I Have Avenged America: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Haiti's Fight for Freedom

On Jan. 1, 1804, military leaders Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Henry Christophe, and others who established the new country of “Hayti” formally declared their independence from France in a written document. Once a Caribbean island colony of Saint-Domingue, Haiti had at this time been evacuated by French troops led by General Donatien, Comte de Rochambeau (the son of the French commander at Yorktown). The new nation’s declaration aimed to protect their revolutionary achievement since 1791: to reaffirm the abolition of slavery, after their revolution had successfully forced France to abolish it. 

What did Haiti’s Declaration of Independence have in common with the United States’s Declaration of Independence, if anything? According to historian and author Dr. Julia Gaffield, the Haitian general-in-chief Jean-Jacques Dessalines sought independence from that model, too, and instead forged a unique text to announce political change to Haitian citizens and communicate the new nation’s priorities to the rest of the world. Tracing the complex story of Haiti’s revolution and Declaration of Independence from France, Gaffield explores the early days of the nation's independence from the perspective of its first political leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines in I Have Avenged America: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Haiti’s Fight for Freedom. 

Read an excerpt from Gaffield’s biography of Dessalines, in which she introduces his relationship to other formerly enslaved Revolutionary leaders, including Henry Christophe, and their goals for declaring independence after an earlier declaration.  

Excerpt

On January 1, 1804, in the city of Gonaïves, Dessalines and his generals announced to their citizens and to the world the independence not of Saint-Domingue, but of a new country called "Haiti." The country's new name was, in fact, its old name: what the Indigenous people had called the island before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean. Dessalines initially spelled it 

"Hayti, but over the course of the first decades of independence, the spelling gradually and inconsistently changed to "Haiti. This new name paid homage to those who had earlier fought to the death for their freedom. Recovering the name "Hayti" erased French colonialism and emphasized sovereignty at every mention of the nation and its citizens. 

"Let us swear to fight to our last breath," Dessalines cried to his fellow citizens in Creole on January 1, "for the independence of our country."" He recounted their suffering under French colonialism and slavery and reminded them of the atrocities committed by the recent French expeditionary army. Dessalines's secretary, Boisrond-Tonnerre, then read the oath of independence, which the generals in attendance repeated together: "to renounce France forever, and to die rather than live under its dominion." He also read the text that he had composed the night before and that Dessalines signed and approved. It was a speech in French in Dessalines's voice and addressed to the citizens of Haiti. Finally, the generals nominated Dessalines to the position of governor-general for life. 

These three elements (the oath, the speech, and the nomination) together make up the official Haitian Declaration of Independence, or the Acte de l'Indépendance. It was the world's second successful declaration of independence. 

At the same time, Jean Jacques Dessalines became the first abolitionist head of state in the Americas. In his speech he warned the assembled citizens, "Know that you have accomplished nothing, unless you give to the nations a terrible, but just, example of the vengeance that must be wrought by a nation proud of having recovered its liberty, and jealous of maintaining it; let us frighten all those who would dare to try to take it from us again: let us begin with the french." The French had dared to try to reenslave them, Dessalines argued, and Haitians would never be safe with French colonizers in their midst. "Let them shudder when they approach our coasts," he warned, "if not from the memory of the cruelties they perpetrated there, then by the terrible resolution that we shall enter into of putting to death, anyone who is born French, and who would soil the territory of liberty with their sacrilegious foot." From then on, Dessalines vowed, the war with France would be "eternal." He counseled his citizens to "swear at last, to pursue forever the traitors and the enemies of your independence." 

Dessalines's tone toward the French had changed dramatically between Rochambeau's evacuation in late November 1803 and January 1, 1804. In those few weeks, it became clear that the "stormy time" spoken of after the evacuation treaty at Cap was not over; instead, the war with France would continue. 

General Rochambeau had been careful to sign a treaty that allowed his evacuation but did not concede defeat. This did not mean that he or his troops would be able to keep fighting, however. When the French cleared out from the port at Cap, they were immediately apprehended by the British navy and transported to Jamaica. From there they sailed as prisoners of war to Europe; Rochambeau himself remained interned in England for the next decade. 

[…]  

It was in preparing for invasion that Dessalines conceived of the January 1 Declaration of Independence. This would replace the previous declaration from November 29, demonstrating a dramatic shift in Dessalines's vision for an independent country and what was needed to protect it. 

At first Dessalines instructed one of his secretaries, Jean-Jacques Charéron, to write the new declaration. Charéron composed a text (yet to be recovered) that closely mirrored the 1776 US Declaration of Independence, but Dessalines and his other secretaries complained that it lacked emotion and did not reflect their nation's needs." At this point Boisrond-Tonnerre stepped up and famously declared, "to draft the act of independence, we need the skin of a white person for parchment, his skull for an inkstand, his blood for ink, and a bayonet for a pen!" This statement allegedly convinced Dessalines, and he told Boisrond-Tonnerre to create a document that would match his own fury toward the French. 

On December 31, 1803, Boisrond-Tonnerre wrote through the night, guided by the memory of the hundreds of thousands of Black people who had died under French colonialism. He wanted to ensure that these ancestors would welcome the founders of the new nation in the afterlife. Dessalines approved his text for the next day’s ceremony. It is possible that Dessalines edited the document as Boisrond-Tonnerre was writing it, or after he saw the finished version; but there is little evidence about the process through which the Declaration of Independence was authored or coauthored. Dessalines signed the document in his name and claimed the words as his own. 

In the new declaration Dessalines referred to "Hayti" as "the country that saw our birth,” even though most of the population had been born in Africa. Moreover, he even called Haytis people citoyens indigènes (indigenous citizens). It may be that Dessalines meant that Haitians, regardless of where they were born, had earned Haitian citizenship during the revolution." Alternatively, Dessalines may have been referring to the fact that most of the revolutionary leaders were born in the colony, and their rights to territorial legitimacy extended to the population more generally. Either way, Dessalines's act of renaming validated the revolutionaries claims to the island, positioning the French as foreigners. It was not they who belonged in Hayti. 

The concept of indigeneity also provided a new homeland for those who had been rendered stateless by colonialism and slavery throughout the Americas. This was especially salient for those like Dessalines who were of African descent but had been born in the Americas, and who from birth had been dispossessed of all claims to a homeland. 

Dessalines's Hayti explicitly challenged the colonialist notion of rights and nationality to offer a place of freedom and belonging, a physical and moral place of refuge. Hayti was now a homeland for the dispossessed and downtrodden of the Americas, and Dessalines enacted policies to put this idea into practice. He advocated for the "return" of "indigenous people" (indigènes), whom he defined as noirs and hommes de couleur, to Hayti." In January 1804 he even offered to pay for their safe return from the United States. He issued similar offers to "noirs et gens de couleur" in Martinique and Guadeloupe. 

The name "Hayti" was also symbolically important, since it meant "mountainous" in the language of the Indigenous peoples who previously had inhabited the island. The mountains had, for more than a century, been a refuge from enslavement and imperialism. More recently they had been home to the military camps of Dessalines's Indigenous Army. Haitians owed their lives to the protection afforded by the mountains, and Dessalines continued to rely on the topography for national defense in the years to come. 

Dessalines understood that the intention of the remaining French soldiers and colonists was to reenslave the Black citizens of his new country. His January 1 speech to the "indigenous of Hayti, therefore, was a warning and a call to arms. Dessalines was worried because "the French name still haunts our country." In the previous November 29 declaration, Dessalines, Henry Christophe, and Augustin Clervaux had promised that those who respected their freedom would be treated "as brothers." A month later, however, Dessalines emphasized that his citizens had nothing in common with the French, that it was clear that "they are not our brothers, that they will never be." He now reversed the claim that the French would find safety under his government and argued, “If they find asylum among us, they will again be the instigators of our troubles and our divisions.” 

[...] 

Dessalines ordered the government press to print and publish the Acte de Indépendance. Between the second and third week of January, Pierre Roux-the longtime printer of the colonial government, who assumed the same duties for the independent government-printed both broadside copies to be posted in public spaces and pamphlets to be distributed by mail. Only two official printed copies of this text are known to have survived; one is an eight-page pamphlet, and the other is a one-page broadside. 

In addition to an explicit act of renaming and an assertion that "Saint-Domingue" no longer existed, the published versions of the Declaration of Independence also rejected the French republican calendar and adopted the Haitian dating system as an addendum to the Gregorian calendar. The Declaration of Independence was dated "the first of January, eighteen hundred and four, the first year of independence." Beginning with this declaration, every document that the Haitian government produced, including proclamations, letters, and newspapers, reminded readers that Haiti had existed as an independent country for a specific number of years. 

The day after he declared independence, Dessalines published two decrees. One canceled all existing leases on plantations, targeting military officers or other people who had secured land leases from the French government. These may have been leases like the ones that Dessalines himself had secured when Toussaint Louverture was in power, or they may have been leases between personal contacts or family members. The decree was likely laying the groundwork for the state to nationalize plantation land as domaines nationaux, as the French republican state had done in the colony during the revolution. This way they could ensure consistent revenue to support the Haitian state and protect against invasion. 

The second decree regulated the uniforms of the military officers. They were to wear blue uniforms with red lining, with either red or blue sashes and red, blue, or black plumes, depending on their ranks." These two short decrees highlighted Dessalines's focus as he set out to protect his new country and ensure that it remained independent. A well-organized agricultural export economy and military hierarchy were key elements that would support a centralized, independent Haiti. 

The new nation needed a new plan of defense. Rather than fight to hold onto the ports—which might be impossible, given France's navy—Haiti would defend itself in the mountains that had always sheltered its revolutionaries. Dessalines ordered new forts to be constructed inland from all the major cities throughout the country. At one of these forts in Marchand, he established his headquarters, which he renamed "Dessalines.” The Haitian army later started manufacturing their own gunpowder at the forts in Marchand-Dessalines. Soldiers and cultivators built the forts during mandatory, limited-term work assignments, after which they returned to their designated plantations or stations. The state also pulled tradespeople such as masons and carpenters from their own work or from plantations to assist the efforts. The whole island supported the defense efforts. Just one month after the Declaration of Independence, on January 31, 1804, Henry Christophe ordered the entire city of Cap to help move the arms and ammunition out to the plantations of Grand Pré and Ferrière, where they would construct new forts. 

Dessalines's goal was to maintain a standing army of over twenty thousand men ready for battle and a militia that could be called to arms in times of need... 

Gaffield, Julia, I Have Avenged America: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Haiti's Fight for Freedom (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025), p. 172-178.