More on Haiti

The library received in December, 1986 a collection of nearly 100 volumes on various aspects of Haitian history and culture. The collection was donated by Mrs. Nancy B. Heinl, of Washington, D.C., co-author with her late husband, Marine Col. Robert D. Heinl, Jr., of Written in Blood: The Story of the Haitian People 1402-1971 (1978). There are some important individual "high-spots", such as Father P. F. X. Charlevoix's Histoire de l'isle Espagnole ou de S. Domingue (1730-31) and a splendid copy in the original boards of Marcus Rainsford's An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti (1805). The collection is rich in its run of important works by the modern Haitian historian and ethnologist, Dantes Bellegarde, and in a wealth of 20th century publications on all aspects of Haitian life, many of them out of print and quite scarce.

Coupled with last year's gift of early Haitian government documents by Mr. and Mrs. Roderick Engert (reported in Newsletter 20) and the library's recent purchase of papers of French General Jean-Baptiste Brunet documenting his service in Haiti in 1802-3, the Heinl gift provides a strong basis for original research on Haitian history.