Nov-Dec 1994 issue of Command, pages 48-53

In an attempt to frame the works of Robert E. Howard in his time, I have attempted to look at the current events of the day that could have been known to a reasonably well-read American of the time, as well as school books, children’s books and literature targeting young male readers. This serves not just to give a possible scope of what an American author of the day would be aware of, but a feel for the narrative of the day. Any writer for the popular market [as opposed to those who write for the intellectual class and academia] who manages to make more than a few sales must have a grasp of the narrative of the day, to have his finger on the pulse of the collective heart.

Howard delves deeply into black juju men and sorcerers in his various works and has a constant theme of the Arуan interloper in colored affairs, especially in the affairs of black kingdoms, ruled by mixed race brown men, propped up by white mercenaries…

On page 52, is a photo taken of the Haitian president in 1919, surrounded by his top ministers, Mսlattos, quadroons and an octoroon, all men of mixed race, ruling a 90% black 10% brown nation, flanked by their security detail—two white U.S. Marines.

It would be almost inconceivable that Howard did not know of the U.S. Marine Corps occupation of Haiti, from 1915 through 1934. The members of this force fought primitive warriors called Cacos, who were descended from the maroons of the French plantation era—African warriors who headed for the jungle-covered hills as soon as their new master put a sugar cane machete in their hand. This operation overlapped with the Moro uprising, in the Philippines, which was an extension of the 1903 occupation of that distant land. Letters to parents from disenchanted soldiers stationed in the Philippines found their way into news papers.

Numerous excellent studies of Howard’s known reading list and literary influence have been done and are available. My purpose, as I delve into Howard’s rampant imagination via its ink shadow, is to provide a context in the form of the real, known, current adventurers of the time and the worldview of the author’s nation. It is common lore among older black men from the south and black Muslims from the north, that Haitian mystics—papalois or juju men if you like—immigrated to the Mississippi Delta and found their way as far north as Detroit in the early 1900s.

Many other inspirations could have sent Howard’s imagination in the direction of black sorcerers, but perhaps, just once, he overheard a story among drinking men, or read a hyperbolic newspaper tale of black seducers drugging white women [similar tales were spun of Chinese opium den operators seducing white women in California] and let his imagination take over.

For the reader who is interested in Haiti of this period try my review, On Safari with a Boy Named Ford, which may be found in the blog index on the web traffic information page. The crack head down the hall knocked out my internet, so I don’t have access to do internal links as I’m uploading this from a remote device.