My dear friend, here I am at your home, in your bay, in your harbor.

These days, one does not come to see you by chance. Before setting foot ashore, one must want to discover what lies behind the scenes, far from the surrounding noise. I first took a map and focused on the blue and green that shape your contours. I imagined the lush vegetation hugging your coasts and climbing your slopes. I immersed myself in your abundant literature to sketch the faces that inhabit you. Then, I approached History—the one that shapes both you and me. I see in it a succession of anomalies that have become intrinsic to your identity. From the horror of the slave trade to the brilliance of that young freedman who became a general in Napoleon’s army; all the way to the fight to the death against enslavement, for independence, as the ultimate expression of the universalist vision of your founding fathers.