Tiffany Franchesca Cruz

Amidst the decaying grandeur of Gothic landscapes, monsters emerge not merely as fearsome beings but as haunting reflections of society’s deepest, darkest fears. While they appear as villains intent on corrupting the characters, a closer examination often reveals that their true nature may be more complex and less sinister than initially perceived. Coined by others as the first Black vampire novel to be published, The Black Vampyre: A Legend of Santo Domingo by Uriah Derick D’Arcy published in 1819 chronicles the tale of a Black man brought to the New World, killed by his owner, as he seeks revenge on his former owner by stealing his son and marrying his wife. The novel uses vampirism as a metaphor to discuss three major themes, the use of the spiritual practices of Obeah‚—which the White people in the story refer to as satanic—the Haitian revolution’s impact on the uprising of enslaved peoples, and the corruption of the White female body. All these things play an integral part in the story D’Arcy writes as he takes a deeper look at the condition of the enslaved Black people interrogating the social, economic, and spiritual backdrop that initiated a revolution. This paper will use several theories from the fourteenth-century Muslim historian and jurist Abu Zayd Abd ar-Rahman Ibn Khaldun (d.1406) to dissect the novel’s social and political themes relating to how the Gothic genre explores these motifs. In her paper, I will explore these major themes interrogating them within the historical context of the nineteenth century utilizing Ibn Khaldun’s theory. Additionally, I will explore how Gothic literature employs Black monstrous figures as a literary tool to comment on Black male societal conditions, examining the fear and fascination surrounding their presence, particularly concerning the corruption of White women.  

““A Gentleman of African Extraction”: Vampirism and the Haitian Revolution in Uriah Derick D’Arcy’s The Black Vampyre: A Legend of Santo Domingo (1819)” presented at Nineteenth Century Studies Association Conference March 29th, 2025

Works Cited

Bray, Katie. “‘A Climate . . . More Prolific . . . in Sorcery’: The Black Vampyre and the Hemispheric Gothic.” American Literature 87, no. 1 (March 1, 2015): 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-2865163.

D’Arcy, Uriah Derick, and Dr Panton Plasma. The Black Vampyre: A Legend of St. Domingo. Edinburgh: Gothic World Literature Editions, 2020.

“Dey, Richard Varick.” Accessed July 31, 2024. https://jacksonbibliography.library.utoronto.ca/author/details/dey-richard-varick/4066.

Khaldun, Ibn. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History – Volume 1. Translated by Franz Rosenthal. Dar UL Thaqafah, 2020.

“The Black Vampyre; A Legend of St. Domingo (1819) – Just Teach One.” Accessed July 31, 2024. https://jto.americanantiquarian.org/just-teach-one-homepage/the-black-vampyre/.

“Uriah Derick D’Arcy – Leamington Books.” Accessed July 31, 2024. https://leamingtonbooks.com/authors/uriah-derick-d-arcy.