"​​​​Creoles and Bossales" by Gérard Barthélemy, Ph.D.

An excerpt from Barthélemy’s Créoles-bossales (2000). Barthélemy’ was a French anthropologist who wrote extensively about Haiti. Below, he observes how ex-slaves born in the Americas were quick to adopt capitalism once Haiti became independent, while bossales, ex-slaves who were born in Africa, were more likely to become peasants and value reciprocity and collectivism.

Among noirs (blacks), we must discern, first, those who were affranchis (freed blacks). They were an important minority who constituted nearly half of the free population and, in the end, took power. Then there were the creole slaves who were born in Saint Domingue. Last there was a third group, bossales, slaves who originated in Africa. Recently transported, these slaves lived the painful experience of [being taken] from their culture of origin.

If we count the slaves born in Africa as a separate category [in addition to the affranchis and the creole slaves], we can say that in reality there were three types of noirs. Since the slave trade had greatly expanded in the fifteen years prior were three types of noirs. Since the slave trade had greatly expanded in the fifteen years prior to the [17]89 revolution, those who were born in Africa constituted an important percentage of the total number of slaves. Moreau de St-Méry estimated two-thirds. This was an exceptional phenomenon that was unique to Haiti[.… E]verywhere else slave populations [… were] noirs who had long been creolized.

These three groups and the bossales phenomenon resulted in a very peculiar national evolution in the next century. Those born in Africa would experience creolization themselves, which would take place outside slavery and thus greatly differentiate them from those creoles who had been slaves. The new creoles would repeatedly be at odds with those who were creolized prior to 1794.