Zoïle’s pilgrimage: Abbé Ouvière’sJournal du Port-au-Prince(1791) and the struggle for free colored rights in revolutionary Saint-Domingue

Abstract

The Journal du Port-au-Prince was first published in Saint-Domingue on 1 September 1791, days after an insurrection of the gens de couleur libres (free people of color) was launched in the colony’s West Province. This hitherto unexamined newspaper was edited by Félix Pascalis Ouvière, a recently arrived native of Aix-en-Provence who, by the time it ceased publication on 20 November, had earned a reputation as among the most prominent white advocates for free colored rights. After supplying some biographical context for Ouvière’s Journal, this article provides a detailed account of how his (constitutional royalist) “politics of moderation” shaped the paper’s changing attitudes toward the gens de couleur, and then proceeds to highlight the distinctive role that literary forms of expression play in the Journal, concluding with methodological reflections on the double reading, historical and literary-critical, that Ouvière’s innovative contribution to the colonial public sphere solicits.