Two books give Haitian Vodou an Egyptian pedigree

Louis Maximilien published Le Vodou Haitien in Port-au-Prince in 1945 with a chapter arguing that the religion rested on metaphysical ideas still alive in Africa which could be lit up by ancient Egypt, by Herodotus and by the Greek and Roman mystery traditions. Milo Rigaud published his own study in Paris in 1953 and tied Vodou cosmology to ancient Egypt as well, along with European magic, cabala and freemasonry. The genealogies were invented. Their effect was real. Learned priests in Port-au-Prince read both men, took the arguments to heart, and began working masonic and cabalistic material into their own temples. A history written to give the religion a respectable antiquity became part of what the religion actually did. Anyone reading Haitian ritual for African survivals after the middle of the twentieth century is reading practice that two Haitian writers had already altered.

Postwar politics in Europe changed official thinking about what colonies were for. The Attlee Labour government in Britain broke with much of prewar social doctrine, and from about 1947 London began moving away from indirect rule through chiefs toward bringing in the educated African elite that had been pressing for entry since the 1930s. The French also started planning a gradual transfer, though they expected strong patron and client ties and a qualified autonomy rather than full independence. Where Europeans had settled, the plans were different. The Colonial Office envisaged special constitutional powers for white settlers in Kenya and Southern Rhodesia to guarantee their position and their economic dominance. One man, one vote was not under consideration. The planners of the late 1940s assumed former colonies would stay under metropolitan influence and that the handover would be very slow. Portugal and Belgium contemplated only cosmetic reform. Britain and France wanted moderate African leaders who would protect the interests being left behind, and no communists anywhere.

In October 1943 Élie Lescot toured Montreal, Ottawa, Washington, New York and Havana, and stayed at the White House, where Franklin Roosevelt called him a very old friend and talked about turning the Môle into a free port. Edward Stettinius put American spending on Haiti between 1938 and 1946 at forty million dollars. On 19 April 1944 the National Assembly rewrote the constitution: no elections until peace had been signed with every enemy power down to Bulgaria, the presidential term lengthened from five years to seven, and Lescot continued in office until 15 May 1951. His decrees began to open with the royal plural, Nous, Élie Lescot. In his address of 15 May 1945 he said his people were naive and poor, that they wanted the Four Freedoms Roosevelt had proclaimed, and that they would receive them once they had learned how to use them. A plot in the Garde was broken up in July, and seven enlisted men were shot at Fort Dimanche.

Dumarsais Estime became president of Haiti in 1946 under the slogan of a black man in power. He had been a deputy under Sthenio Vincent and under Elie Lescot, he was the son of large landowners in the Artibonite, and he was married into an old mulatto family. The economy helped him. Postwar markets lifted coffee and sisal, exports doubled, tourism brought in foreign currency, and the budget rose from twelve to twenty one million dollars between 1946 and 1949. In that setting the noiriste argument appeared to be demonstrating its own usefulness. A substantial black section of the bureaucracy took shape and allied itself with the traditional fractions of the bourgeoisie of every shade, strengthening them. The black petty bourgeoisie expanded in the liberal professions, in small commerce and in the civil service. Reforms were announced for the peasantry and the working class and nothing changed for them. Repression of the unions and the left followed later.