1935–1946: (Women as Modern Abolitionists — LFAS Women Identifying Themselves as Modern Abolitionists Addressing the Century-and-a-Half-Long Delay in Their E…

1935–1946: (Women as Modern Abolitionists — LFAS Women Identifying Themselves as Modern Abolitionists Addressing the Century-and-a-Half-Long Delay in Their Emancipation, Responding to the Patronizing State Demand to Wait Until Women Were Educated by Arguing That If We Had Waited Until the Slaves Were Educated We Would Still Have Slaves Because It Is the Regime Itself Which Prevented the Development of Their Personality, According to LFAS Members Many Freed Black Men Adopted the Role of Oppressor — In 1804 the Slaves of Yesterday Became Masters and Liberty Was Understood but Equality Had a Vague Significance and Fraternity Seems Devoid of Sense, Novelist Cléante Desgraves Valcin Asserting That It Takes a Certain Heroism to Abolish Oneself of Privileges and That We Cannot Claim That All of Our Men Are Heroes): From the standpoint that enslavement and noncitizenship were pillars of Haitian women’s modern national belonging, early twentieth-century women’s rights organizers identified themselves as modern abolitionists. The pace of their wayfaring picked up as their demands addressed the century-and-a-half-long delay in their emancipation. When told by multiple presidential administrations to wait until women were educated and prepared to participate in governance, they responded: “If we had waited until the slaves were educated, or for enlightened men to decree the abolition of slavery, I believe that we would still have slaves because it is the regime itself which prevented the development of their personality.” The patronizing state demand for women to wait was not the same as the women’s deliberate political pace — it was a disorienting and perplexing forced temporal disjuncture. According to LFAS members, many freed Black men adopted the role of oppressor: “In 1804, the slaves of yesterday became masters. They understood the meaning of the word ‘liberty.’ But equality had a vague significance to them, and fraternity seems to be devoid of sense to them.” LFAS member and first Haitian woman novelist Cléante Desgraves Valcin challenged the presumption of shared revolutionary experience, noting that it takes a certain heroism to abolish oneself of the privileges from which one benefits — but as certain men upheld colonial laws maintaining gendered labor exclusion, refusing to loosen the strap of the Napoleon Code, she asserted: “We cannot claim that all of our men are heroes.”