God, Satan, Voudou and Haiti

I first heard the story of the pact in late 2003. Protests against President Bertrand Aristide were rocking the small town of Petit-Goâve where I was volunteering for an international non-profit. My Haitian roommates explained that Aristide, as a poor Catholic priest, was involved in Voudou and had used the more violent lwa to build his political support. Once the first two hundred years of independence ended with the bicentennial on January 1, 2004, the devil’s hold on Haiti would loosen and Aristide’s support would vanish.

Robert Taber, a doctoral candidate in Carribbean History at the University of Florida, in his FiveThirtyEight.com guest post, A Qualified Defense of Pat Robertson