#jean jacques dessalines

[cartermagazine]

Today In History

Jean Jacques Dessalines was a leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ruler of an independent Haiti under the 1801 constitution. Jean Jacques Dessalines proclaimed the independence of Haiti on this date January 1, 1804.

Dessalines was brought to the French West Indian colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) as a slave. He worked as a field hand for a black master until 1791, when he joined the slave rebellion that broke out in the colony amid the turmoil caused by the French Revolution. In the decade that followed, he distinguished himself as a lieutenant of the black leader Toussaint Louverture, who established himself as governor-general of Saint-Domingue with nominal allegiance to Revolutionary France.

When Toussaint was deposed in 1802 by a French expedition sent by Napoleon Bonaparte to reconquer the colony, Dessalines at first submitted to the new regime. In 1803, however, when Napoleon declared his intention to reintroduce slavery (which had been abolished by the French National Convention in 1794), Dessalines and other black and mulatto (of mixed European and African descent) leaders rose in rebellion.

CARTER™ Magazine

[blackbrownfamily]

Ayiti 1805

[roehenstart]

Le Serment des Ancêtres. Par Guillaume Guillon-Lethière.

[precisemuzic]

Why Haitian Independence should be important to Black people around the world

January 1, 1804 January 1, 1804 On this day we celebrate defeating Napoleon’s army, affirming our freedom and establishing the first free Black nation on in the western hemisphere. L’Union Fait La Force

[presslakay]

Commémoration de l’assassinat de Dessalines : le CPT dépose une gerbe de fleurs au MUPANAH

À l’occasion de la commémoration de l’assassinat de Jean-Jacques Dessalines, le Conseil Présidentiel de transition a rendu un vibrant hommage au père fondateur de la nation haïtienne. Ce jeudi 17 octobre 2024 marque le 218ème anniversaire de l’assassinat lâche de l’Empereur Jacques 1er. Comme c’est le cas chaque année, les autorités commémorent cette date tout en faisant appel à l’unité…

[lightdancer1]

The Haitian Revolution was the first modern War of National Liberation:

Contemporary with the French Revolution and the most egalitarian and forward-looking of the events of the late 18th and early 19th Century, the Haitian Revolution was an event far ahead of its time. It is the first modern War of National Liberation won against a white supremacist power that devoted the full weight of its power. Like other wars of national liberation it included wholesale destruction on a grander scale by Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the point where all the lurid tales of evils done against white people by Black people seemed to move from propaganda to fact because at a blunt level the white French population of Haiti *was* utterly annihilated down to the women and children in a genocidal massacre.

Later generations would glory in such events and would have entire propaganda depots to claim when Moscow starves Ukrainians and Kazakhs in the name of glorious proletarian revolution that a few million dead people were a price worthy of paying. Dessalines, the man who won Haiti its independence, did not have the benefit of such industries and was a Black man who did this to white people in an age of white supremacy, and for that moment so far ahead of its time Haiti has paid the price ever since.

However much one can understand why suffering in the hell of sugar plantations at the hand of the French Empire created the conditions for Dessalines' genocidal massacre, the reality is that it became the archetype by which Haiti was known, and all the more noble dreams that he and Toussaint L'Ouverture stood for were occluded by self-serving lies with a core of hard truth.

[jsuisartistofthestars]

Give it up for year 220!

🇭🇹Haitian History🇭🇹

219 years ago today, the first Haitian flag was created by Jean-Jacques Dessalines and sewn by his goddaughter Catherine Flon.

Dessalines removed the white strip of the French flag to signify the union of the Black and mulatto populations (the latter guided by Alexandre Pétion) during the Revolution. This also was significant as it symbolized the coming removal of the white colonists—and by extension, white people—from Ayiti. Dessalines had the motto "Liberté ou la mort" added for use in his army. Flon is an important figure of Haitian Flag Day and the Haitian Revolution all together.

Haiti was the first independent nation in Latin America, the first post-colonial independent black-led nation in the world, and the only nation whose independence was gained as part of a successful slave rebellion.

Bonus: the flag over the years

[readyforevolution]

On this day, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ruler of an independent Haiti, was assassinated in 1806.

Jean-Jacques Dessalines led the revolution against France, defeating French troops at the Battle of Vertières in November 1803. France then withdrew its remaining 7,000 troops from the island. On January 1st 1804, Dessalines officially declared the former colony's independence as a free African republic, renaming it "Haiti" after its indigenous name. He also freed all slaves making Haiti the first country in the Americas to permanently abolish slavery. Dessalines became the first Emperor of Haiti in October 1804. He was made Emperor for life in 1805, which proved accurate but short-lived as he was assassinated by his political rivals in October 1806.

"..my name has become a horror to all those who want to continue slavery, and depots and tyrants utter it only by cursing the day that I was born."

KEEP EYES ON HAITI!

Stand down Kenya!

Stand up Africa!

Viva the Haitian Masses!

Viva the Haitian Revolution!

Viva the Africa Revolution!

Forward to Pan-Africanism

[pasparal]

Jean-Jacques Dessalines Painter: Ulrick Jean-Pierre

[egoschwank]

al things considered — when i post my masterpiece #1340

first posted in facebook august 23, 2024

guillaume guillon-lethière -- "le serment des ancêtres" [i.e., "the oath of the ancestors"] (ca. 1823)

"you may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world's problems at once but don't ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own" … michelle obama

"'the oath of the ancestors,' painted in 1822 by the french artist guillaume lethière, is a heroic vision of the birth of a nation, though not one he ever called home. a towering canvas depicts generals alexandre pétion and jean-jacques dessaline, heroes of the haitian revolution, in crisp military regalia. their hands rest on a stone inscribed with the ideals of their new freedom; broken shackles and chains lay at their feet. their eyes are cast to the heavens, where a billowy god figure bestows divine grace upon them from above. lethière made it as a gift to the nation, and as a gesture of his solidarity with rising abolitionist and liberation movements. but it’s also an emblem of the artist’s own tangle of paradoxes. lethière was born in 1760 in the french colony of guadeloupe, where his mother, marie-françoise pepeye, who was mixed race, had been enslaved. his father, pierre guillon, a wealthy white sugar plantation owner, didn’t officially recognize lethière as his own until later in life, but doted on him nonetheless. guillon took his son to paris as a teen, where he became a central figure in both the thriving mixed-race creole community and the french art establishment. then, not long after his death in 1832, he was all but forgotten" … murray whyte

"for the 21st century viewer, the sight of the two men of color gazing worshipfully upward at a white god is both offensive and painfully embarrassing although a neoclassical artist trained in europe could hardly be expected to visualize god in any other way. the notion of casting morgan freeman as god was still nearly two centuries in the future" … susan wood

"hope is not blind optimism. it's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. it's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it. hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be" … barack obama

"i ALways fear the worst, but continue to hope for the best" … al janik

[forthosebefore]

Music is a form of prayer in New Orleans and across the sea in Haiti. It connects the living and the dead, the present with the past. Every year, in February and March, people all over the western hemisphere gather together to sing, dance, parade, and celebrate Carnival. The most famous Carnival celebration in the United States is New Orleans’ Mardi Gras. ⁠ Krewe Du Kanaval is back for its fourth year, February 9-12, celebrating the cultural connection shared by New Orleans and Haiti. This year’s theme and “bal” will honor the Warrior Women of Ayiti and Nouvelle-Orléans and feature Cimafunk & DJ Garo, RAM, 79rs Gang, DJ San Farafina, and surprise guests on Friday, February 10 at 8 p.m. in the Civic Theatre.⁠ ⁠ According to Krewe’s website, Anacaona was “The indigenous Queen of the Tainos who heroically held the Spanish at bay longer than any other and kept her kingdom under the rule of its people.” Adbaraya Toya, an elite African warrior of the Dahomey Kingdom, was captured and brought to Haiti as a slave but ended up raising the famous Haitian revolutionary Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Lastly, New Orleans’ famed “vaudou queen” Marie Laveau will be celebrated for the “rare multiracial community” she built and sustained in New Orleans.⁠

SourceL L’Union Suite, Krewe Du Kanaval

Visit www.attawellsummer.com/forthosebefore to learn more about Black history and read new blog posts first.

Need a freelance graphic designer or illustrator? Send me an email.

[dasjungeding]

Illustration from An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti, by Marcus Rainford, 1805.

“Revenge taken by the black army for the cruelties practiced on them by the French”.

[rabbitcruiser]

Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Henry Christophe, and Augustin Clervaux declared St Domingue (Haiti) independent on November 29, 1803.  

[lightdancer1]

That said Dessalines is the villain in historiography for the simple reason that he did give the order, which was carried out, to slaughter every French person in Haiti:

Dessalines has two comparative points that show that he was much more a man of his time than not. The first is his Mexican equivalent, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, a man of whom it can be said that few countries have suffered as much for their heroes as Mexico because of General Santa Anna. The second is the Jacobins unleashing the genocidal slaughter in the Vendee, for which they are both praised and the slaughter considered the acceptable detritus of modern times, and justified in all the ways that Dessalines' wholesale extermination of the French in Haiti is not when both appealed to atrocities done against the revolution by its enemies and had good reasons to think the people slain were in league against them.

One's view of the Vendee will shape one's view of Dessalines. The reality of why he's the villain to L'Ouverture's hero is also fairly obvious insofar as he literally ordered one of the largest massacres of his time and the only one for a long time done to white Europeans by the hands of a non-white liberation movement. It should also be noted in terms of how reflective this made him of the Haitian Revolution that the Haitian Emperor was strangled by his allies and colleagues as an increasingly unhinged tyrant in the making, setting in motion the bitter internal feuding exacerbated by US imperialism that has characterized Haitian politics ever since.