Julianna Reidell ’25 Uncovers and Elevates Stories of Women During the Haitian Revolution

Julianna Reidell, a senior double major in French and Francophone Studies and English, with a concentration in Creative Writing and a minor in Pan-African Studies, is preparing to present her research on the untold stories of women during the Haitian Revolution at an undergraduate research conference at the University of Pennsylvania this October.

Reidell's research began as a one-semester independent study overseen by the chair of the Department of English Dr. Matthew Heitzman, examining the influence of a trio of women in the Haitian Revolution.

Though the revolution took place from 1791 to 1804, Reidell's research focused specifically on the conflict between Napoleon Bonaparte's generals, who were sent to retake the colony that would later become Haiti and reinstate slavery there, and the rebel generals of that colony.

"I examined three women in particular," explained Reidell. "Chosen for their more active roles in the revolutionary effort: Catherine Flon, who's been credited with sewing the first Haitian flag; Sanité Bélair, the wife of a general and a soldier herself, who was executed alongside her husband in 1802; and Dédée Bazile, who served the troops of then-General Jean-Jacques Dessalines during the conflict, likely as a sutler, and also played a major role in ensuring that he received a burial after his assassination. It became an examination of what happens when someone has survived as a legend more so than a historical figure: what does that do to their story and legacy?"

Reidell was then awarded a $1,000 microgrant from the Center for Antiracist Scholarship, Advocacy, and Action (CASAA) to continue this research, enabling her to visit the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, housed within the New York Public Library in New York City, this past January. There, she was able to look for primary sources that mentioned her research subjects.

"None of the women I was studying are known to have left any primary sources themselves," said Reidell. "I went to the Schomburg hoping that I might be able to find references to them, anything that would help flesh out their stories a bit more, but I wasn't necessarily expecting to find anything that they had produced themselves; I'm not sure that any of them were in a position to do so."

Reidell's research aims to help fill some of the gaps present in developing well-rounded curricula by looking at the present state of the world and digging into the ways in which current events come about objectively and how they're portrayed from a number of perspectives.

"I think there's been a big push to not teach certain types of history. That creates a very imbalanced view of the present," Reidell explained. "Haiti is very troubled as a country right now. If you look at Haiti in the present and don't teach the past, you come to one conclusion. But if you do look back further and you look at the Haitian Revolution, not only at the amazing things the revolutionaries accomplished but at the ways Europe sought to weaken them after the fact, it helps you inform the present.

"I'm definitely grateful to CASAA for this great opportunity," Reidell added. "I'd never done archival research to the extent of the Schomburg. It really was such a meaningful experience to see some of these stories and get more of that primary source material."

Later this fall, Reidell's paper on this topic will be published in UReCA: National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity.