First Empire of Haiti
Haiti, 1804–1806. Draft, not yet reviewed
The First Empire of Haiti, officially known as the Empire of Haiti, was an elective monarchy in North America. Haiti was controlled by France before declaring independence on 1 January 1804. The Governor-General of Haiti, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, created the empire on 22 September 1804. Jacques I was assassinated on 17 October 1806, and two members of his administration, Alexandre Pétion and Henri Christophe, then assumed power.
Seat of power: Port-au-Prince
Rulers
Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Emperor of Haiti, 1804–1806
Dessalines was named Emperor of Haiti as Jacques I by generals of the Haitian Revolutionary army and ruled in that capacity until being assassinated in 1806. Under the rule of Dessalines, Haiti became the first country in the Americas to permanently abolish slavery. Between February and April 1804, Dessalines ordered a massacre of the remaining colonists in Haiti, an event that came to be called the 1804 Haitian massacre.
Portrait of Jean-Jacques Dessalines: Louis Rigaud, Public domain, file
Culture
- The constitution of 20 May 1805 set out the way the empire was to be governed, with the country split into six military divisions. The constitution also banned white people, with the exception of naturalised Germans and Poles, from owning property inside the empire.
- On May 20, 1805, Dessalines adopted a new flag, as he changed the blue and red horizontal band that was used as the French tricolor into black and red vertical flag.
- At the same time Dessalines officialized the French language, even though the vast majority of the population spoke only Creole.
Picture
The Battle of Vertières was the last major battle of the Saint-Domingue expedition and the final phase of the Haitian Revolution.
Image: Kitanago, CC BY-SA 4.0, file
Sources
Text adapted from the Wikipedia articles listed as sources, CC BY-SA 4.0.