Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared Haitian independence in 1804, creating the first Black republic and the only state founded by a successful slave revolt. Born in West Africa or in Saint-Domingue around 1758, he was enslaved on a sugar plantation, where he was whipped so severely that his back was permanently scarred, and took the surname of a free Black man he later worked for. He joined the insurrection that began in 1791 and rose under Toussaint Louverture, becoming his most effective and most ruthless commander. He fought against the Spanish and British invasions, and suppressed a rival mulatto faction in the south in 1799-1800 with great brutality. When Napoleon sent an expedition under Leclerc in 1802 to restore slavery, Dessalines initially fought, then submitted along with other officers, and Toussaint was deported to France, where he died in a cold prison. The discovery that slavery had been restored in Guadeloupe turned the officer corps. Dessalines took command of the renewed war in late 1802 and destroyed the French at Vertières in November 1803, aided by yellow fever, which killed tens of thousands of the invaders. He proclaimed independence at Gonaïves on 1 January 1804, restoring the indigenous Taíno name Haiti and tearing the white band from the French tricolour to make the flag. Between February and April 1804 he ordered the massacre of most of the remaining French population, some three to five thousand people, judging that the colonists would otherwise return. He declared himself Emperor Jacques I in September 1804, kept plantation labour under military compulsion to preserve exports, and was assassinated by his own officers in October 1806.
- Lived: 1758 CE – 1806 CE
- Nationality: Haitian
- Roles: military_leader, head_of_state, emperor
