Island Beneath the Sea

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of physical and sexual assault, as well as death by suicide.

At the age of 40, Zarité Sedella, known as Tété, looks back on her life thus far with satisfaction, reflecting on her family as well as the African music and dancing that is part of her Voodoo faith tradition. As a young, enslaved girl living in the home of Madame Delphine Pascal, she learned to dance from her friend and mentor, an elderly enslaved man named Honoré.

In 1770, at the age of 20, Toulouse Valmorain leaves France for the French colony of Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean. Following his father’s death by syphilis a few months later, Valmorain takes over his sugar plantation, which is currently unprofitable and in disarray. Within three years, Valmorain reforms the plantation; known as Saint-Lazare, the plantation is much more productive under his control. Valmorain considers himself a “just master” to the enslaved people who work his plantation. He hires Prosper Cambray, a free man with African and European ancestry, as the head overseer at Saint-Lazare. Socially, Valmorain remains largely aloof, though he does frequently visit