Redrawing the Colour Line: Gender and the Social Construction of race in Pre-Evolutionary in Haiti

TitleRedrawing the Colour Line: Gender and the Social Construction of race in Pre-Evolutionary in Haiti
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication1996
AuthorsGarrigus, John D.
JournalJournal of Caribbean History
Volume30
Issue1
Pagination28-50
Date Published1996
Abstract

This article examines the social and political construction of race in French colonial Saint-Domingue. After 1763 white elites redefined the category “free coloured” using negative images of femininity rooted in French political discourse. This engendering of racial stereotypes solidified a racial hierarchy that whites found alarmingly fluid. Planters’ councils and the governors they opposed evoked images of sexually powerful women and effeminized men to explain colonial despotism and disorder. In the late 1780s, however, free men of colour deliberately asserted their civic virtue and virility, challenging these stereotypes and eventually destroying the colonial racial hierarchy.

URLhttp://search.proquest.com/openview/1284896bcca73c4649db07833a8066cd/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1817061
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