brown, “‘Changed… Into the Fashion of Man’: The Politics of Sexual Difference in a Seventeenth-Century Anglo-American Settlement.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 6, no. 2 (October 1995): 171-193. Keila Grinberg and Sue Peabody, Slavery, Freedom, and the Law in the Atlantic World (Bedford/ St. Martins, 2007).
Michael A. Gomez. Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora (Cambridge University Press, 2005). Patricia Schutt-Ainé, ed., Haiti: A Basic Reference Book, (Librairie Au Service de la Culture, 1994).
Terry Rey, The Priest and the Prophetesse: Abbé Ouvière, Romaine Rivière, and the Revolutionary Atlantic World (Oxford Scholarship Online, 2017).
Terry Rey, “Vodou Genesis: Africans and the Making of a National Religion in Saint Domingue” In Spirit Service: Vodún and Vodou in the African Atlantic World, ed. Eric J. Montgomery, Timothy R. Landry, Christian N. Vannier (Indiana University Press, 2022) 17-39.
Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haiti, (impr. J. Courtois [Port-au-Prince], 1847).
Wim Klooster, Revolutions in the Atlantic World: A Comparative History (NYU Press, 2006 - Click here to review material history sources connected to Romaine Rivière