The Lisette Project traces the sung history of the oldest Haitian Creole text, “Lisette quitté la plaine.” This website provides performers and scholars with historical and creative resources that unpack the text’s complex history.

Of the text’s many versions, you will find on the Recordings page videos of five that were composed between roughly 1757 and 1942 in places ranging from colonial Saint-Domingue, to France, Louisiana, and modern Haiti. 

The site features a short documentary, Lisette, which draws on our conversations with leading scholars of Haitian, French and Louisiana Creole music and literature to contextualize the song’s importance. 

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This project was made possible by the 2021 Mellon Grant in Arts and Humanities Research Institute at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania.