Jean-Jacques Dessalines was a leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ruler of an independent Haiti under the 1805 constitution.
54 Facts About Jean-Jacques Dessalines
2.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines has been referred to as the father of the nation of Haiti.
3.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines was directly responsible for the country and under his rule, Haiti became the first country in the Americas to permanently abolish slavery.
4.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines served as an officer in the French army when the colony was fending off Spanish and British incursions.
5.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines defeated a French army at the Battle of Vertieres on 18 November 1803.
6.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines ordered the genocidal 1804 Haiti massacre of remaining Europeans, including former slave owners, in Haiti, many of whom were not willing to live in peace with the new free Haitian state, resulting in the deaths of between 3,000 and 5,000 people.
7.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines excluded surviving Polish Legionnaires, who had defected from the French legion to become allied with the enslaved Africans and the Germans who did not take part of the slave trade.
8.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines granted them full citizenship under the constitution and classified them as Noir, the new ruling ethnicity.
9.
In September 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines was proclaimed emperor by the generals of the Haitian Revolution Army.
10.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines ruled in that capacity under the Imperial Constitution 1805 until being assassinated in 1806 by opponents who were against his rule.
11.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines Duclos was born into slavery on Cormier, a plantation near Grande-Riviere-du-Nord, Saint-Domingue.
12.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines's enslaved father had adopted the surname from his owner Henri Duclos.
13.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines later took the surname Dessalines, after a free man of color who had purchased him.
14.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines worked on Duclos's plantation until he was about 30 years old.
15.
Still enslaved, Jean-Jacques was bought by a man with the last name of Dessalines, an affranchi or free man of color, who assigned his own surname to Jean-Jacques.
16.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines worked for that master for about three years.
17.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines received his early military training from a woman whose name was either Victoria Montou or Akbaraya Toya.
18.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines became increasingly embittered toward both the whites and gens de couleur libres in the years of conflict during the revolution.
19.
Yet, after declaring himself Governor-for-Life in 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines took his old master Dessalines into his house and gave him a job.
20.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines was married to Marie-Claire Heureuse Felicite Bonheur from the city of Leogane.
21.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines was older than her husband and died when she was 100 years old.
22.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines was referred to as the adopted wife of the Nation in a letter by Petion after the Emperor's assassination.
23.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines offered one of his daughters to Petion but Petion refused under the pretext that she was in a relationship with Chancy, one of Toussaint's nephews.
24.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines had two brothers, Louis and Joseph Duclos, who later took the surname Jean-Jacques Dessalines.
25.
In 1791, along with thousands of other enslaved persons, Jean-Jacques Dessalines joined the slave rebellion of the northern plains led by Jean Francois Papillon and Georges Biassou.
26.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines became a lieutenant in Papillon's army and followed him to Santo Domingo, occupying the eastern half of the island, where he enlisted to serve Spain's military forces against the French colony of Saint-Domingue.
27.
In that period, Jean-Jacques Dessalines met the rising military commander Toussaint Breda, a mature man born into slavery.
28.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines fought for the French Republic against both the Spanish and British, who were trying to get control of the lucrative colony of Saint-Domingue.
29.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines followed, becoming a chief lieutenant to Toussaint Louverture and rising to the rank of brigadier general by 1799.
30.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines commanded many successful engagements, including the captures of Jacmel, Petit-Goave, Miragoane and Anse-a-Veau.
31.
In 1801, Jean-Jacques Dessalines quickly ended an insurrection in the north led by Louverture's nephew, General Moyse.
32.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines gained a reputation for his "take no prisoners" policy, and for burning homes and entire villages to the ground.
33.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines directed the creation of a new constitution to establish that, as well as rules for how the colony would operate under freedom.
34.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines named himself governor-for-life, while still swearing his loyalty to France.
35.
Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines fought against the invading French forces, with Jean-Jacques Dessalines defeating them at the battle for which he is most famous, Crete-a-Pierrot.
36.
Several historians attribute Jean-Jacques Dessalines with being at least partially responsible for Louverture's arrest, as did Louverture's son Isaac.
37.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines promulgated the Declaration of Independence in 1804, and declared himself emperor.
38.
On 1 January 1804, from the city of Gonaives, Jean-Jacques Dessalines officially declared the former colony's independence and renamed it "Ayiti" after the indigenous Taino name.
39.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines had served as Governor-General of Saint-Domingue since 30 November 1803.
40.
In declaring Haiti an independent country, Jean-Jacques Dessalines abolished slavery in the new country.
41.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines tried to keep the sugar industry and plantations running and producing without slavery.
42.
Between February and April 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines ordered genocide, the 1804 Haiti massacre of remaining whites.
43.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared Haiti to be an all-black nation and forbade whites from owning property or land there.
44.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines enforced a harsh regimen of plantation labor, described by the historian Michel-Rolph Trouillot as caporalisme agraire.
45.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines's forces were strict in enforcing this, to the extent that some blacks felt as if they were again enslaved.
46.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines believed in the tight regulation of foreign trade, which was essential for Haiti's sugar and coffee-based export economy.
47.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines placed in these positions well-educated Haitians, who were disproportionately from the light-skinned elite, as gens de couleur were most likely to have been educated.
48.
The raids, carried out by 40,000 Haitian soldiers, were led by Henri Christophe and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who were present during the action.
49.
Disaffected members of Jean-Jacques Dessalines's administration, including Alexandre Petion and Henri Christophe, began a conspiracy to overthrow the Emperor.
50.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines was assassinated north of the capital city, Port-au-Prince, at Larnage, on 17 October 1806, on his way to fight the rebels.
51.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines's body was picked up by Marie-Sainte Dede Bazile and buried in the Cimetiere interieur of Church Ste-Anne and a tomb was raised by Etienne Gerin's wife with the inscription: Ci-git Dessalines, mort a 48 ans.
52.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines's body was later moved to Autel de la Patrie in Champs-de-Mars alongside Alexandre Petion's body.
53.
The mob desecrated and disfigured Jean-Jacques Dessalines' remains, which were abandoned on Government Square.
54.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines's murder left a power vacuum and civil war ensued.