PROCLAMATION OF HAITI'S
INDEPENDENCE BY THE GENERAL IN CHIEF, Jean Jacques Dessalines
to the Haitian people in Gonaives, on January 1st 1804, year
first of Haiti's independence.
Translated from French
into English by Noe Dorestant, E.E.
It is not enough to have expelled from
your country the barbarians who have bloodied it for two centuries;
it is not enough to have put a brake to these ever reviving
factions which take turns to play-act this liberty, like ghost
that France had exposed before your eyes; it is necessary,
by a last act of national authority, assure forever an empire
of liberty in this country our birth place; we must take away
from this inhumane government, which held for so long our
spirits in the most humiliating torpor, all hope to resubjugate
us; we must at last live independent or die.
Independence or death... May these
sacred words bring us together, and may they be the signal
of our struggles and of our gathering.
Citizens, my compatriots, I have gathered
in this solemn day these courageous servicemen, who on the
eve of harvesting the last crotchets rest of liberty, have
given their blood to save it; these generals who led your
efforts against tyranny, have not yet done enough for your
well being...The french name still glooms our countryside.
All is there to remind us of the atrocities
of this barbarian people: our laws, our customs, our cities,
all bear the french imprint; what do I say? There are French
in our island, and you believe yourself to be free and independent
of that republic which fought all nations, it is true, but
who has never been victorious over those who wished to be
Well what! victims for over fourteen
years of our own credulity and our own indulgence; defeated,
not by the french armies, but by the shamefaced eloquence
of the proclamation of their agents; when will we get tired
of breathing the same air than them? Its cruelty compared
to our moderated patience; its color to our; the vast seas
that keep us apart, our avenging climate, tell us enough that
they are not our brothers, and that they will never become
and that, if they find asylum amongst us, they will be once
more the schemers of our troubles and our divisions.
Indigenous citizens, men, women, girls
and children, bear your regards on all the parts of this island;
look for, yourself, your spouses, your husbands, yourself,
your brothers, you, your sisters; what do I say? Look for
your children, your children, those that are being breast
fed! What have they become?...I tremble to say it... the prey
of these vultures. Instead of these interesting victims, your
eye dismayed can only perceive their assassins; may the tigers
that are still dripping their blood, and whose horrible presence
reproach your insensibility and your slowness to avenge them.
What are you waiting for to appease their souls? Remember
that you have wished that your remains be buried near the
remains of your fathers, when you had chased away tyranny;
would you go down to your tomb without avenging them? No,
their skeleton would push away yours.
And you, precious men, intrepid generals,
whose lack of insensibility to your own misfortunes, have
resurrected liberty by giving it all your blood; you should
know that you have done nothing if you do not give to the
nations a terrible example, but just, of the avenge that must
exercise a proud people who have recovered their liberty,
and jealous to maintain it; let us instill fear in all those
whom would dare try to take it away from us again; let us
begin with the French... May they tremble when they approach
our coasts, if not by the memory of the cruelty that they
have inflicted, at least by the terrible resolution that we
are about to take to devote to death, anyone born french,
who would dirty of his sacrilegious foot the territory of
We dared to be free, let us dare to
be so by ourselves and for ourselves, let us emulate the growing
child: his own weight breaks the edge that has become useless
and hamper its walk. What nation has fought for us? What nation
would like to harvest the fruits of our labors? And what dishonorable
absurdity than to vanquish and be slaves. Slaves! Leave it
to the French this qualifying epithet: they have vanquished
to cease to be free.
Let us walk on other footprints; let
us imitate these nations whom, carrying their solicitude until
they arrive on a prospect, and dreading to leave to posterity
the example of cowardliness, have preferred to be exterminated
rather than to be crossed out from the number of free peoples.
Let us be on guard however so that
the spirit of proselytism does not destroy our work; let our
neighbors breath in peace, may they live in peace under the
empire of the laws that they have legislated themselves, and
let us not go, like spark fire revolutionaries, erecting ourselves
as legislators of the Caribbean, to make good of our glory
by troubling the peace of neighboring islands: they have never,
like the one that we live in, been soaked of the innocent
blood of their inhabitants; they have no vengeance to exercise
against the authority that protects them.
Fortunate to have never known the plagues
which have destroyed us, they can only make good wishes for
our prosperity. Peace to our neighbors! but anathema to the
french name! Eternal hate to France! That is our cry.
Indigenous of Haiti, my fortunate destiny
reserved me to be one day the sentinel who had to watch guard
the idol to which you are making your sacrifice, I have watched,
fought, sometimes alone, and, If I have been fortunate to
deliver in your hands the sacred trust that you had under
my care, remember that it is up to you now to conserve it.
Before you consolidate it by laws which assure your individual
liberty, your leaders, which I assemble here, and myself,
we owe you the last proof of our devotion.
Generals, and you, leaders, reunited
here near me for the well being of our country, the day has
come, this day which must make eternal our glory, our independence.
If there could exist amongst you a
half-hearted, may he distance himself and tremble to pronounce
the oath that must unite us.
Let us swear to the entire universe,
to posterity, to ourselves, to renounce forever to France,
and to die rather than to live under its domination.
To fight until the last crotchet rest
for the independence of our country!
And you, people for too long misfortuned,
witness to the oath that we are pronouncing, remind yourself
that it is on your perseverance and your courage that I depended
on when I threw myself in this career for liberty in order
to fight against despotism and tyranny against which you struggled
since fourteen years. Remind yourself that I sacrificed myself
to jump to your defense, parents, children, fortune, and that
now I am only rich of your liberty; that my name has become
in horror to all nations who wish for slavery, and that the
despots and tyrants do not pronounce it only while cursing
the day that saw me born; and if for whatever reason you refused
or received while murmuring the laws that the genius which
watch over your destiny will dictate me for your good fortune,
you would deserve the fate of ungrateful peoples.
But away from me this horrible idea.
You will be the support of the liberty that you cherish, the
support to the chief which command you.
Take then in your hands this oath to
live free and independent, and to prefer death to all those
who would love to put you back under the yoke.
Swear at last to pursue forever the
traitors and the enemies of your independence.
Done at the general headquarter of
Gonaives, this January 1st 1804, the first year of Independence.
Words of General in Chief: Jean Jacques
Dessalines, hero of the Haitian war of Independence.