5.0 CONCLUSION
The silencing of Haiti has affected the circulation, reception, and critical consideration ofHaiti’s earliest texts, though not, it is clear, because Haitians were silent. As this study has
demonstrated, several Haitian political theorists, historians, and journalists called for the
expository and literary writing which was essential, many Haitians believed, in constituting
national identity and countering Western racist discourse. Although Haitian writers of all genres
inevitably do their own silencing, a point which Michel-Rolph Trouillot readily points out, this
does not diminish the need to take account of Haiti’s first century of literature. Haitian poets
write in light of pressing national concerns, remaining keenly aware of the problems plaguing
Haiti’s entry into the world of modern nation-states. In the 1830s, mulatto Haitian poets portray
black revolutionary leaders. The journalists who published their poetry contemplate the elitism
inherent in writing and the influence French literature should have in the emergence of a modern
Haitian poetry. In the mid to late nineteenth century, Haiti’s national bard Oswald Durand
reveals the pervasive social antagonisms in Haiti as on-going vestiges of colonial power. He
navigates many local and universal themes and opens interrogations into how to reconcile ideas
of racial equality with those of national difference. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, Massillon
Coicou’s fervent patriotism confronts the knowledge of internal corruption, encroaching
imperialism, and Haiti’s failures to sustain its own revolutionary ambitions.