Haitian Culture Curriculum Guide

whites and three mulattos. Their mission was to prepare a constitution for the island of Saint
Domingue.
On May 9, 1801, the assembly presented the island’s first constitution to Toussaint. He was
named Governor General for Life with power to choose his successor. Everything was centralized
under his sole authority. He would propose and promulgate laws; make all appointments, control
finances, and command armies.
Toussaint’s constitution was authoritarian, centralizing, and largely despotic. It did not take long
for those who were most affected by his decisions, especially the cultivators who were afraid of the
return to slavery, to enter into rebellion. He reacted strongly and too often abusively. He gradually
lost the support he needed for a productive and successful administration.
In France, people were fearful of Toussaint and unhappy about his leadership of the one time
richest French colony. Napoleon himself was enraged against the Governor General for Life and
his arrogance. Determined to annihilate the government of the blacks in Saint Domingue, he
ordered an expedition of 22,000 French, Spanish, and Dutch soldiers who sailed on eighty-six
warships from several ports in Europe. Napoleon appointed his twenty-nine-year-old brother-inlaw,
Victor-Emmanuel Leclerc, to arrest and deport Toussaint Louverture.
About six months after his arrival, Leclerc led Toussaint into a trap, arrested him on June 7, 1802,
and “shipped” him to France, where he was incarcerated at Fort de Joux, on the glacial top of the
Jura mountain. On the morning of April 7, 1803, Toussaint Louverture was dead. He was found
seated in a chair near the fire, his head resting against the chimney.
Independence at Last
Toussaint’s right arm, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, succeeded him as General-in-Chief of the rebels
after an agreement with General Alexandre Petion for the love of liberty and independence. Petion
was a mulatto born free who returned from France to Saint Domingue with Leclerc’s army.
Dessalines was born in slavery on habitation Cormiers between 1746 and 1758, and was named
Jacques Duclos after his master.
Rebellious and disobedient, the young slave grew up under the whips and lashes of the plantation
commanders. He became a young man of medium height with powerful, muscular limbs. His face
and body were covered with furrows encrusted on his skin by frequent lashings.
When he was thirty-three years old, Jean-Jacques was sold to a black slave owner whose name was
Des Salines. This new owner was a carpenter. Jean-Jacques learned from this master, who
considered him a good worker. Their relationship was so cordial that Jean-Jacques was pleased to
have a new name, which became Dessalines.
His former master, Duclos, may have sold him because of his possible participation in the Bwa
Kayiman gathering of August 14, 1791, along with Toussaint Louverture, supposedly Reverend P.
Cabon, a catholic priest, reported that Dessalines participated in the slave uprising of 1791 and
joined the French army with Toussaint Louverture in 1794.
As General-in-Chief of the rebels, Dessalines proposed to finish the work begun by Makandal and
Boukman.
The same forces that molded Toussaint’s genius had helped the emergence of his black and mulatto
senior generals and officials. The most famous among the black generals was Dessalines. He was
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