Pompée Valentin Vastey
Pompée Valentin Vastey (1781[1] - 1820), or Pompée Valentin, Baron de Vastey, was a Haitian writer, educator, and politician. Vastey was what people at the time called a "mulatto," because he was born to a white French father and a Haitian mother. He served as secretary to King Henri Christophe and tutor to Christophe's son, Victor Henri. Vastey also claimed to have fought in Toussaint’s army and is said to have been the second cousin of the French novelist and playwright Alexandre Dumas (Daut 56; see also, Griggs 181). Vastey is best known for his essays on the history and contemporary circumstances of Haiti.
Selected works
- Le Système Colonial Dévoilé (1814)
- Notes à M. le Baron de V. P. Malouet... en réfutation du 4ème volume de son ouvrage, intitulé: Collection de mémoires sur les colonies, et particulièrement sur Saint-Domingue (1814)
- Le Cri de la Patrie, ou Les intérêts de tous les Haytiens (1815)
- Le Cri de la Conscience, ou Réponse à un écrit, imprimé au Port-au-Prince, intitulé: Le peuple de la République d’Hayti, à Messieurs Vastey et Limonade (1815)
- Réflexions adressées aux Haïtiens de partie de l'Ouest et du Sud sur l’horrible assassinat du Général Delvare... (1816)
- Réflexions sur une lettre de Mazères : ex-colon français, adressée à M. J.C.L. Sismonde de Sismondi, sur les noirs et les blancs, la civilisation de l'Afrique, le royaume d'Hayti, etc. (English: Reflexions on the Blacks and Whites: Remarks upon a Letter Addressed by M. Mazères, a French Ex-Colonist, to J. C. L. Sismonde de Sismondi), (1816)
- Réflexions Politiques sur quelques Ouvrages et Journaux Français Concernant Haïti (English: Political Remarks upon Certain French Publications and Journals Concerning Haiti), 1817
- Essai sur les Causes de la Révolution et des Guerres Civiles en Haïti (English: An Essay on the Causes of the Revolution and Civil Wars of Haiti), 1819
Notes
- ↑ Vastey stated that he was born in 1781 in Ennery, Haiti in a letter that he wrote to the celebrated British abolitionist Thomas Clarkson dated from Sans Souci, November 29, 1819. See Griggs 179.
Bibliography
- Quevilly, Laurent. Le Baron de Vastey, (Books on Demand, 2014, isbn 978-2-322-03544-1.) Présentation en ligne= http://www.bod.fr/index.php?id=1786&objk_id=1236505.
- Chris Bongie, The colonial system unveiled, édition critique du Système colonial dévoilé traduit en anglais, Liverpool University Press, 2014.
- Schutt-Ainé, Patricia; Staff of Librairie Au Service de la Culture (1994). Haiti: A Basic Reference Book. Miami, Florida: Librairie Au Service de la Culture. p. 90. ISBN 0-9638599-0-0.
- Griggs, Earl Leslie and Thomas Prator. Henry Christophe and Thomas Clarkson: A Correspondence (Berkeley : U of California P, 1952).
- Bongie, Chris. “‘Monotonies of History’: Baron de Vastey and the Mulatto Legend of Derek Walcott’s The Haitian Trilogy.” Yale French Studies 107 (2005): 70-107.
- Daut, Marlene. "Un-Silencing the past: Boisrond-Tonnerre, Vastey, and the Re-Writing of the Haitian Revolution." South Atlantic Review 74.1 (2009): 35-64.
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