Dutty Boukman, leader of the Bois-Caïman ceremony, died 235 years ago

235 years ago, on November 7, 1791, Dutty Boukman fell in battle at the head of his troops. A few months earlier, he had led the Bois-Caïman ceremony, the starting point of the great uprising of the enslaved people of the North.

A houngan from the Northern plain

Originally from Senegambia, he was captured, sold and taken to the Caribbean, then to Saint-Domingue. Enslaved on the Turpin plantation in the Northern plain, he was a houngan, a Vodou priest. Tall and very strong, he was made a commandeur, then coachman by his master.

The night of Bois-Caïman

On the night of August 14, 1791, at Bois-Caïman, on the Lenormand de Mézy plantation, he gathered many enslaved people for a ceremony, alongside the mambo Cécile Fatiman. There he gave the signal for a general revolt, which broke out on the night of August 22. For about ten days, the Northern plain was set ablaze: 161 sugar mills and 1,200 coffee plantations were burned.

A head displayed at Le Cap

Boukman led his men all the way to the gates of Cap-Français before the colonial authorities struck back. He died in the fighting, and his head was displayed at Le Cap, because the enslaved believed him invulnerable. The revolt was not crushed for all that: Jean-François, Biassou, and then Toussaint and Jean-Jacques Dessalines took over.