Jean-Jacques Dessalines

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Jean-Jacques Dessalines

Jean-Jacques Dessalines (born September 20, 1758 in Grande-Rivière-du-Nord , Saint-Domingue , † October 17, 1806 in Pont-Rouge , Haiti ) became the first Governor General of the independent Republic of Haiti in 1804 and was from 1804 to 1806 as Jacques I. (German Jakob I. ) Emperor of the First Empire in Haiti.

Life

Dessalines was a former slave in the French colony of Saint-Domingue , now Haiti. In the course of the Haitian Revolution , a series of events towards the end of the 18th century in which the former slaves had fought in various alliances for and against the colonial power of France , Dessalines rose to general under Toussaint Louverture . He was instrumental in Toussaint's victory over his rival André Rigaud in the " War of the Knives " and in this conflict he earned the reputation of a brutal and effective soldier. After Louverture was captured by a French ruse, General Dessalines proclaimed independence in 1804 and declared himself Emperor of Haiti on October 8, 1804. However, the young state could not achieve stability.

On October 17, 1806, the emperor was murdered on behalf of Henri Christophe , who subsequently proclaimed himself president and in 1811 king of Northern Haiti . The murder led to bitter clashes between the Creole and the African population, so that Haiti was divided into a northern half under the black African Henri Christophe and a southern half under the mulatto Pétion during the civil war . A contemporary newspaper reported it as follows:

“London, December 22nd (Via Denmark.) [...] The day before yesterday, American news came in that lasted until November 20th. These report that the previous ruler of St. Domingo or Hayti, Dessalines, was killed in an insurrection that arose because of his tyrannical procedure. The government of the island will come to the Negro Christophe, who should far surpass the Dessalines in talent. Before Dessalines was murdered, he had several of his generals and officers killed. There is now a great ferment on St. Domingo. A bunch of Negroes is said to be in favor of surrendering to England, and that certain conditions are set in favor of the blacks. [...] "

The Haitian national anthem La Dessalinienne commemorates him, and a city and an arrondissement also bear the name Dessalines .

literature

in order of appearance

  • Dessalines, tyrant of the blacks and murderer of the whites on St. Domingo. A painting from the Political Monsters Gallery . Hennings, Erfurt and Gotha 1805.
  • Franz Sundstral: From the black republic. The Negro uprising on Santo Domingo or the history of the origins of the state of Haiti. Leipzig 1903.
  • Erwin Rüsch: The Revolution of Saint Domingue ( Overseas History. Volume 5). Hamburg 1930.
  • Cyril Lionel Robert James : The Black Jacobins. Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. New life, Berlin 1984.
  • Marie Biloa Onana: The Haiti slave revolt. Ethnic difference and ideals of humanity in the literature of the 18th century. Cologne 2010. ISBN 978-3-412-20453-2 .
  • Deborah Jenson: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the African Character of the Haitian Revolution . In: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture (ed.): The William and Mary Quarterly , Vol. 69, No. 3 (July 2012), pp. 615-638.

Web links

Commons : Jean-Jacques Dessalines  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Laurent Dubois: Avengers of the New World . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2004, pp. 236 .
  2. ^ See Augsburgische Ordinari Postzeitung, Nro. Monday, January 12th, Anno 1807. As digitized version  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / bvbm1.bib-bvb.de