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Hopkins’s Matrilineal Haiti
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 November 2023
The final chapter, “Mesmeric Revolution: Pauline Hopkins’s Matrilineal Haiti,” extends the coordinates of Hopkins’s global commitments, charting an alternative geography beneath the Africa-oriented Of One Blood. By turning to the Caribbean, Hopkins reveals how Haiti emerges at key moments of energetic resistance. Moreover, she explicitly genders these moments of resistance as feminine. Focusing on the matrilineage of Hannah, Mira, and Dianthe, I argue that women in the novel carry specifically Haitian valences: from colonial Saint-Dominguan mesmerism, to the poison of Makandal, to the legacy of marronage. This muted Caribbean geography recenters women at the heart of the narrative, adumbrates Hopkins’s anti-imperialist politics, and subverts the dehumanizing energy politics of plantation genealogies.
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