Before The Legend of Rasputin.....there was the Legend of Mackandal

Rasputin

Chicks dug this dude?

In reality, Rasputin was a cooky flake with a long beard who the Russian monarchy kept around to "heal" them with his quackery and nonsense. They gave this charlatan high office in the political ranks of their regime. They gave him a lot of money and respected him until he got a little too much political sway in the royal family and then they killed him.

Legend has it, that in 1916 Rasputin was poisoned with cakes and wine but consumed them unharmed. He was then shot 4 consecutive times but didn't even give a care, then he was stabbed, beaten up, rolled in a carpet and thrown into the river. He broke free from the carpet but finally drowned in the cold Neva River.

Here's the tl;dr form of the story told in Disco form:

Mackandal

Many years prior, 158 years prior to be exact, another "hard to kill" myth was born around a Haitian slave named Franswa Makandal. Factual history shows Mackandal was an escaped slave who resisted capture and organized resistance to French slave owners in Haiti. I'm going to relay the myth of Mackandal compiled from many sources but since its a myth and only loosely based on fact, I'm just going to paraphrase what I've read on him and maybe even take some creative liberties (as such).

Mackandal was born in the Congo in the early 18th century. The king of Congo treated his people as commodities and sold Mackandal and others to French slavers who brought them to St. Domingue (present day Haiti). He was purchased from the slave traders by the Lenormand family and put to work on their plantation.

During his daily menial hard labor, Mackandal pocketed any piece of reading material he came across and self-taught himself to read french. He started with basic material and soon was fluent in french. He got his hands on books on french law, history, and newspaper articles. He knew what the situation was, and how unjust the world was. In the news he would read articles about Padre Jean and other slaves who were fighting french authority.

While working on the sugar press machine which turned sugar cane into white granular sugar, Mackandal had his right arm cut off. For failing to complete his chores that day, he was given 50 lashes with a leather whip. Bloody, broken, and close to death...Mackandal risked his life to escape and succeeded.

Mackandal took refuge in the hills. The difficult terrain and extreme tropical heat gave his pursuers great difficulty in re-capturing him. He made a natural fortress out of the hills and gave refuge to other escaped slaves seeking shelter. By 1748 he had formed a band of marooned ex-slaves who acquired food and supplies by raiding plantations. They made use of Mackandal's knowledge of poisons to kill slave owners discreetly.

In 1758 The Mack assessed that he had enough freedom fighters and enough poison for a wide-scale attack on the french. Sadly, before the attack was to take place one of Mackandal's allies was captured, tortured, and gave away the location of the rebels. Mackandal was then caught and escorted by the french military to Le Cap where he would be executed.

fuck this shit!

The french liked to take the re-captured escaped slaves into the town square and burn them at the stake, while other slaves watched, to show them what happened to rebels. Mackandal broke free from his bonds and began to flee the square but was apprehended and brought back. The french tied him to the stake and lit it on fire again but this time the wood burned before Mackandal, his bonds were broken and he again fleed. They caught him and tried again, this time when the fire was about to consume him he chewed up a single hair he was keeping between his teeth, he chewed it into 100 pieces and spit out 100 poisonous frogs. Mackandal's body burned to ash...the soldiers began stepping on the poisonous frogs and crushing them before they could poison anyone. The frogs stuck out their long tongues before dying and spat out 100 yellow flies each who flew away into the night. Mackandal was dead.

Mackandal's final form...?

The voudou houngan Zamba Boukman sparked the Bois Caiman rebellion 33 years later (1791), involving heroes such as Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines. The French foreign legion sent by Napoleon Bonaparte to quell the uprising were devasted by the tropical heat and the yellow flies that swarmed the region. The yellow flies carried yellow fever and the disease killed an estimated 27,000 french troops including Napoleon's brother in law.

Were those yellow flies the same that sprang from the mouths of those frogs the day Mackandal was executed?