Jean-Jacques Dessalines

Janjak Desalin, in Haitian Creole, or most of the world know him as Jean-Jacques Dessalines lived from 20 September 1758 – 17 October 1806.  He was a leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ruler of an independent Haiti under the 1801 constitution.  He also was a great-grandfather of Cincinnatus Leconte, who served as President of Haiti from 1911 to 1912 and is remembered as one of the founding fathers of Haiti.

Haitian tradition holds that Dessalines was transported to Saint-Dominguez as a slave.  Most historians believe that he was born in Saint-Dominguez to enslaved African parents.  Dessalines was a slave on a plantation in the Plaine du Nord in Cormiers (now known as Cormier), near the town of Grande-Rivière-du-Nord, where he was born as Jean-Jacques Duclos, the name of his father, who adopted it from his proprietor.

The identities of his parents, as well as his region of origin in Africa, are not known.  His only known family member was an aunt, Victoria Montou, whom he affectionately called "Toya".  Victoria Montou remained close to her nephew until her death in 1805.  He also had two brothers, Louis and Joseph Duclos, who also took the name Dessalines.  

Working in the sugar cane fields as a labourer, Dessalines rose to the rank of commandeur or foreman.  He worked on the plantation of a Frenchman named Henry Duclos until he was about 30 years old.  During this time, Dessalines was known as Jacques Duclos; his last name was assigned by his master, as was custom among the whites.  Duclos was then bought by a free black man named Dessalines, from whom he received the surname which he kept in freedom. 

In 1791, Jean-Jacques Dessalines joined the slave rebellion of the northern plains led by Jean François Papillon and Georges Biassou.  This rebellion was the first action of what would become the Haitian Revolution.  Dessalines became a lieutenant in Papillon's army and followed him to Santo Domingo, where he enlisted to serve Spain's military forces against the French colony of Saint-Dominguez.

It was then that Dessalines met the rising military commander Toussaint Bréda (later known as Toussaint Louverture), a mature man also born into slavery, who was fighting with Spanish forces on Hispaniola.  These men wanted above all to defeat slavery.  In 1794, after the French declared an end to slavery, Toussaint Louverture switched allegiances to the French. He fought for the French Republic against both the Spanish and British. Dessalines followed, becoming a chief lieutenant to Toussaint Louverture and rising to the rank of brigadier general by 1799.

Dessalines commanded many successful engagements, including the captures of Jacmel, Petit Goâve, Miragoane and Anse-à-Veau.  In 1801, Dessalines quickly ended an insurrection in the north led by Louverture's own nephew, General Moyse.  Dessalines gained a reputation for his "take no prisoners" policy.

The revolt restored most of Saint-Dominguez to France, with Louverture in control and finally appointed by the French as Governor General of the colony.  Louverture wanted Saint-Dominguez to have more autonomy.  He directed the creation of a new constitution to establish that, as well as rules for how the colony would operate under freedom.  He also named himself as governor-for-life, while still swearing his loyalty to France.

The French government had been through changes and was led by Napoleon I, then calling himself First Consul.  Many white and mulatto planters had been lobbying the government to re-impose slavery in Saint-Dominguez.  The French responded by dispatching an expeditionary force to restore French rule to the island, an army and ships led by General Charles Leclerc.  Louverture and Dessalines fought against the invading French forces, with Dessalines defeating them at the battle for which he is most famous, Crête-à-Pierrot.

During the 11 March 1802 battle, Dessalines and his 1,300 men defended a small fort against 18,000 attackers.  To motivate his troops at the start of the battle, he waved a lit torch near an open powder keg and declared that he would blow the fort up should the French break through.  The defenders inflicted heavy casualties on the attacking army, but after a 20-day siege they were forced to abandon the fort due to a shortage of food and munitions.  Nonetheless, the rebels were able to force their way through the enemy lines and into the Cahos Mountains, with their army still largely intact.

The French soldiers under Leclerc were accompanied by mulatto troops led by gens de couleur Alexandre Pétion and André Rigaud from Saint-Dominguez.  Pétion and Rigaud, both wealthy with white fathers, had opposed Louverture's leadership.  They had tried to establish separate independence in the South of Saint-Dominguez, an area where wealthy gens de couleur were concentrated in plantations.  Toussaint Louverture's forces had defeated them three years earlier.

After the Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot, Dessalines defected from his long-time ally Louverture and briefly sided with Leclerc, Pétion, and Rigaud.  When it became clear that the French intended to re-establish slavery on Saint-Dominguez, as they had on Guadeloupe, Dessalines and Pétion switched sides again in October 1802.

The clever tactics of Leclerc's successor, Rochambeau, helped to unify rebel forces against the French.  Dessalines commanded the rebel forces against the  French army and achieved a series of victories, culminating in the last major battle of the revolution, the Battle of Vertières.  On 18 November 1803, black and mulatto forces under Dessalines and Pétion attacked the fort of Vertières, held by Rochambeau, near Cap François in the north.  Rochambeau and his troops surrendered the next day. On 4 December 1803, the French colonial army of Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered its last remaining territory to Dessalines' forces.  This officially ended the only slave rebellion in world history which successfully resulted in establishing an independent nation.

On 1 January 1804, from the city of Gonaïves, Dessalines officially declared the former colony's independence and renamed it "Haiti" after the indigenous Arawak name.  He had served as Governor-General of Saint-Dominguez since 30 November 1803, and after the declaration of independence, Dessalines became Governor-General-for-life of Haiti and served in that role until 22 September 1804, when he was proclaimed Emperor of Haiti.  He was crowned Emperor Jacques I in a coronation ceremony on 6 October in the city of Le Cap.  On 20 May 1805, his government released the Imperial Constitution, naming Jean-Jacques Dessalines emperor for life with the right to name his successor.

Many contentious claims exist that Dessalines was racist towards white people.  In Haiti, “Black” is de-racialised in terms of skin colour giving the person superior substance but racialised as a people bound together because of their shared experience, distinct moral conscience vis-à-vis those they defeated, unique Kreyòl language and African-based culture.  This paradox is the amazing genius of Dessalines’ Haiti.  He simultaneously empowered the Black “race” to both be proud of self and their lineage under the socio-politically constructed race paradigm and to transcend it. 

First, Haiti is racialised because in creating Haiti in combat against US/European enslavement tribes, Dessalines empowered the Black “race” to carry the mantle of the African struggle for justice against racism, colonialism, economic tyranny and imperialism.  Second, Haiti is de-racialised because by naming and defining, in Haiti’s first Constitution, the white settlers who fought on the side of the liberty, awarding them the appellation “Black,” Dessalines showed his profound understanding that human nature goes deeper than skin colour.  Thus, he urged unity of humanity, co-existence, self-determination, working for consensus towards a common universal purpose, empowering both “Black” people and “white” people to not wear their identities on their skins, but to transcend it.

Even after three hundred years of unremitting brutality from the white settlers, the great Dessalines could see beyond the scars and pain grooves of the masters’ lash engraved on his own back and recognised certain white settlers had become Ayisyen in Haiti, awarding them the appellation “Black” because they fought on the side of liberty, proving skin colour does not evidence content of character.

Haiti is a nation of Blacks, of lovers-of-liberty.  That is the ideal Dessalines established at the creation of the nation of Haiti.

Haitians like Alexandre Pétion and Henri Christophe were most allied to the white colonists and began a conspiracy to overthrow the Emperor.  Dessalines was assassinated north of the capital city, Port-au-Prince, at Pont Larnage, (now known as Pont-Rouge) on 17 October 1806 on his way to fight the rebels.  Some historians claim that he was actually killed at Pétion's house at Rue l'Enterrement after a meeting to negotiate the power and the future of the young nation.  

Following Dessalines’ assassination in 1806, under the long Mulatto and Eurocentric presidencies of Petion (12 years) and Boyer (25 years), the name Dessalines was execrated, declared loathsome, cursed, marginalised and not allowed to be spoken.  Neo-colonialism had begun in Haiti and would be formalised with Boyer’s “Independence Debt” ($22 billion with the last slave-trade payment made in 1947 to US, the richest country in the world by Haiti, the most defenceless and poorest). 

The legacy of the impunity and undemocratic offences of this one class and sector of Haitian society, continues to this day.  This Haitian economic elite with their foreign allies cannot accept the principal of one citizen-one vote because it would mean that they would lose their privileges and influence.  Hence, the February 2004 coup d’etat and current UN protectorate under President Preval, pursues the interests of foreigners and their black overseers in Haiti.