Jean-Jacques Dessalines, leader révolutionnaire des masses noires s’arrachant à l’esclavage en fondant leur propre république d’Ayiti
14 décembre 2014, 20:53
Citizens :
It isn’t enough to have expelled from your country the barbarians who have bloodied it for two centuries. It isn’t enough to have put a brake on the ever reborn factions who took turns fooled by the phantom of liberty that France dangled before your eyes. By a final act of national authority you must forever ensure the empire of liberty in the country in which we saw the light of day. We must take from the inhuman government that for so long has held our spirits in the most humiliating torpor any hope of re-enslaving us. We must finally live independently or die !
Independence or Death ! May these sacred words rally us and may they be the signal for our combat and our coming together.
Citizens, my compatriots, on this solemn day I bring together these courageous soldiers who, on the eve of receiving liberty’s final breath gave their blood to save it. These generals who guided your efforts against tyranny have not yet done enough for your happiness. The name “Frenchman” still darkens our land.
Everything there retraces the memory of the cruelty of this barbarous people. Our laws, our morals, our cities all still bear the French imprint. What am I saying ? There exist Frenchmen on our island, yet you think yourselves free and independent of that republic, which it is true fought all nations, but which never defeated those that wanted to be free !
Victims for fourteen years of our credulity and indulgence, defeated not by French armies but by the lying eloquence of the proclamations of their agents, when will we tire of breathing the same air as them ? What do we have in common with this people of executioners ? Its cruelty compared to our moderation, its color to ours, the vastness of the sea that separates us, our avenging climate speak loudly enough that they are not our brothers, that they will never become so, and that if they find asylum among us they will again become the manipulators of our troubles and dissensions.
Native citizens ; men, women, daughters, and children : gaze on all the sections of this island. You there : look for your wives ; you, your husbands ; you, your brothers ; you, your sisters. Look for your children, your babes at the breast. What have they become ? I tremble at the answer... The prey of those vultures. Instead of their victims, your consternated eyes see only their assassins, only the tigers with their victims’ blood still dripping from them and whose terrible presence stands as a reproach to your lack of sensibility, your culpable delay in avenging them. What are you waiting for to appease their shades ? You wanted your remains to rest near those of your fathers when you drove out tyranny. Will you descend into their graves without having avenged them ? No ! Their bones will drive yours out.
And you, worthy men, intrepid generals who, paying no heed to your own misfortunes, resuscitated liberty by giving of your blood, know that you did nothing if you fail to set a terrible but just example for other nations of the vengeance which a people proud of having recovered its liberty and jealous of maintaining it must exercise. Frighten all those who would attempts to take it from us anew. Begin with the French ! Let them tremble upon approaching our coasts, if not because of the memory of the cruelties they carried out here, at least from the terrible resolution we are going to take to punish with death whatever born Frenchman soils our land of liberty with his sacrilegious step.
We dared to be free ; dare to be so by and for ourselves. Imitate the child that grows : its own weight tears the leading strings that become useless to it and hinders its march. What people fought for us ? What people want to harvest the fruits of our labors ? And what a dishonorable absurdity to win in order to be slaves. Slaves ! Leave this epithet to the French. They vanquished in order to cease to be free.
Let us march on another road. Imitate those peoples who, being solicitous of the future and fearing to leave to posterity the example of cowardice, preferred to be exterminated rather than to be erased from the ranks of free peoples.
However, we must see to it that the spirit of proselytism not destroy our work. We must allow our neighbors to breathe in peace. May they live peacefully under the rule of laws they made themselves and let us not, acting like revolutionary firebrands, consider ourselves the legislators of the Caribbean, make our glory consist in troubling the repose of the neighboring islands. Unlike the one we inhabit, their isles weren’t watered with the innocent blood of their inhabitants. They have no vengeance to take against the authority that protects them. Fortunate in not having known the ills that destroyed us, they can only offer wishes for our prosperity.
Peace on our neighbors, but anathema on the name of Frenchman ! Eternal hatred for France ! This is our cry.
Natives of Haiti, my destiny was to one day be the sentinel who watched over the idol to whom you sacrificed. I watched and fought, sometimes alone, and if I was fortunate enough to place in your hands the sacred object you entrusted to me, it is now up to you to preserve it. In fighting for your liberty I worked for my own happiness. Before consolidating it through laws that ensure your free individuality, your chiefs who I have assembled here and I owe you a final proof of our devotion.
Generals, and you chiefs, gathered near me for the happiness of our country, the day has arrived, the day that will make our glory eternal : our independence.
If there exists among you a lukewarm heart, let it go far from here and tremble at pronouncing the vow that is to unite us.
Let us swear before the entire universe, before posterity, to ourselves, to forever renounce France and to die rather than live under its domination. To fight to the last breath for our country’s independence !
And you, people too long unhappy, witnesses of the vow we pronounce, bear in mind that I counted on your loyalty and courage when I threw myself into the career of liberty to fight the despotism and tyranny you had fought against for fourteen years. Keep in mind that I sacrificed everything for your defense : parents, children, fortune, and now I am rich only in your freedom ; that my name has become a horror to all those peoples that want slavery and that despots and tyrants only speak it when cursing the day on which I was born. And if you ever refuse or complainingly accept the laws that the genius that watches over your destiny dictates to me for your happiness, you would deserve the fate of ungrateful peoples.
But far from me is this horrible idea. You will be the supports of the liberty you cherish, the support the chief who commands you.
Take the vow to live free and independent and to prefer death to anyone who wants to place you again under the yoke. Finally, swear to forever pursue the traitors and the enemies of your independence.
Execute at the headquarters in Gonaïves, January 1, 1804, the first year of independence.
Citizens :
It isn’t enough to have expelled from your country the barbarians who have bloodied it for two centuries. It isn’t enough to have put a brake on the ever reborn factions who took turns fooled by the phantom of liberty that France dangled before your eyes. By a final act of national authority you must forever ensure the empire of liberty in the country in which we saw the light of day. We must take from the inhuman government that for so long has held our spirits in the most humiliating torpor any hope of re-enslaving us. We must finally live independently or die !
Independence or Death ! May these sacred words rally us and may they be the signal for our combat and our coming together.
Citizens, my compatriots, on this solemn day I bring together these courageous soldiers who, on the eve of receiving liberty’s final breath gave their blood to save it. These generals who guided your efforts against tyranny have not yet done enough for your happiness. The name “Frenchman” still darkens our land.
Everything there retraces the memory of the cruelty of this barbarous people. Our laws, our morals, our cities all still bear the French imprint. What am I saying ? There exist Frenchmen on our island, yet you think yourselves free and independent of that republic, which it is true fought all nations, but which never defeated those that wanted to be free !
Victims for fourteen years of our credulity and indulgence, defeated not by French armies but by the lying eloquence of the proclamations of their agents, when will we tire of breathing the same air as them ? What do we have in common with this people of executioners ? Its cruelty compared to our moderation, its color to ours, the vastness of the sea that separates us, our avenging climate speak loudly enough that they are not our brothers, that they will never become so, and that if they find asylum among us they will again become the manipulators of our troubles and dissensions.
Native citizens ; men, women, daughters, and children : gaze on all the sections of this island. You there : look for your wives ; you, your husbands ; you, your brothers ; you, your sisters. Look for your children, your babes at the breast. What have they become ? I tremble at the answer... The prey of those vultures. Instead of their victims, your consternated eyes see only their assassins, only the tigers with their victims’ blood still dripping from them and whose terrible presence stands as a reproach to your lack of sensibility, your culpable delay in avenging them. What are you waiting for to appease their shades ? You wanted your remains to rest near those of your fathers when you drove out tyranny. Will you descend into their graves without having avenged them ? No ! Their bones will drive yours out.
And you, worthy men, intrepid generals who, paying no heed to your own misfortunes, resuscitated liberty by giving of your blood, know that you did nothing if you fail to set a terrible but just example for other nations of the vengeance which a people proud of having recovered its liberty and jealous of maintaining it must exercise. Frighten all those who would attempts to take it from us anew. Begin with the French ! Let them tremble upon approaching our coasts, if not because of the memory of the cruelties they carried out here, at least from the terrible resolution we are going to take to punish with death whatever born Frenchman soils our land of liberty with his sacrilegious step.
We dared to be free ; dare to be so by and for ourselves. Imitate the child that grows : its own weight tears the leading strings that become useless to it and hinders its march. What people fought for us ? What people want to harvest the fruits of our labors ? And what a dishonorable absurdity to win in order to be slaves. Slaves ! Leave this epithet to the French. They vanquished in order to cease to be free.
Let us march on another road. Imitate those peoples who, being solicitous of the future and fearing to leave to posterity the example of cowardice, preferred to be exterminated rather than to be erased from the ranks of free peoples.
However, we must see to it that the spirit of proselytism not destroy our work. We must allow our neighbors to breathe in peace. May they live peacefully under the rule of laws they made themselves and let us not, acting like revolutionary firebrands, consider ourselves the legislators of the Caribbean, make our glory consist in troubling the repose of the neighboring islands. Unlike the one we inhabit, their isles weren’t watered with the innocent blood of their inhabitants. They have no vengeance to take against the authority that protects them. Fortunate in not having known the ills that destroyed us, they can only offer wishes for our prosperity.
Peace on our neighbors, but anathema on the name of Frenchman ! Eternal hatred for France ! This is our cry.
Natives of Haiti, my destiny was to one day be the sentinel who watched over the idol to whom you sacrificed. I watched and fought, sometimes alone, and if I was fortunate enough to place in your hands the sacred object you entrusted to me, it is now up to you to preserve it. In fighting for your liberty I worked for my own happiness. Before consolidating it through laws that ensure your free individuality, your chiefs who I have assembled here and I owe you a final proof of our devotion.
Generals, and you chiefs, gathered near me for the happiness of our country, the day has arrived, the day that will make our glory eternal : our independence.
If there exists among you a lukewarm heart, let it go far from here and tremble at pronouncing the vow that is to unite us.
Let us swear before the entire universe, before posterity, to ourselves, to forever renounce France and to die rather than live under its domination. To fight to the last breath for our country’s independence !
And you, people too long unhappy, witnesses of the vow we pronounce, bear in mind that I counted on your loyalty and courage when I threw myself into the career of liberty to fight the despotism and tyranny you had fought against for fourteen years. Keep in mind that I sacrificed everything for your defense : parents, children, fortune, and now I am rich only in your freedom ; that my name has become a horror to all those peoples that want slavery and that despots and tyrants only speak it when cursing the day on which I was born. And if you ever refuse or complainingly accept the laws that the genius that watches over your destiny dictates to me for your happiness, you would deserve the fate of ungrateful peoples.
But far from me is this horrible idea. You will be the supports of the liberty you cherish, the support the chief who commands you.
Take the vow to live free and independent and to prefer death to anyone who wants to place you again under the yoke. Finally, swear to forever pursue the traitors and the enemies of your independence.
Execute at the headquarters in Gonaïves, January 1, 1804, the first year of independence.
Signed : J.J. Dessalines