The Three Phases of Sans-Souci: An Architecture of Remembering and Forgetting in the Kingdom of Hayti

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Crafting Archaeological Practice in Africa and Beyond: Celebrating the Contributions of Ann B. Stahl to Global Archaeology" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Following three centuries of colonial rule, the Haitian Revolution ushered a period of political change, one in which ex-slaves, maroons, and free hommes de couleur united to forge new political institutions on the island of Saint Domingue. Henry Christophe was declared King Henry I of the Kingdom of Hayti in 1811. Christophe was an avid builder, constructing royal palaces and fortresses and reclaiming plantations as rural seats of power. The largest palace was Sans-Souci in Milot, a 13 ha neoclassical complex remembered as one of the most magnificent edifices of the West Indies. Michel Rolphe Trouillot famously argued that the construction of Sans-Souci was a political act designed to silence the memory of a rival general of the same name. Recent excavations by the Milot Archaeological Project, however, have revealed the presence of at least three major construction phases, and documented clear continuities in the architectural plan extending back to the colonial period. I argue that these three phases of building, or architectonic mentions and silences, were intended both to “remember” and “forget” various classical, West African, and colonial pasts, providing a new perspective on how monumental architecture was used to shape public consciousness in the nascent Kingdom of Hayti.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Crafting Archaeological Practice in Africa and Beyond: Celebrating the Contributions of Ann B. Stahl to Global Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41696.0