Language Strategy

Language was a terrain of power in Saint-Domingue. French was the language of law, commerce, and colonial administration; Kreyòl was the shared tongue that crossed ethnic divisions among the enslaved; West African languages survived in ceremony, song, and maroon communities. Revolutionary leaders used language strategically — Boukman's reported prayer at Bois Caïman drew on both Kreyòl and African religious tradition; written proclamations to France invoked the language of French rights; oral networks operated in codes that colonial authorities could not always decode.