Before Toussaint and Jean Jacques Dessalines

Before Toussaint and Dessalines It was nothingness Organs, guts and spleens Of our ancestors could be found alongside the roads Many fleeing poor slaves in disarray Were treated worse than animals Oh! It's hard to find the words To describe the usual carnage From the time of slavery. Before The Battle of Vertières Graveyards and cemeteries Were virtually everywhere Before Pétion and Boukman Christopher and Biassou It was slavery Blacks and Indians were considered savages Worse than animals Were humiliated, lynched, tortured, massacred, and killed By adventurers, buccaneers, hyenas, deplorables, freebooters Pirates, motherless bastards and marauders of the time In search of sugar, foodstuffs, indigo and gold. Copyright © June 2022, Hébert Logerie, All rights reserved Hébert Logerie is the author of several collections of poems.