Jean-Jacques Dessalines
The Founding Father of Haiti
Le Fondateur de la Patrie Haïtienne
Maryse Noël Roumain
May 2012
All Rights Reserved
In Unity, There is Strength
L’Union Fait la Force
(Haitian Flag Motto Adopted by Dessalines)
On January 1st, 1804, on the Public Square of the City of Gonaïves, in Artibonite Valley, north of Port-au-Prince, there was a mass gathering where Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the General-in-Chief of Saint-Domingue’s Indigenous Army, proclaimed Haiti an independent country.
While addressing the generals of the army, he said these words:
“I am asking you to make an oath to forever renounce France; to die rather than to live under its domination; and to fight for independence until your last breath.”
The generals adhered to Dessalines’ invitation saying in unity:
“We swear before eternity and before the entire universe to forever renounce France, to die rather than live under its domination.
We swear to fight ‘til our last breath for our nation’s independence.”
Thirty-two military men of the high ranks of the Haitian army – black and mulatto – signed the act of Independence.
France had occupied the western part of Ayiti which they called Saint-Domingue since the 17th century. However, while profiting from this rich colony thanks to the plantations of sugar cane, coffee, cotton etc…it imported black people from Africa and turn them into slaves who worked in the fields from the early hours of the day to late hours at night, with no compensation. The proprietors owned the slaves who were not free.
Dessalines was present at many stages of Haiti’s revolutionary war:
– He was involved in the struggle since the earlier times of the revolution in 1791 when there was a slave rebellion in the northern part of the country;
– He fought with Toussaint Louverture against the English and the French in the Spanish army when he thought the king of Spain wanted to abolish slavery;
– He fought under Toussaint’s command against General Charles Leclerc, sent by Napoleon Bonaparte, came to re-establish slavery on the island of Saint-Domingue;
– After the Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot, he led the decisive Battle of Vertières (November 18, 1803) against the cruel French General Rochambeau;
– He created the Haitian flag on May 18, 1803;
He proclaimed Haiti’s independence on January 1, 1804
– He adopted a new Constitution in 1805.
Prior to becoming a fierce and merciless warrior and the founder of Haiti’s independence, Dessalines was a slave on the Cormier Plantation near Grande-Rivière du Nord in northern Haiti. At the time, he was named Jacques Duclos since his father adopted the name of the plantation owner. He had two brothers Louis and Joseph.
At Cormier, Jacques Duclos was a laborer and he became commandeur or foreman overseeing and supervising the work of the slaves.
He was bought by a free black man named Dessalines from whom he received his name Jean-Jacques Dessalines. He worked for his master until 1791, year of the Saint-Domingue slaves’ uprising across the northern plains, in French: Plaines du Nord.
Dessalines joined the slave rebellion led by Jean François Papillon and Georges Biassou; then, he participated in the Spanish military forces against the French where he met Toussaint Louverture. After the French declared an end to slavery, Louverture joined the French army and so did Jean-Jacques Dessalines.
There, he was Chief Lieutenant to Toussaint Louverture and he became Brigadier General in 1799.
When Napoléon Bonaparte, the French ruler, sent his brother-in-law, General Charles Leclerc at the head of 20,000 soldiers to take control of Saint-Domingue, Toussaint Louverture who had proclaimed the autonomy of the island and an end to slavery fought against the French invaders with help from the indigenous army. On Toussaint’s command, Dessalines led the Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot and later the famous Battle of Vertières, forcing the French to capitulate.
Dessalines defended the fort of Crête-à-Pierrot where he said to his men while lighting a torch next to a stock of explosives and to mark his determination to defend the fort: “I will blow-up this Fort if the French break through!”
The battle lasted 20 days. The French military confronted with such determination, were finally convinced they would not be victorious in re-conquering Saint-Domingue.
Toussaint, the general in chief of Saint-Domingue’s army who had freed the slaves was outlawed and made prisoner, then sent to France. Leclerc died of yellow fever like a lot of other French soldiers. The French General and landowner in Saint-Domingue, Rochambeau, was appointed to lead an expeditionary force against the indigenous army. He was accompanied with an additional 40,000 troops. Rochambeau’s reputation as a cruel, ferocious and sanguinary man was legendary: he was accused to have practiced the most painful torture and to have killed of the most horrible deaths. He treated both colored men or mulattoes and black men in the most barbarian ways, throwing them in fire and in boiling water.
Dessalines won a major victory against him at the Battle of Vertières, to the south of Cap-Haïtien. This battle, where blacks and mulattoes participated under the leadership of Dessalines and Pétion, delivered the final blow to the French army and its attempt to re-establish slavery in Saint-Domingue. It took place on November 18, 1803 shortly before the proclamation of Haiti’s independence.
Prior to these events, on May 18, 1803, Dessalines had created the Haitian flag, when, at the Congress of Arcahaie, north of Port-au-Prince, he dramatically ripped off the white stripe of the French flag and asked his god-daughter, named Catherine Flon, to sew the red and blue parts together to express the unity between the blacks and the mulattoes. A motto was adopted for the new nation: “Liberty or death!” Liberté ou la mort! And, later, it was replaced and became: “In Unity there is Strength”.
In 1805, one year after Haiti’s independence, Dessalines and his staff drafted a second Constitution, making the following the laws of the land:
– Saint Domingue becomes an empire by the name of Ayti after its indigenous Taino name;
– The violation of property is forbidden;
– No white man shall be master or proprietor;
– All Haitians shall be known only by the appellation of Blacks;
– The first magistrate of the government is the Emperor, Jacques Ier, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army;
– The crown is not hereditary and the Emperor will designate his successor;
– Freedom of worship is tolerated;
– The State confiscates the properties of the French white men;
– The colors of the flag are black and red;
– Agriculture and Commerce shall be protected.
Dessalines and his army chiefs adopted the Constitution:
“In presence of the Supreme Being, before whom all mankind are equal and diversity is the law of nature.”
After the proclamation of independence, Dessalines and his advisors, reminding their people of Leclerc’s and Rochambeau’s atrocities, ordered the execution of all French whites on the island because they were considered a threat to Haiti’s freedom.
Only were spared the Polish soldiers who had deserted the French Army, a group of German colonists based in the northwest, as well as medical doctors, professionals, some white women and other whites who had connections with the army officers.
The Emperor Jacques I took measures to keep the sugar and coffee plantations running and producing to generate crops and income. He encouraged commerce and respected foreign countries. He promoted educated officials and managers including the light-skin elite, the mulattoes.
However, the Emperor was a victim of a secret conspiracy; he was shot and died on October 17, 1806. A woman named Défilé buried his body at Pont Rouge, a locality leading to northern Port-au-Prince.
Dessalines’ wife, Marie Claire Heureuse Félicité, described as kind and merciful, is known as having saved the lives of many Frenchmen.
She was born in Léogâne, south of Port-au-Prince, in 1758. Her father, Bonheur Guillaume and her mother, Marie-Elisabeth Sainte Lobelot were free blacks and her aunt, Elise Lobelot, was the governess of a religious order. Having married Pierre Lunic, she became a widow in 1795 and married Jean-Jacques Dessalines in 1801.
Claire Heureuse is famous for having helped the wounded and the starving during the siege of Jacmel in 1800 when the “War of knives” opposed André Rigaud to Toussaint Louverture:
She then convinced Dessalines, who was one of the parties besieging the city, to allow some roads to the city to be opened, so that the wounded in the city could receive help. She led a procession of women and children with food, clothes and medicine back to the city, and arranged for the food to be cooked on the streets for the hungry.
She became Empress by the Constitution of 1805. Dessalines and Claire Heureuse had four daughters and three sons – including twins – Dessalines had 6 children by other women who were given the name of their father.
After her husband’s death in 1806, Claire Heureuse received in 1843, an annual pension of 1200 gourdes from the government; a pittance. She lived in poverty in Saint Marc then in Gonaïves, north of Port-au-Prince, until her death in 1858 at the age of 100.
Haitians call the founding father of Haiti “Papa Dessalines.” He was a fierce warrior who wanted Haiti to be independent from France, the slaves free from servitude and the black-skin Haitian as equally respected as the light-skin Haitian.
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Maryse Noël Roumain 
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