Exhibiting Slavery: The Caribbean Postmodern Novel as Museum

6. Mourning Museums: Diasporic Practices

6 Mourning Museums Diasporic Practices There are public memorials erected in memory of important historical figures that rose up against the plantation system of slavery and gained fame and prominence in their fight for liberty throughout the islands of the Caribbean. These monuments not only commemorate the heroic actions of brave individuals who usually lost their lives in the struggle for freedom, but also serve as public indictments of the racist ideologies that attempted to deny these people their humanity and label their resistance as “unlawful” and “barbaric.” As structures specifically created to mark the end of a person’s life, monuments, sculptures, and mausoleums all belong to the larger category of museums of mourning because they represent a specific moment in time in which a group of people thought that there needed to be a concrete way to physically attest to the fact of a given person’s existence. Statues, monuments, shrines, and tombs allow the living to pass on their sense of what the present saw fit to salvage from the past and preserve for the future as a source of inspiration and edification for generations to come. A case in point is the monument erected in Claude Stuart Park, Port Maria, Jamaica, which commemorates Tacky, fearless leader of the largescale 1760 Slave Revolt.1 He led hundreds of slaves as they killed their masters in bed on Easter morning and then stole guns and ammunition. Militia men overpowered the group, killed Tacky, and publicly displayed his severed head to warn others against plotting future attacks. Today, Tacky’s monument has recuperated the slain fighter’s image as a source of national pride. No longer is his head a sign of repulsion and fear; now, a statue bearing the likeness of Tacky’s entire body has been erected by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust. It does not stand alone, but is surrounded by monuments to other national heroes, such as members of Parliament and the Jamaican casualties of the two world wars. Rather 150 Mourning Museums than catering to foreign tourists, the memorial is directed primarily to a local audience. As a part of the island government’s project of reclaiming its own heritage, the words on the plaque describing Tacky’s actions celebrate his humanity and idealism, thereby rhetorically undoing the armed forces’ desecration of his body. While ostensibly paying homage or lending respect and dignity to the deceased, memorials and mausoleums primarily serve to soothe the living in their grief. In contrast, cemeteries and mausoleums are big tourist attractions in Haiti, the first independent republic in the Caribbean. Mausoleums may be tombs themselves or larger buildings containing graves or otherwise housing human remains, as is the case with the Laferrière Citadel in Milot, Haiti, where Henri Christophe is buried. Unlike mere cemeteries, which contain many private shrines bearing little relation to one another , mausoleums are destinations in and of themselves; they not only attract bereaved family members, but are also public sites of tranquility and reflection for people who may not be personally acquainted with the deceased. By creating a formal space for the living to confront the reality of death, mausoleums facilitate the work of mourning; through their architectural design, they allow for myriad emotional responses to the fact of the death, from grief or pity, to awe or reverence. A mausoleum may be either somber or celebratory, depending on who erects it and on its interpretation of the meaning of the life or death it memorializes. The remains of the country’s first president, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, rest within a mausoleum in Port au Prince.2 As mentioned in the previous chapter, Haiti’s first self-declared king, Henri Christophe, is buried within his great fortress, the Laferrière Citadel in Milot.3 Graves and mausoleums are structures erected to honor the memory and legacy of specific individuals who have died, but whose influence on the living continues in the present. Political instability, natural disasters, and periods of foreign occupation have all befallen Haiti during the two centuries since it declared itself an independent nation. These circumstances tend to intensify the Haitian public’s need to celebrate whatever symbols of national accomplishment are available. More recently, Haiti has returned its attention to its historic past in hopes that foreign interest in the island’s symbolic status as a beacon of freedom will translate into tourist income to fund its infrastructure and stabilize its economy. Unlike his peers, the great leader of the Haitian...