Centaur of the Savannahs

Imagine a settlement of reclusive people who for 120 years chose isolation in the God-forsaken coastal swamps of the Carolinas. A place where most normal people feared to tread; a place where law officers are never seen again; a place where these isolated people would go berserk over the sight of a black man and as a result you cannot even force black people to go near Crusoe Island. What happened to these reclusive settlers that made them
feel that they had to hide in the swamps of the New World and what made them fear the black race so much?

Centaur of the Savannahs is based on the true story and family saga of Dr. Jean Formy-Duval and his family who had to flee the terrors of both the French Revolution in 1789 and ten years later the Haitian Slave Revolt with a dramatic escape to coastal North Carolina.

The legend of the Formy-Duval family has been handed down to their descendants from one generation to the next. Their time in Haiti intertwines with the great black general, Toussaint L’Ouverture The novel covers his rise to power, how he drives off three European Armies, creates the first black government in the Western Hemisphere and bests back Napoleon’s attempt to use Haiti and Toussaint’s black army as a spring board to invade the
Southern United States.

When the Revolt unexpectedly reaches the Formy-Duval’s plantation they barely escape Haiti with their lives in a small fishing boat. The family’s dramatic escape from France and then the narrow escape from Haiti, while all the time being pursued by an agent of Napoleon’s French Directorate, coupled with the desperate search for a safe place to live in America makes
for a thrilling historical novel.