François Mackandal, (died 1758), was an early Haïtian Maroon leader in the revolt against the French plantation owners, slave owners, and slave-drivers. He was a African Haitian vodou priest, or houngan, enslaved on Haiti, who escaped from a plantation, and banded with Marows in remote, mountain wilderness communities. The "Marow", or Maroons, were Amerindians and enslaved blacks. The native people of Haiti, and the island of Hispanola, were Taíno-Arawak people, or Taínos, or Kiskeyaa, a seafaring branch of the South American Amerindians, the Arawaks. The Spanish colonized the island first, and enslaved the Taínos. Natives died from slave labor, refusal to be enslaved, and a lack of immunity to newly introduced diseases. The Taino became extinct, except for those who evaded capture, fled to the mountains and established independent settlements. Escaping enslaved Africans banded with surviving Tainos, and other Africans, from various tribes who spoke multiple languages. Eventually, some Ameridians and Africans intermarried, and were called Zambos or douglas. "Maroons" employed Native American techniques and practices learned in Africa to hunt, gather and grow food.

Mackandal lost his left arm in a farming accident, when it was caught in a sugarcane press and crushed between the rollers. He disappeared from the farm and became a charismatic guerilla leader who united the different Maroon bands and created a network of secret organizations connected with slaves still on plantations. He led Maroons to raid plantations at night, torch property, and kill the owners. Mackandal created poisons from island herbs. He distributed the poison to slaves, who added it to the meals and refreshments they served the French plantation owners and planters. ^[1] The French feared that Mackandal would drive all whites from the colony through the fear of being poisoned. Mackandal was betrayed by an ally who was tortured into submission. He was captured and burned alive in 1758 in the public square of Cap-Français, now Cap-Haïtien. It is estimated that François Mackandal and his followers killed over 6 000 white people through poisoning, and raids on the plantations in six years of rebellion. ^[2][3][4]

Mackandal in popular culture

One of the most well-known portraits of Mackandal is that in Alejo Carpentier's magical realist novel, The Kingdom of This World.

A fictionalized version of Mackandal also appears in Nalo Hopkinson's novel, The Salt Roads

See also

• Haitian Revolution

Footnotes

External links

• The Louverture Project: François Mackandal