# Haitian Vodou · The Canon · The Atlas · The Congregation of Tomorrow

Source: https://congregationoftomorrow.org/atlas/library/canon/haitian-vodou/ · The Congregation of Tomorrow · the Atlas · language: en
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The Canon · No. 082
Haitian Vodou
Vodou; Sèvis Lwa
c.1750 CE – present · African & Diasporic · Living · Haiti and its diaspora
VI. REFORMATION & EARLY MODERN — 1500 – 1800
### How many
### Who began it
### What it is for
### What it worships
### What it holds
### What it does
### After death
### Its texts
### Its branches
### Of note
### Its timeline
- 1697–1804 CE Saint-Domingue is France's most profitable colony, worked by roughly 500,000 enslaved people under conditions so lethal that the population had to be constantly replenished from Africa — which is why African religion stayed unusually intact here.
- <strong>14 August 1791 CE</strong> The Bwa Kayiman ceremony, led by the houngan Dutty Boukman and a priestess, is traditionally held to have launched the Haitian Revolution.
- 1791–1804 CE The only successful large-scale slave revolt in history; Haiti declares independence on 1 January 1804.
- 1825 CE France demands 150 million francs in compensation for lost slaves; Haiti pays until 1947, a debt that crippled the country for over a century.
- 1835, 1860, 1896, 1941 CE Repeated anti-superstition campaigns by the state and the Catholic Church; shrines destroyed, practitioners forced to renounce.
- 1915–34 CE US occupation. American writers and then Hollywood produce the zombie-and-pin-doll caricature that still dominates.
- 1957–86 CE The Duvalier dictatorships co-opt Vodou imagery; the Tonton Macoutes take their name and appearance from folklore. This association damaged the religion's reputation badly.
- 1986 CE After Duvalier falls, hundreds of Vodou practitioners are lynched in a wave of reprisals.
- <strong>2003 CE</strong> President Aristide grants Vodou official recognition; oungan and manbo may perform legal marriages.
- 2010 CE After the earthquake, several foreign preachers publicly blame the disaster on the 1791 ceremony.
### Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.
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