Did You Know?
Over One Hundred Facts about Haiti and Her Children
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North America’s First Slave Revolt: According to several authors, the first successful slave revolt to occur in North America was in 1526 on the San Miguel settlement near Pee Dee River (or Pedee River), in South Carolina. This colony was started by the Spaniard Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, who was among the first to bring Negroes to the present confines of the United States. He was accompanied by 500 Spaniards and 100 African slaves from Haiti. This doomed colony was named San Miguel de Gualdape and was founded in the summer of 1526. Within a few months, half of the members of the Spanish population died from malaria. Included in this death total was Ayllon himself, who died on St. Luke’s day, October 18 of that year. Historian and political activist Herbert Aptheker states, “Internal dissension arose, and the Indians grew increasingly suspicious and hostile.” The black population also revolted, setting fires to buildings before fleeing; on November 1526 they went to live with the native Indian population. African American professor and civil rights supporter R. R. Wright wrote, “Thus Hayti, the place where Negro slaves were first introduced into the New World, was strangely enough the first to manifest an awful retribution against human slavery.” The 150 remaining Spaniards fled back to Haiti, leaving the blacks, after the Indians, as the first permanent inhabitants of what was to be the United States. Blacks found their own settlement in present day Eastern United States.
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About the Book
Did You Know?—Over One Hundred Facts about Haiti and Her Children looks in detail at a land and its people, uncovering the history, culture, challenges, and achievements of a country often stereotyped as deeply impoverished and bereft of any nobility of purpose. Tapping into her expertise in research and her familiarity with the wealth of resources residing in libraries, Marjorie Charlot, a supervisor and instructor at academic libraries, has gathered, curated, and prepared a topically organized collection of vignettes depicting Haiti and her children.
Did You Know? presents these vignettes in chapters organized according to themes, including such topics as the Africans, art and culture, civil rights, great families, inventors, the military, pilots, religion, and science.
Did You Know?—Over One Hundred Facts about Haiti and Her Children offers its guidance to an abundance of information about the Haitian people and their homeland. If you claim a place for Haiti in your own history, if you find yourself intrigued by the history of Haiti, or if you simply are one of those people with a deep hunger to learn more about the world, then Did You Know? will provide you with an approachable and informative introduction to Haiti and her children.
About the Author
Marjorie Charlot, a librarian of Haitian descent, has earned advanced degrees in architecture technology, library information science, and urban studies. She has worked in New York libraries for more than two decades; she continues to supervise and instruct at academic libraries.