Jean Fouchard, the historian who gave the maroons their name, is born

Jean Fouchard was born in Port-au-Prince on this day. He was a journalist, a diplomat and, above all, the historian who insisted that Haiti was made by the people who ran. His Les marrons de la liberte argued that marronnage, not the elite, produced independence. He also wrote Le theatre a Saint-Domingue, Les marrons du syllabaire on the Creole language, and Plaisirs de Saint-Domingue. He served under Stenio Vincent and Dumarsais Estime, and was commissioner general of the 1949 exposition for Port-au-Prince’s bicentennial. He died in the city where he was born on 30 September 1990.