Maroons, buccaneers, and the legend of Trou Forban

ABSTRACT Throughout Atlantic modernity, maroon and buccaneer encounters have generated long-lasting legacies that remain largely unexplored. In this essay I trace how these encounters included various forms of mutual recognition among Saint-Domingue’s black and white clandestine people. This history of mutual recognition sheds fresh light on the cultural and ideological context informing the role maroon societies were playing in fomenting slave insurrection in the events leading up to the Haitian Revolution. I also argue that it contributed to the development of Haiti’s postcolonial identity, folklore, politics, and popular theater. My main sources are colonial records, place names, Vodou mythology, and Haitian intellectual and literary history. I focus on the emergence of zombie and pirate lore as it became one of the most enduring legacies of mutual maroon and buccaneer recognition in Haiti and the Atlantic world.