Wk. 5 Primary Source Jean-Jacques Dessalines, The Haitian Declaration of Independence (1804)

Question 1

Jean-Jacques Dessalines, The Haitian Declaration of Independence (1804)

Answer 1

Jean-Jacques Dessalines, The Haitian Declaration of Independence (1804) – The Haitian Revolution began in 1791, when slaves launched a series of uprisings against French sugar and coffee plantation owners. The French government, itself the product of a revolution in 1789 that proclaimed the universal rights of man, responded by abolishing slavery in all French colonies in 1794. But revolutionary France’s wars continued and, when Napoleon Bonaparte came to power he attempted to restore slavery. Toussaint L’Ouverture and his deputy Jean-Jacques Dessalines (Haitian born), the author of this declaration, led resistance to France that resulted in an independent Haiti.

What ideas did Dessalines use to justify independence?

• “…barbarians who have bloodied our land for two centuries; it is not enough to have restrained those ever-evolving factions that one after another mocked the specter of liberty that France dangled before you.”
• “What do we have in common with this nation of executioners? The difference between its cruelty and our patient moderation, its color and ours, the great seas that separate us, our avenging climate, all tell us plainly that they are not our brothers…”

What would it take for Haiti to become truly independent of France?

• It is not enough to have expelled the barbarians who have bloodied our land for two centuries; it is not enough to have restrained those ever-evolving factions that one after another mocked the specter of liberty that France dangled before you. We must, with one last act of national authority, forever ensure liberty’s reign in the country of our birth; we must take any hope of reenslaving us away from the inhumane government that for so long kept us in the msot humiliating stagnation. In the end we must live independent or die.”
• “…put to death anyone born French whose profane foot soils the land of liberty.”
• Reminiscent of US Founding Father Patrick Henrey’s proclaimation of “Give me liberty or give me death!” – “…Independence or death…”
  

What qualified a person as a “real” Haitian?

• A “real” Haitan is born in Haiti of Haitian parents. – “Native citizens,” “Natives of Haiti!”
  
  • He also equates ‘place of birth’ to allegiance when he notes that they should – “…put to death anyone born French whose profane foot soils the land of liberty.”

Other Notes:

• Seeks only to free their homeland without bothering any other nation – “let us allow our neighbors to breathe in peace”