Jérémie
Dumas's father was born here in 1762; the mulatto elite built a literary tradition Duvalier tried to exterminate in 1964. Rebuilt after Hurricane Matthew (2016, 80% destroyed), now insulated from gang violence by the same isolation that incubated its poets.
The son of an enslaved woman from this isolated coffee port would father France's most-read novelist. Thomas-Alexandre Dumas was born at La Guinaudée plantation near Jérémie in 1762—mixed-race son of a marquis and Marie-Cessette Dumas. His son Alexandre wrote The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. Jérémie itself became the "Cité des Poètes"—producing a disproportionate share of Haiti's literary output from the capital of Grand'Anse Department, accessible only by sea or treacherous mountain road. Isolation breeds distinctiveness: island biogeography applies to culture as much as to species.
The French established Jérémie in 1756. By the 1780s, coffee prices had risen while sugar fell, and this corner of Saint-Domingue expanded faster than any other. The isolation that would define the city began early: when French revolutionary commissioners arrived in 1793 to enforce abolition, royalist planters refused. Six hundred British soldiers landed from Jamaica to shouts of "Vivent les Anglais!" and held the city until 1798. On August 4, 1803, local commander Férou declared independence from France, months before the rest of Haiti.
The mulatto elite who dominated colonial Jérémie created a literary tradition unmatched in the Caribbean. Etzer Vilaire (1872-1951), Emile Roumer (1903-1988), Jean-Fernand Brierre (1909-1992)—their poetry shaped Haitian identity and connected to global movements. Brierre's 1947 poem Black Soul appeared in Léopold Senghor's defining anthology of Negritude. Then Duvalier sent the Tonton Macoutes.
In August 1964, thirteen young exiles called Jeune Haiti landed to overthrow the dictator. In retaliation, the Macoutes murdered at least 27 people in the Jérémie Vespers—ages ranging from 2 to 85, including the Sansaricq and Drouin families. Duvalier's "noirisme" ideology specifically targeted the mulatto elite. Entire literary lineages disappeared in weeks. This was punctuated equilibrium in human form: decades of gradual cultural accumulation, then sudden extinction. Companies face the same pattern—founding teams build distinctive cultures over decades; a single acquisition or leadership change can erase them in months.
Hurricane Matthew struck on October 4, 2016, with Category 4 winds exceeding 145 mph. Eighty percent of buildings were damaged or destroyed. The city of 103,000 remained inaccessible for four days, without water for five—another punctuation mark, this time meteorological. Three busts of Vilaire, Roumer, and Brierre now watch over a city that has rebuilt twice.
The road to Port-au-Prince runs through gang-controlled territory. Jérémie's isolation, once a curse, now functions as insulation while 90% of the capital falls to Viv Ansanm. The poetry tradition survives in three libraries, a theater, annual readings—cultural transmission continuing despite bottlenecks. Like zebra finches learning songs from whatever tutors remain, Jérémie passes its literary tradition through whoever survived.