Daut shared those remarks after being awarded the 2025 Haitian Studies Association Book Prize for her biographical tome “The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe.”
The subject of Daut’s award-winning book, King Henry Christophe, was a leading figure in the country’s revolutionary war against France. After a presidency that lasted from 1807-1811, Christophe would go on to rule as a monarch in Haiti from 1811-1820. The author expressed the hope that his life will inspire members of the Haitian diaspora. The Haiti of the immediate post-colonial era, she admits, can often feel a world away from the island nation often seen on TV but offers a window into what vision and leadership can achieve.
“He tried to create this thriving culture of arts and music and education, hospitals, schools, roads. He was really trying to build something and doing it in a world that was completely hostile to him,” she said of Christophe. “I hope that it’s inspiring to see stories of Haitians who accomplished a lot.”
Citing the challenges faced by the Haitian community in Springfield following rumors spread about them during the 2024 electoral campaign of then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump, Daut believes the sensationalism surrounding claims Haitians were “eating cats and dogs” is similar to things said about the island nation during Christophe’s own time.
“Unfortunately, I think it’s part of the continuous timeline because during the revolution there were similar things that were said about what Haitians were eating,” Daut said. “There were, especially during the U.S. occupation, writers who became famous by coming back from Haiti and telling sensational tales about Haitians doing things to animals.”
On Monday, a federal district judge issued a ruling that blocks the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from terminating Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. Despite this ruling, Haitians still face an uncertain future in Ohio and the rest of the country.
Daut shared how what has happened to Haitians in Springfield has impacts far beyond Ohio.
“What was really sad to me was how mainstream that story became,” Daut said of the rhetoric around Haitians eating animals. “My kids heard about it in school. Other kids who knew that their mom is Haitian, that their grandma is Haitian, repeated it. And we had to actually call the vice principal and say, ‘This is not ok.’”
The author stated that attacks on Haitian immigrant communities are driven by a desire to keep them from being successful.
“That’s why it’s so upsetting to hear the stories that were coming out of Springfield and to see that part of the backlash and demonization is related to that success,” she said.
The author cited Haitian stereotypes as being one reason many find the Kingdom of Haiti so difficult to understand.
“I have to teach with a lot of visuals and give talks with a lot of visuals, like they don’t imagine the opulence and wealth - which is not necessarily a good thing - the carriages, the jewels, the dresses imported from England. It’s like they have a really hard time imagining it,” she said of her students. “We get things like ‘Bridgerton’ which seem like fantasy because it’s very hard for people to imagine Black people in general, but especially Haitians in these positions of power and success and prosperity that it seems like it must be an invention or fantasy of some sort.”
Shedding light on the past
Part of Daut’s work has allowed her to shed light on lesser-known episodes in Haiti’s history. That includes a 12-year-old Christophe’s participation, as one of many Haitian soldiers in a French expeditionary force, in the Battle of Savannah during the American Revolutionary War. With monuments in the Georgian city bearing Christophe’s name, his journey from slave to king is one the author believes deserves more attention.
With “The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe,” Daut finds herself once again in the literary spotlight. Daut, a Notre Dame graduate, first won the prize in 2019 for her book “Baron de Vastey and the Origins of Black Atlantic Humanism.” She has been a professor of French and Black studies at Yale University since 2022.
“To win an award from people who actually know the field so deeply, so they will know if you’re making a contribution, that is what feels really meaningful to me about it,” Daut said. “I actually tell my students today you don’t want to spend your life writing about things you don’t want to write about. So just be passionate about it, do your due diligence, and what will happen will happen after that. … I think that it’s a story that I hope really connects to people because while they can’t necessarily understand what it’s like to fight in a revolution or war they can understand the desire to be free.”
As fears grow among Haitians in the states and abroad, Daut believes Haiti’s revolutionary struggle and its aftermath offers people plenty of reasons to be hopeful.
“I always say I will never give up hope on Haiti because if the Haitian revolutionaries can do what they did when literally Napoleon’s army is saying, ‘We’re going to kill every last one of you, every male above the age of 12’ - if they can overcome that, defeat one of the fiercest armies in the world, and then still have the presence of mind to say we want to build a free nation amid trauma we can’t even imagine then I would say I will never lose hope for Haiti. Never.”
Learn more about Daut’s work by visiting marlenedaut.com.
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