Fatiman, Cécile

Cécile Fatiman was a Mambo or Vodu priestess who with Dutty Boukman led a Vodu ceremony that is generally recognized as the spark that started the Haitian Revolution. The ceremony is reported to have taken place on August 14, 1791, in a thickly wooded area near a Lenormand plantation known as Bois Caiman (Alligator Wood).

Cécile Fatiman was the daughter of an African woman and a Corsican prince. She was sold into slavery with her mother in Saint Domingue. Her mother also had two sons who disappeared after being sold into slavery. A mulatto with green eyes and long black silky hair, Fatiman became the wife of Louis Michel Pierrot, who led a black battalion at Vertières—the site of the final and decisive battle of the ...