Focuses on the history of what it means to be a Zombie
Historically and in modern day
As you know, zombies as a global phenomena
Doomsday preppers
Survival training
Films and pop culture
The concept of zombies started almost a century ago in a country that is now Heidi
We hear from Patrick about the history and origin of the word zombie
All over the world, the word “zombie” has many different meanings, however it all surrounds the concept of slavery or being enslaved. That is where it all began.
There is, even today, a huge fear in the hearts of Haitians of becoming a zombie
It is something more than just being dead to these people
“Being poisoned and becoming a zombie” (6:03)
The myth of the living dead is born from what happens to people when they are enslaved. Especially in Haitian belief.
In the 19th century, before Haiti was called Haiti, it went by the name Santo Domingo
This is when it was under French rule and was colonized by the French
Slavery was high and Santo Domingo soon became one of France’s most profitable colonies
Between 1697 and 1780, France became a superpower of the world
This meant lots of slaves were behind this glory
As wealth and power were high for the French, so was death.
The Haitian slaves worked in very poor conditions producing copious amounts of product for the French to distribute
The slaves would rarely last 13 years working in this condition
“The slaves were broken.. Seen as machines” (10:18)
The slaves existence was purely for work, they would wake up everyday only to work all day and then sleep in poor conditions, only to wake up again to the same thing
All life was sucked from the people of Haiti
There was so much work and lack of freedom that these people almost symbolically became zombies
In the Haitian belief, zombies are people who have been disconnected from their own souls and are seemingless walking corpse
The world zombie originated from the languages of these slaves; meaning “devil” or “death”
A soul that has become dispossessed by its body
In a way, the slave is a perfect representation of a zombie
No soul, no home, no good intention, lack of life
There are two types of zombies that come from this narrative
One being a slave who has given into the rule of the white man and has lost all soul working day and night
The other being from the eyes of the slave owners, a slave who is resisting the control and plans to hurt or kill their master
In a way, two types of fears came from these zombies
The fear the Haitian people had for becoming a zombie like the rest
And the fear of being killed by a zombie the slave owners had
These fears are what sparked the Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution began in 1791 and raged for 13 years
In this war, the word “zombie” was first written about by a French writer in which it defined as a slaves version of a returned soul. This happened in 1797
In 1804, the Haitian people defeated the French rule and Haiti was no longer Santo Domingo, it was a new country completely founded by slaves
However, even after this, the people of Haiti were still in a way enslaved by the French
Due to the losses in the war, the French claimed that the people of Haiti owned them a substantial amount of money for the lost profit they could have made for their country
This meant the people of Haiti had to continue working to pay this off and were stuck back into their farm lands by their own president
The figure of a zombie acts as a symbol of slavery
As the years went on, this control of the French limited the amount of trade the country could do with other nations around the world.
Germany became their only trading partner and dominated all trade in Haiti
America saw this as almost a threat, thinking that the only reason the Germans were with Heiti was to find an excuse to invade the United States
In 1915, Woodrow Wilson the US president sent US marines into Haiti in hopes to gain control of the people once again
The US marines stayed in Haiti between 1915 - 1935
They placed a workload upon the Haitians, forcing them to build roads and perform labor for free. This was a sign of enslavement of the people. Bringing back something which has never really life, the idea of zombies
Zombification of the people
The label of “cannibal” was now put upon the people. This both separated and divided them from being human, becoming something that was less, making them into savages in the eyes of Americans, and making them “flash consumers”
American writers began to come into the Haitian land on the lookout for a good story to bring back to the American press
They began picking up stories about zombies and what it meant to be a zombie
This of course was over dramatized overseas. Almost making the zombie into a mythical monster
“A lifeless, dead like, human without a soul but still having the mechanics of a human…” an American writer writes, “rising bodies from the ground and ordering them to do mindless and dull tasks fit for a dumb beast” (17:20 - 17:58)
These stories made the Haitians out to be a death driven people, a sinning, savage people
They were forced into this role by the very people who enslaved them
These stories gave Americans a new fear - the living dead - creating almost a fiction monster from enslaved people
The narrative of a zombie is harmful to all
Terrifying the American citizens and causing panic
Straining the relationship between white people and black people
Making Haitians into monsters
As Well as justifying the US’s presence in Haiti instead of looking into the cruelty
This is really when the notion of zombies hit Hollywood
It held a fearful and exotic factor that captured citizens attention yet at the cost of Haitian morality and image in the eyes of the world
This sensation of zombies boomed in the 1930s
Horror films began coming out left and right between the 1930s - 1950s
All depicting zombies
This was almost a form of American Africanism
European countries interpretation of African culture
Zombies began to slip away from “black bodies” and become more of the rotten mangled corpses we see today
These movies almost acted as a statement of black and white relations
Zombies are rooted in race
A cult life following of these movies show that we are the real zombies
Summary and Analysis
What essential question is the podcast trying to answer?
I believe the main question that this podcast is trying to answer or is simple proposing the audience is, How did the history surrounding zombies affect how we know them today? As well as asking how did the concept of zombies arise in the first place?
Outline the major events/arguments the podcast makes to answer their guiding question
To answer their question, they look back into the past. To understand the zombie, one must know its roots lie in the slavery of the Haitian people. By including detailed history of how the Haitian people not only were enslaved to death by the French, they were continuously enslaved by American forces out of dear during WW1.