Haiti
Histoire de l'Isle Espagnole ou de S. Domingue
In the early 1700s, Father Jean-Baptiste le Pers, a French Jesuit priest, ventured across the Atlantic to the colony of Saint Domingue (now Haiti) in the West Indies. Father le Pers letters described the area and its history in rich detail, so much so that they informed Jesuit historian Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoixs book on the subject, published in 1730. The volumes were illustrated with depictions of native ceremonies and fold-out maps.
De Negerstaat Van Hayti of Sint Domingo
This is an extremely rare work (only four copies in North America) on the history and present state of the Negroes of Haiti, published shortly after they gained their independence from France. It draws on the works of — or possibly was written by — Pompée Valentin Vastey, a mixed-race Haitian writer, educator, and politician who wrote scathingly of the abuses and atrocities committed by colonial slave-owners on the island. The book includes a map of "the island of Santo Domingo," now the separate countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
