1863, December 31: (The Affaire de Bizoton and the War on Voodoo): Catholic, enlightened, and elite, Geffrard predictably turned his back on the Voodoo that …

1863, December 31: (The Affaire de Bizoton and the War on Voodoo): Catholic, enlightened, and elite, Geffrard predictably turned his back on the Voodoo that had permeated the regime of Soulouque — Pastor Bird noted that Geffrard had given Voodoo the most severe blows ever directed against it by any Haitian government, and Spanish chargé Don Mariano Alvarez reported in 1863 that Geffrard, “who is not afraid of the Vaudoux,” had caused authorities to throw down the altars and collect the drums, timbrels, and other instruments of the papalwa. The circumstances that provoked such concern arose from the famous Affaire de Bizoton, a case of ritual murder and cannibalism perpetrated on a six-year-old girl on New Year’s Eve 1863 — her murderers, a bòkò and manbo named Congo and Jeanne Pellé, proved to be the victim’s uncle and aunt, and at trial the child’s skull and cooked flesh were introduced in evidence. In the reverse of the 1846 decision to suppress proceedings against Guyons charged with having killed and eaten a child in almost exactly similar circumstances, Geffrard instituted a rigorous public prosecution of the Pellés and six fanatic accomplices — all reputed to have come originally from the African Mandingue tribe — and the resulting executions, at which untrained soldier firing squads took a half hour at close range before managing to finish off all eight accused, did not end the affair, primarily because Sir Spenser St. John, the British minister, would feature it prominently in his best-selling book on Haiti. It is ironic that for having taken the straightforward course of exposure and prosecution in open court, Geffrard undoubtedly incurred for Haiti the international notoriety and barbarous reputation that Guerrier had sought to avoid in 1846 by hushing things up — a trap whose logic Fanon would recognize: the colonized subject is condemned whether he conceals or reveals, for the colonial gaze has already decided what it will see.