Jean Price-Mars

Jean Price-Mars (15 October 1876 – 1 March 1969) was a Haitian medical doctor, teacher, politician, diplomat, writer, and ethnographer. Price-Mars served as secretary of the Haitian legation in Washington, D.C. and as chargé d'affaires in Paris (1915–1917), during the initial years of the United States occupation of Haiti.

In 1922, Price-Mars completed medical studies which he had given up for lack of a scholarship. He argued against the prevailing prejudice and ideology which favored European cultures from the colonial period and rejected non-white, non-Western, elements of the cultures of the Americas. His nationalism embraced a Haitian cultural identity as African through slavery.

Price-Mars' attitude was inspired by the active resistance by Haitian peasants to the 1915 through 1934 United States occupation. He deplored the elite's abandonment of the tradition that had emphasized the nation's achieving independence from French colonialism, but he took pride in the conduct of the poor. He attacked the elite for their "inability to promote the welfare of the Haitian masses."

Collective Bovarysme He coined the term collective bovarysme to describe the elite as identifying with their partial European ancestry while denouncing ties to their African legacy

Notable works La Vocation de l'elite (1919) Ainsi parla l'oncle (1928) Translated: So Spoke the Uncle (1983) La République d'Haïti et la République Dominicaine (1953) De Saint-Domingue à Haïti (1957)