For more than three centuries, slave-ships continued with their sinister voyages loaded with their dreadful human cargo.

Millions of people were captured in Africa and sold in America.

By the end of the 18th Century, in Haiti alone, there was a population of more than 2,900,000 African slaves.

After becoming a French possession in 1697,

Haiti soon became America's biggest producer of sugar

and also one of the places with the highest number of slaves in the world.

Now, some of the old sugar plantations have been converted into museums

with enormous stills for distilling the rum, presses where the juice of the sugar cane was extracted

and raised tanks where the fruits of slave labour were kept.

Slave labour carried out under the constant cracking of the whip.

The living conditions of the Africans confined in these yards were atrocious.

After suffering the hardships of a voyage, where normally 20% of the slaves died,

they arrived at the auctions exhausted and ill.

Families were separated and the individual members were sold to different settlers.

Parents and children would never meet again.

The overseers meted out severe punishments to those who did not work flat out

and the hunters of fugitive slaves subjected their prisoners to exemplary treatment which often resulted in death.

Many succumbed to the wounds caused by heavy shackles,

or dehydrated in the sun whilst chained to these sinister crosses.

Cape Haitien was the point where the slavers would unload their ebony merchandise,

as they called their foul-smelling load of dying slaves that survived the voyage

Today it is one of the most beautiful colonial cities of Haiti.

Its houses speak loudly of the opulent past of the French settlers who managed the sugar plantations.

By the end of the 18th Century the black population had reached about 3 million

and there were ever-increasing problems controlling them.

The blacks that escaped, known as "browns", hid in the mountains and organised themselves in very large rebel groups.

The rumours about the French Revolution gave new strength to the rebels.

Boukman, the leader of the browns, organised a great secret ceremony in BOIS CAIMAN

That night on 14th August 1791, a black pig was sacrificed and all those present drank its blood.

The revolution of the slaves had begun.

The message was very clear: cut off heads, burn houses and destroy plantations.

In a few days more than a thousand whites were killed.

The terrified white settlers started the legend that the blacks had made a pact with the devil that night in BOIS CAIMAN.

Many slaves were captured and executed.

The "brown" Makandal was burnt alive, so becoming a legendary martyr

who is still called on in voodoo ceremonies today.

Toussaint Louverture became the leader of the blacks and started up a rebellion that lasted for 10 years,

until on the 1st January 1804, Haiti proclaimed its independence,

so becoming the first black republic in the New World.

Two years later, General Henry Christophe proclaimed himself King and constructed the Citadell in the North,

while a mulatto, Petion, took control of the South.

The construction of this enormous fortress built to defend them from the French, who never came back, took 14 years.

Each stone had to be transported by hand up to a site that was 980 metres above sea level.

20,000 people died during its construction.

The story goes that Christophe ordered that those who refused to work should be impaled against the enormous walls of the citadel.

It could house up to 10,000 people and its geographical situation made it virtually impregnable.

King Christophe built up an arsenal of more than 250,000 cannon balls

for the various types of cannons that he had installed in hundreds of embrasures.

The Citadell, the largest fortress in the Caribbean,

was left anchored in the mountains as a testimony to the struggle of the Haitian people for their independence.

The landscape of the North contrasts with the idea that one may have of Haiti as an arid land.

In this region where King Christophe seems still to reign, the forests are luxuriant and leafy and full of life.

Christophe ordered the Palace of Sans Souci to be built near the Citadell, in the style of Frederick II of Prussia.

In 1820, at the foot of the Palace stairs, near the church,

the eccentric king ended his own life by shooting himself with a golden bullet fired from his silver revolver.

He had repressed his subjects to such a degree, that they rose up against him and forced him to commit suicide.

A simple monument brings him together with the other Fathers of the Nation at the top of a hill near Cape Haitien.

The voodoo phenomenon was born during this period of struggle

in spite of the colonial authorities and the repression of the Church.

The African Gods that travelled in the slaves´ minds had intermingled with the Catholic doctrine of the settlers.

A new religion had been born.

With the flags that represented the different tribes of their ancestors,

the lakús or voodoo monasteries are spread over all the country.

They are normally located in places where the slaves that had run away from the plantations

hid to pray.

Voodoo is a religion that is very closely linked with nature

and many of its deities dwell in rivers, valleys and mountains.

There are many natural settings which are real sanctuaries.

The faithful retreat to these places to meditate and meet their luas, or family spirits,

and the principle forces of the Universe.

These are spiritual observatories that enable them to communicate with the Great Beyond.

Voodoo determines and presides over Haitian society,

it is always present in a world where everything that happens,

be it good or bad, is attributed to the direct intervention of the spirits.

Limonat beach is a place of pilgrimage.

Preachers from the most distant parts of the country come here to perform Guiné ceremonies

and beseech the favour of Erzuli,

mother Earth, the Goddess of Love, who is identified in syncretism with the Virgin Mary.

In the shade of the sacred trees, families take turns to perform their ceremonies.

They mainly offer food and rum and wait for Erzuli to appear, for her to take possession of someone's body.

In this case, the woman with the red scarf.

Erzuli likes to flirt, and seduces people without distinguishing between sexes.

She may enter the body of a man or of a woman,

but everybody will immediately recognise her because of her suggestive movements.

Each preacher recognises different beings in this possession.

Its syncretic translation would be the Virgin of High Grace,

the Black Virgin or the Virgin of Monte Carmelo and sometimes St Philomena,

identified in voodoo with a siren who comes out of the sea or of fresh water.

Other participants also go into deep trances.

People help them and respect them, as in these moments their souls are outside their bodies.

The luas or spirits have taken over their bodies in order to express their wishes.

During these possessions, there are frequent displays of the protection conferred on them by the influence of the deity that dwells inside them.

Each lua has different colours, so different coloured scarves are used to call them.

White kaolin powder is also used to attract certain deities and to identify them.

Erzuli has just recognised one of her followers by the rings that adorn his hands.

These are wedding rings that show that the man has married her.

Each person may marry his protective lua.

They gather their relations and witnesses together and go to the OUNFO or voodoo temple,

where a mystic wedding is held.

From this moment on, the earthly spouse will have to abstain from sexual intercourse on certain days specified by his lua.

For example, Erzuli prescribes Tuesdays and Thursdays,

and on these days she may come before her servants in her dreams.

Here in Limonat voodoo lives alongside the Church.

The devotees alternate their religious customs without any problems.

From the olden days, when the settlers prohibited their African religious services,

the slaves were forced to praise their Gods whilst kneeling before a Catholic icon.

In this way syncretism arose and the majority of the lua have their corresponding Christian deity or saint.

Flags announce that this is a sacred place, a room where spirits dwell.

This is Josephine's house.

Her lua friend revealed to her in a dream,

how she should paint her yard in order to favour an encounter with the spirits that live in these trees.

Voodoo philosophy is very closely linked to nature, and therefore has an ecological bent.

Nobody dares to cut down trees as these are normally inhabited by spirits,

and especially LOKO, the protector of the woods.

Lakús, small villages that have arisen around a temple, can be found throughout the country.

A great sacred mapú, as they call the ceibas, presides over the lakú of the KONGO.

The power of the ceibas comes from the belief that they can talk to the Gods.

Unfortunately, most of them were cut down by the French during their struggle against the slaves' revolt.

The lakús are self-sufficient population cells.

Work is communal as is the product obtained from this work.

Each lakú is run by a HOUNGAN, or voodoo priest, who is called MAMBO,

in the case of a woman, and he or she is assisted by a Council of Elders.

Its inhabitants normally have the same African roots: Congo, Dahomey, Mandingo, Ewé etc..

There is a peristyle inside the temple which is dominated by the POTO MITAN,

the pillar by which the forces that have been invoked may descend.

The altar reflects once again the syncretism of this religion,

which was born in times of war, but now keeps its machetes buried as a sign of peace.

The HOUNGAN carries out a cleansing operation that also serves as a protection against spells,

and he shows us the house of SHANGO, the lua of thunder and catastrophes, equivalent to St. Barbara.

This other lakú is Dahomey. Its architecture takes us to another African region

from which the Yoruba deities, the OREXAS, departed.

The voodoo religion acts as a bonding force for the people.

It joins and fits together the range of different customs of the different ethnic groups

from which the slaves that populated Haiti came.

It helps to prop up a society that owes its existence to this religion.

Other sacred places include the lagoons where the spirits that clean, heal and bring luck to believers live.

In Plaine-du-Nord, the people submerge themselves in the mud and make their offerings of rum.

Wearing the large straw hat that characterises the lua SAKA,

Filo Pascal, a well-known journalist and veteran of the struggle for freedom of his people against the previous regime,

acts as a guide for us.

Thanks to him, we were able to discover the real voodoo

and avoid the countless obstacles placed in our way by the Mafia that limits and sells access to this religion to foreigners.

A great deal of ceremonies are performed in cemeteries among the dead.

The people are not afraid of these places, and it is commonplace,

and considered to be a great honour for someone to sleep on his father's grave.

The tomb of Baron Sammedi, the King of the Dead, can be found in all cemeteries,

although in some it can only be identified by the people from the village,

to stop outsiders using the cemetery for their own voodoo acts.

Normally, it can be recognised by its large cross

and where the first burial was made.

Tonight, we are witnesses to an "expedition" made by a HOUNGAN from Artibonito,

the region of Haiti with the strongest magic.

At the foot of the cross, the HOUNGAN smokes a piece of paper over some candles

so that the lua Great Way allows the passage to reach Baron Sammedi.

Later KAFU, who controls the cross-roads between the earthly world and the great beyond,

will have to give his permission

A fire is prepared with pine sticks and pieces of paper with someone's name written on it,

to prevent somebody leave in another person

They also use special powders made by the HOUNGAN.

In voodoo these powders are very important.

Each HOUNGAN has his own mixtures, which can go from healing powders to zombie powder.

Rum and gas-oil are used to warm the spirits, which normally live in water and are always cold.

The heat attracts them and the HOUNGAN is mounted by Baron Sammedi who is equivalent to St Expeditus,

which is why the ceremony is called an expedition.

Nobody can refuse to return his violent greeting that transmits energy from the other world.

This ceremony is performed so that the Baron may deliver justice

in a dispute and carry out the sentence on the guilty party.

The red and black dolls represent the protagonists, men and women, of the lawsuit that is presented.

When this powerful HOUNGAN is possessed, he has the power to eat glass.

His lua demands it of him.

Baron Sammedi reigns over all the GUEDE, the spirits of the dead.

When he mounts someone he acts like a joker and uses obscene language.

This is the lua of sexuality and he falls in love with women;

his dance imitates the coital act and he always smokes a lot.

Once his work is finished, the Baron lies back on his tomb and prepares to leave the body that he has possessed.

The HOUNGAN is shocked when the Baron leaves: he does not know how he got there,

he can remember nothing.

In Berre an old lady has died and a funeral party has been announced which will last all night.

With songs, the young people try to cheer up her son,

who sits at a small table looking at photos of his dead mother.

The whole village attends the party.

It is a social duty to attend the dead from the moment that death occurs.

At the back of the house, the women make coffee

so that the people can make it through the night and the party may be successful.