Emperor Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Ulrick Jean-Pierre

Widely considered one of Haiti’s founding fathers, Emperor Jean-
Jacques Dessalines played a pivotal role in the Haitian Revolution and became the country’s first ruler under the 1805 constitution. Dessalines started his formidable military career as an officer in the French army, but later switched allegiances and fought against
France. He served as First Lieutenant to Toussaint Louverture, whose portrait appears behind you. Dessalines led many successful battles, including those at Crète-à-Pierrot in March 1802
and the Battle of Vertières in November 1803, which eventually resulted in Haiti’s independence. Often posthumously vilified and criticized as a cruel ruler, Dessalines was ultimately responsible for defeating the French, expelling them from Saint-Domingue, and renaming the new, free nation of Haiti.

Jean-Jacques Dessalines has often been overshadowed by Toussaint Louverture in Haitian history. Unlike Louverture, Dessalines never trusted the French, who were determined to trap and capture him in order to reinstate the institution of slavery to restore France’s wealth in the global economy. Due to Dessalines’s bravery and formidable military skills, the French Army failed and were unable to capture him or his revolutionary army. In May 1803, before independence had been established, Dessalines commissioned seamstress Catherin Flon to sew a new flag that would symbolize the still-imagined nation of Haiti by removing the white portion of the French tricolor. On January 1, 1804, Dessalines officially changed Haiti’s name from Saint-Domingue to Haiti, a Taíno word meaning “mountainous land.”