Jean Jacques Dessalines (1758-1806)

Jean-Jacques Dessalines (September 20, 1758–October 17, 1806) was a leader of the Haitian Revolution and an Emperor of Haïti (1804–1806 under the name of Jacques I). He is also notorious as a genocidist who wiped out Haiti's white population.

Dessalines was born as a servant in Grande-Rivière-du-Nord in what was at that time the French colony of Saint-Domingue on the island of Hispaniola. He first served as an officer in the French army and later rose to become a commander in the revolt against the same colonial power. After the capture of Toussaint L'Ouverture in 1802, Dessalines became leader of the revolution and, after defeating the French troops sent by Napoleon in November 1803, he declared Haïti independent on January 1, 1804, in Gonaives. He assumed the office of Governor General, but then he declared himself emperor of Haïti in 1805.

Dessalines tried very hard to keep the sugar industry and plantations running and producing without slavery. The black people and other minority groups all fought against this system that he was imposing upon them.

During his reign, Haïti became a nation of two castes. The mainly black peasants resided on the countryside producing their own food and working their own land, while in the towns the richer people, who had mostly been gens de couleur under French rule, dominated both commerce and politics. Even though a majority of whites left the island, racial conflicts still arose among the blacks and colored. Dessalines, who had been born a slave, held a grudge against both whites and light-skinned people. Once in power he demanded that all of the remaining French whites be massacred.

Dessalines declared Haïti an all black nation and forbade whites from ever again owning property or land there. He took over lands and property that held any value by any means necessary, including force and murder. His goal was to centralize most if not all of the productive plantations in the hands of himself, the state, and his cronies.

He also enforced a harsh regimen of plantation labour, described as caporalisme agraire (agrarian militarism) by the historian Michel-Rolph Trouillot. Dessalines demanded that all blacks either work as soldiers of his army or laborers in the plantations or fields.

Dessalines also believed in the tight regulation of foreign trade, which however was essential for Haïti's sugar- and coffee-based export economy. Dessalines favoured merchants from Britain and the United States over those from France.

For his administration, Dessalines needed literate and educated officials and managers. He placed, in these positions, well-educated Haïtians who were disproportionately from the light-skinned elite. As his system began to emerge, many blacks fled into the hills to escape the system.

A conspiracy to overthrow him involved both Henri Christophe and Alexandre Pétion who succeeded him. The Emperor was assassinated near Port-au-Prince, at a location called Pont Rouge (Red Bridge) on October 17, 1806 on his way to fight the rebels. A monument at the northern entrance of the Haïtian capital marks the place where the Emperor met his death.

A woman from humble background, Défilée, took the mutilated body of the Emperor to bury him. Reviled by generations of Haïtians, Dessalines gained a new and more prestigious profile as an icon of Haïtian nationalism, at the beginning of the 20th century.

The national anthem of Haïti, La Dessalinienne, is in his honor.