Nov 13 – Nov 14
Yale University, Luce Hall
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2026-11-13T00:00:00
2026-11-14T00:00:00
America/New_York
Gilder Lehrman Center Annual Conference “Haiti in the Age of Revolutions: Lafargue Rigaud’s Portraits of Independence”
Friday and Saturday, November 13-14, 2026
Henry R. Luce Hall | Yale University | 34 Hillhouse Avenue | New Haven, CT 06511
Sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at the MacMillan Center, Yale University; Yale Peabody Museum; Yale Center for British Art; and Yale University’s Departments of Black Studies and of French
This conference is made possible through the generous support of the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies’ Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Memorial Fund, Yale University
Coinciding with the Yale Peabody Museum’s exhibit, “Haiti in the Age of Revolutions: Larfargue Rigaud’s Portraits of Independence” (November 9, 2026-March 30, 2027), this conference explores a transformative moment in Haitian and Black New World history through the lens of portraiture. The exhibit will feature Lafargue Rigaud’s rare nineteenth-century paintings of Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Henry Christophe, and other Haitian leaders, offering a window into the Haitian Revolution and Haitian statecraft. Part of the Yale Peabody Museum collection since 1963, this is the first time these portraits, which serve as visual records of leaders whose complicated legacies are interwoven with revolutionary movements across the Americas, will be on display at the museum.
The Lafargue Rigaud portraits portray the leaders who led the only successful slave revolt in modern history in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, leading to the formation of Haiti, the second independent state of the Americas (in 1804) and later the first Black republic (post-1806). They also showcase the importance of artists, image making, and projection in 19th-century Caribbean culture while foregrounding Haiti’s active participation in intellectual revolutionary debates in the Americas and in Europe, including the documented participation of freedom fighters from French Saint-Domingue (present day Haiti) in the American Revolutionary War. Held during the opening week of the exhibit, this conference will situate Haiti’s revolution and 19th-century statecraft from a cultural and art historical perspective.
Yale University, Luce Hall — 34 Hillhouse Avenue
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Meet friends before the Yale-Princeton game at this FREE event open to all Yale alumni and guests, hosted by the Yale Alumni Association. No registration necessary. 
