A Haitian Vampire Queen

I come home after a long day at work. Luckily, my family will be there waiting for me. My name is Madeline Jean Madison. I'm a Black woman living in the town of Montreal, Province of Quebec. I teach business at the Quebec Technical College or Q.T.C. The life of a middle-aged Black woman in the Confederation of Canada isn't easy but I manage. At forty three, I still look good. I stand five feet eleven inches tall, curvy but fit, with long black hair and light brown skin. People say I look like Angela Bassett, only with Serena Williams booty. I sometimes find these remarks complimentary...or annoying, depending on my mood. If only I were exactly what I appeared. My life might be simpler. However, a simple life isn't what the Fates had in mind for me. You see, I am a Vampire.

I was born in what would later be called Cap-Haitien in the Republic of Haiti in 1771. It was called Saint Domingue in those days. La Plantation Fournier was the place of my birth. The daughter of a wealthy Frenchman and an African slave from the region of Benin. When I was twenty years old, I ran away from the plantation where I was born. Historians would have you believe that mulatto women born of Black female slaves and white male plantation owners were content to be the sexual playthings of white men. Well, not me. I grew up with a singular hatred of the white men of the world. I refused to lie in bed with them, and endured severe beatings and sexual violations because I had a mind of my own. After escaping from the plantation where I was born, I joined the Haitian Revolutionary Army. I was one of a few women in the Army led by Toussaint Louverture. After his death, I was a corporal in the Army of Jean Jacques Dessalines, the man who defeated the French colonial forces and created the first independent Black republic in the New World.

After the French colonial forces were driven from the island of Haiti by the stalwart efforts of Black men and Black women, I enjoyed my newfound freedom. I married Etienne Jean, a handsome Black man I met while serving in the Army of Jean Jacques Dessalines. We lived in a beautiful house in Cap-Haitien. I bore him twins on the first day of February 1805. Almost one year to the date after the declaration of independence by the Republic of Haiti. To us were born a son, Jacques-Marie, and a daughter, Isabelle. For twenty years we lived happily. One day in the summer of 1824, I came home to find a strange creature preying upon my family. That creature was none other than Lucien Fournier, the wealthy old white man who was my owner a long time ago. I thought he died in the conflict between the Haitians and the French colonial powers. He came back from the dead as a vampire. And he doomed me and my offspring to a life of eternal torment. He turned my son and daughter into vampires. Then he did the same thing to me. He'd grown attached to me as a human and lusted after me even after he became a vampire. The first thing I did after rising from my grave as a fledgling vampire was to burn him to death. I chopped his head off with a machete and burned his corpse to ash. Then I scattered his ashes to the wind.

When my husband Etienne came back from his business trip to Port-Au-Prince a few days later, he found us changed. I still loved him and wanted us to be together. I offered him immortality, and a place at my side. Etienne refused, saying that we were unnatural. And he revealed our nature to the people of the city of Cap-Haitien. And just like that, the city we called home rose against us. My son and daughter were driven out along with me. We hid in the South of Haiti. After our narrow escape from Cap-Haitien, we decided to split up. I'm not sure where Jacques-Marie and Isabelle went. I remained in the island of Haiti until 1895. I left in the summer of 1895 and moved to Boston, Massachusetts. Living in the community of Roxbury wasn't easy. Even though Boston has a reputation for liberalism and tolerance, racism was alive and well. I set myself up as the protector of the growing Black community of Roxbury, Massachusetts. I protected them from dangers both supernatural and human. It wasn't rare for the Irish and the Italians to rough up young Black American men in Roxbury in the early twentieth century. These bigots were dealt with by me. As a vampire, I possessed many powers. I have the strength of ten men, along with the speed of a gazelle. Bullets, blades, and poisons don't do anything to me. Only fire, sunlight and decapitation can end me. Otherwise, I will heal and come back stronger than before.

I lived in the state of Massachusetts from 1895 to 1954. In the summer of 1954 I left metropolitan Boston for the lights of Montreal, Province of Quebec. There was a growing community of Haitian immigrants in the town of Montreal. I knew they would need protection from certain intolerant elements within the French-Canadian community. And I was right. I began living in a place which would later be called Montreal-Nord, home of a large portion of Quebec's Haitian population. I watched the Haitian community of Montreal grow, and prosper. I watched them find success and happiness in the changing society of Canada. Around the world, changes were taking place. The civil rights movement of the United States caught my attention. In 1969 I returned to Roxbury, and found it changed. The Black community of Boston had grown exponentially, and they were prospering due to their sheer efforts and the more tolerant, liberal politics of Massachusetts. My people in New England had done me proud.

In 1973, I went to Northern Haiti for a visit. I walked through the streets of metropolitan Cap-Haitien, my hometown, for the first time since the 1820s. And at last I was reunited with my family. For my son Jacques-Marie and my daughter Isabelle were alive and well in the city of their birth. They had done well for themselves. Like me, they had set themselves up as protectors and forces of order in a chaotic world. I couldn't be prouder of them! They also introduced me to their 'descendants'. I'm referring of course to the dozens of Haitian men and Haitian women whom they had turned into vampires. They were organized into a powerful clan. They were the true power behind the Haitian government. Unfortunately, my offspring had allied themselves with The Dictator. A power-mad individual whose ruthlessness surpassed that of the undead. This man was under the protection of my offspring because he forged an alliance with them. For power and wealth. The Dictator used an elite cadre of vampires to beat his political and social enemies into submission. I had to stop him, and I tried to get Isabelle and Jacques-Marie to see reason. Unfortunately, they didn't. And as much as it pained me as a mother, I was forced to go to war with my offspring.

For ten years I waged war against the Dictator. I created vampires to help me against his undead cohorts. I also supported the efforts of human rebels who rose against him. In 1986, the Dictator was finally driven from the Republic of Haiti. Having lost their war, Isabelle and Jacques-Marie swore eternal revenge against me. Victorious, I left Northern Haiti and returned to the town of Montreal, Quebec. And I haven't been back since. I have a new family now. I met a handsome African-American gentleman named Theodore Madison. He's originally from the city of Detroit, Michigan. He holds a bio-engineering degree from Howard University in Washington D.C. and has been teaching at the University of Concordia for the past three years. Theodore has a mixed-race daughter named Antonia, from a previous marriage to an Italian woman in Michigan. She attends Wayne State University but visits us often in Montreal.

I've grown to care for both Theodore and Antonia Madison. Theo and I got married a year ago. They both know that I'm a vampire and they don't care. Theo even came up with a special cream which I use to shield myself from the sun's harmful rays. Howard University's favorite son changed my world in more ways than one. Thanks to my husband, I'm now the only vampire in the world able to walk in daylight. I only do it a few times a week, and I make sure I'm properly attired. That means overcoat, sunglasses, and a ton of sunblock. Still, it feels good to walk in the sun again. Thanks to this miraculous discovery, I gained a stronger foothold into the human world. I got a job at the Quebec Technical College in downtown Montreal and I love it. I love my husband and new stepdaughter. I love my life. And I now know better than to usher the humans I love into eternity. Life is much too precious. I made a mistake by allowing Jacques-Marie and Isabelle to become vampires. I won't make that mistake with Theo and Antonia. I shall enjoy my life with them until the end. And when they've breathed their last breath, I shall walk into the sun...without my shield. Because I don't want to be immortal anymore. I never stopped considering myself human even after I became a vampire. I want to live while I'm alive, and in the end I shall die. As it is proper for all true human beings. I'm no more immortal than you are, if you really look at it this way. And I wouldn't have it any other way.