January 1, 1804 · Southern Province Theater
January 1, 1804
At Gonaïves on January 1, 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines tore the white stripe from the French tricolor flag, symbolically erasing the white colonists from the new nation's identity, and joined the blue and red bands together. The Haitian Declaration of Independence was read aloud, proclaiming the birth of the Republic of Haiti — the country's indigenous Taíno name, meaning 'land of mountains,' deliberately replacing the French colonial name Saint-Domingue. Dessalines was named governor-general for life, and within months would declare himself Emperor Jacques I. The declaration was a revolutionary document that went further than any other: it was written in blood, by people who had been bought and sold, and it promised that Haiti would never again be enslaved.
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