According to Edouard, his father’s sole objective was to rear his sons “in a country where no infamous laws or stupid prejudices could prevent them from becoming MEN” (2).Īs “MEN,” with their parents’ emotional and financial support, the Tinchant men distinguished themselves as exporters of miscellaneous goods and fine cigars from their continental base Belgium, a country without a “history of formalized color discrimination” (106). Although comfortable in Louisiana, Jacques and Elizabeth migrated to France in 1840. Between 18, they became parents to five sons, whom Marie Francoise never met. Rather than returning to Haiti, Elizabeth migrated to New Orleans where she married Jacques Tinchant (1798-1871), an artisan and businessman.

During the Haitian Revolution, they fled to Cuba but were separated when Spanish officials refused to grant them sanction, and Vincent died unexpectedly. Within the larger historical context, readers follow the enslavement of Rosalie in Saint Domingue through her emancipation as Marie Francoise, conjugal partnership with the Frenchman Michal Vincent (1730-1804), and mother of Elizabeth (1799-1883). Freedom Papers reveals “the heart of the problem of freedom, and of the phenomena of race, racism, and antiracism” as experienced by the Tinchant family in the age of emancipation (5). It is a biography of the Senegambia-born Rosalie (1767-?) and several generations of her descendants with linkages to freedom struggles in the Haitian Revolution, American Civil War, and Cuban War for Independence. Hebrard embarked on a seven-year research odyssey culminating in the publication of Freedom Papers, which is not an ordinary book. Following its chance discovery by Rebecca J. Ordinarily, a single letter in the Cuban National Archives may not serve as catalyst for a book-length study, but it was not an ordinary letter.

Nevertheless, Gomez followed established protocol and ordered refusal “with courteous phrases” (169). with particular emphasis on dignified adulthood and masculinity” (2). Tinchant, a tobacco manufacturer in Antwerp, requested permission to use the general’s name and portrait on his finest cigars tentatively named “Maximo Gomez.” As an admirer of the “Great Man,” Tinchant anticipated that his own military service, financial contributions for Cuban independence, and participation in the Louisiana Constitutional Convention (1867-1868) would ingratiate himself to Gomez, an advocate of “antiracism. In September 1899, Edouard Tinchant (1841-1915), a man of Haitian descent with an unusual background, including service in Company C 6th Louisiana Volunteers, during the Civil War, wrote to Maximo Gomez, the revered leader in the Cuban Independence struggle. Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation by Rebecca J.

Freedom Papers by Rebecca J. Scott