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Makandal  

Paulette Poujol-Oriol

Though little is known about Makandal's early life and much of the information about him is shrouded in myth, this famous maroon has become a legendary figure. Most prominent historians do not mention him, but he has become a symbol of Haitian national identity, and all schoolchildren in Haiti learn about his life.

Makandal is said to have come to the French-ruled colony of Saint Domingue (now Haiti) around 1750. Slave traders had bought him on the coast of Guinea, in Africa, and he was taken to the colony, where he worked as a field hand.

According to accounts of his life, Makandal did not submit to slavery for very long. He soon escaped to the woods, becoming a maroon a fugitive slave Prizes were offered for his capture but he escaped all ambushes It is also said that Makandal was a learned man that he ...

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Randolph, Paschal Beverly  

John Patrick Deveney

visionary, spiritualist, Rosicrucian, sex magician, reformer, teacher, and novelist, was born to Flora Clark, a single mother, and grew up in the notorious Five Points section of New York City. His mother, he later claimed, was a descendent of the queen of Madagascar, and his father a scion of the Randolph family of Virginia, signers of the Declaration of Independence and descendants of Pocahontas, but the truth was probably more prosaic. His father was either William Randon or William B. Randolph, neither scions of the Randolphs nor married to his mother. When circumstances demanded it and when it suited his purposes, Randolph denied that “a drop of continental African, or pure negro blood” ran in his veins—“not that it were a disgrace,” he added (Randolph, Curious Life 4 18 At the same time however when he was what he called ...