The Bizoton trial and the confessions beaten out of prisoners (Port-au-Prince, 1863–64)

SUMMARYThe Bizoton trial and the confessions beaten out of prisoners (Port-au-Prince, 1863–64) [Connections: Ayiti spirit, first-person, Nov 5, 2026]

RECORDAfter a girl, Claircine, was allegedly killed in Bizoton in late December 1863, eight people (four men, four women) were executed on February 13, 1864, under President Fabre Geffrard. British chargé d'affaires Spenser St John admitted the prisoners had been beaten with a club; he wrote that "All the prisoners... had at first refused to speak, thinking that the Vaudoux would protect them." One prisoner told the prosecutor she confessed only because she had been severely beaten. No trial transcripts survive. After the trial the Code pénal was redrafted, raising fines for "sorcery" sevenfold and punishing "all dances and other practices that... maintain the spirit of fetishism and superstition." HOSTILE witness: a foreign diplomat

PATTERNThe cannibal story rests on coerced confessions

LENS (WW9)The "dark" Vodou was manufactured in a courtroom with a club

OPENSmithsonian dates St John's book 1889 (2nd ed.); Pettinger dates it 1884 (1st ed.)

SOURCESmithsonian, "The Trial That Gave Vodou a Bad Name"; Mike Dash.