Makandal
Makandal (also spelled Mackandal) was a rebel, prophet, terrorist leader, magician, and messiah during the slave revolts in Hispaniola.
Makandal gained notoreity for his skill at organising European-style schools and training camps. This campaign organized Hispaniola's many rebel leaders into an intelligence/terrorist network that spread across the entire island. He incorporated an occultist element into their practices, mixing Catholic saints with vodun rituals. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
He was captured and sentenced in 1758, but he claimed that no white or European authority could restrain him and, rather than dying, he would simply change form when burned on the stake. Indeed, as the fire consumed him, the stake broke and collapsed. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, COMIC: Bêtes Noires & Dark Horses)
His followers took this as confirmation that he had escaped his own skin and become a loa. (COMIC: Bêtes Noires & Dark Horses) They revered him as their martyred Christ or "Black Jesus". By the 1780s, his network had transformed into the Maroon guerrillas that began a significant revolt in the Hispaniolan colony of Saint-Domingue. Émondeur posited that if enough French blood were shed, then Makandal might return to them; and, furthermore, that this bloodshed might have removed Makandal from the stake at the moment of his death and brought him into the present. A babewyn appeared when Émondeur posted this. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
Later scholars hypothesised that Makandal died just as the world again intersected with the War in Heaven, leaving him stranded at historical crossroads. His body likely didn't survive in any way, but charred fragments of his stake or skeleton were treasured in later years. (COMIC: Bêtes Noires & Dark Horses)
