་ gade, and other officers, and that of the principal secretary Boviron Tonnère. In the name of the people of Hayti. We, generals and chiefs of the armies of Hayti, penetrated with gratitude for the benefits we have received from the general in chief, J. Jacques Dessalines, the protector of the liberty which the people enjoy, in the name of liberty, in the name of independence, in the name of the people he has made happy, we proclaim him governor-general for life of Hayti. We swear to submit implicitly to the laws emanating from his authority. We give to him the right to make peace and war, and to name his successor. Done at head-quarters, Gonaives, the 1st January, 1804, and the first day of the independence of Hayti. Signed the same as the preceding. LIBERTY OR DEATH!-NATIVE ARMY! The general in chief to the people at Hayti. First year of the independence of the people of Hayti. Citizens! Fellow countrymen! I have, in this solemn circumstance, assembled the brave soldiers who have shed their blood for the cause of liberty: those ge. nerous men who have guided your efforts against tyranny, have not yet done enough for your happiness. Every thing which here retraces the remembrance of the French name, reminds us of the cruelties of that homicide people. Our laws, our manners, our town, every thing bears the impression of France. What do I say? there still remain Frenchmen in our island! Victims, alas! during fourteen years of our own credulity, of our own indulgence; subdued not by the arms of the French, but by the awful eloquence of the proclamations of their agents; when shall we in fine be tired of breathing the same air as they! What affinity do we bear to that murderous people! Their cruelty, compared with our patient moderation; the difference of their colour from ours; the immensity of seas which separate us from them; our vengeful climate, every thing tells us that those men are not our brothers; that they will never become so; and that if they find an asylum among us, they will continue to sow troubles and dissentions here. Citizens, inhabitants of Hayti!men, women, girls, children, cast your eyes upon each of the points of this island: seek in it, you, your wives; you, your husbands; you, your sisters; What do I say? Seek in it your children on the breast; what is become of them? They have been the prey of those vultures! In the place of those interesting victims, your eyes behold only their assassins, only tigers still glutted with their blood, and whose frightful presence upbraids you with your insensibility, your slowness to avenge them! Why delay to appease their manes! Do you hope that your remains can rest in peace with those of your fathers as long as you shall not have made tyranny disappear?-What! the ashes of your relations are in the grave and you have not avenged them! Their bones will push away yours with disdain. Learn, citizens, that you have done nothing, if you do not give to nations a terrible but just ex ample Orders issued by Dessalines, in the capacity of governor-general. All proprietors that have produce to sell shall previously pay a fourth part as a territorial imposition. The power of selling produce of the 11th year shall only belong to proprietors who belonged to the indigenous army in the 11th year. Persons who since that period have resided with the French, are not to have the benefit of that year's produce; their property being confiscated for the use of the indigenous army. Mules, horses, and other animals belonging to the habitations sequestered, are to be given up to the administrators of domains, who are to give an account of the same to the general commanding the department, who will place them in the most advantageous manner on the sequestered estates, to be employed in cultivation. It is expressly forbidden that any officer shall intermeddle.with the cultivation of the estates. All sugar manufactories previously given to the chiefs of corps, shall be returned to the administrators of Domains. All proprietors resident with the French to the time of the indigenous army taking possession of a place, shall forfeit all the produce of their estates during the eleventh year. Jean Jacques Dessalines, governorgeneral, to the inhabitants of Hayti. Crimes, the most atrocious, such as were until then unheard of, and would cause nature to shudder, have been perpetrated! The measure was overheaped. At length the hour of vengeance has arrived, and the implacable enemies of the rights of man have suffered the nishment due to their crimes. pu My arm, raised over their heads, has too long delayed to strike. At that signal, which the justice of God has urged, your hands, righ teously armed, have brought the axe upon the antient tree of slavery and prejudices. In vain had time, and more especially the infernal politics of Europeans, surrounded it with triple brass! you have stripped it of its armour; you have placed it upon your heart, that you may become (like your natural enemies) cruel and merciless. Like an overflowing mighty torrent, that tears down all opposition, your vengeful fury has carried away every thing in its impetuous course. Thus perish all tyrants over innocence, all oppressors of mankind! I have seen two classes of men, born to cherish, assist, and succour one another-mixed in a world, and blended together-crying for vengeance and disputing the honour of the first blow. What then? Bent for many ages under an iron yoke; the sport of the passions of men, or their injustice, and of the caprices of fortune; Blacks and yellows, whom the mutilated victims of the cupidity refined duplicity of Europeans has of white Frenchmen; after having for a long time endeavoured to difattened with our toils these insa- vide; you, who are now consolitiate blood-suckers, with a patience dated, and make but one family; and resignation unexampled, we without doubt it was necessary should again have seen that sa- that our perfect reconciliation crilegious horde make an at- should be sealed with the blood, of tempt upon our destruction with- your butchers. Similar calamities out any distinction of sex or age; have hung over your proscribed and we, men without energy, of no heads; a similar ardour to strike virtue, of no delicate sensibility, your enemies has signalized you: should not we have plunged in the like fate is reserved for you; their breast the dagger of despera- and the like interests must theretion? Where is that vile Haytian, fore render you for ever one, indiso unworthy of his regeneration, visible, and inseparable. Maintain who thinks he has not accomplished that precious concord, that happy the decrees of the Eternal, by exter- harmony amongst yourselves: it minating these blood-thirsty tigers? is the pledge of your happiness, If there be one, let him fly; indig- your salvation, and your success: nant nature discards him from our it is the secret of being invincible. bosom; let him hide his shame far. It is necessary, in order to from hence; the air we breathe is not suited to his gross organs; it is the pure air of liberty, august and triumphant! Yes, we have rendered to these true cannibals war for war, crime for crime, outrage for outrage: yes, I have saved my country; I have avenged America. The avowal I make of it, in the face of earth and heaven, constitutes my pride and my glory. Of what consequence to me is the opinion which contemporary and future generations will pronounce upon my conduct? I have performed my duty; I enjoy my own approbation; for me that is sufficient. But what do I say! The preservation of my unfortunate brothers, the testimony of my own conscience, are not my only recompense: 1801. strengthen these ties, to recal to your remembrance the catalogue of atrocities committed against our species; the massacre of the entire population of this island, meditated in the silence and sang fro'd of the cabinet; the execution of that abominable project, to me unblushingly proposed, and already begun by the French with the calmness and serenity of a countenance accustomed to similar crimes. Guadaloupe pillaged and destroyed ; its ruins still reeking with the blood of the children, women, and old men put to the sword; Pelage (himself the victim of their crattiness), after having basely betrayed his country and his brothers; the brave and immortal Delgresse, blown into the air with the fort which he defended, rather than ac(N) cept cept their offered chains. Magnanimous warrior! that noble death, far from enfeebling our courage, serves only to rouse within us the determination of avenging or of following thee. Shall I again recal to your memory the plots lately framed at Jeremie? the terrible explosion which was to be the result, notwithstanding the generous pardon granted to these incorrigible beings at the expulsion of the French army? The deplorable fate of our departed brothers in Europe! and (dread harbinger of death) the frightful despotism exercised at Martinique. Unfortunate people of Martinique, could I but fly to your assistance, and break your fetters! Alas! an insurmountable barrier separates us. Perhaps a spark from the same fire which enflames us, will alight into your bosoms: perhaps, at the sound of this commotion, suddenly awakened from your lethargy,with armis in your hands, you will reclaim your sacred and imprescriptible rights. After the terrible example which I have just given, that, sooner or later, Divine justice will unchain on earth some mighty minds, above the weakness of the vulgar, for the destruction and terror of the wicked-tremble, tyrants, usurpers, Scourges of the new world ! our daggers are sharpened; your punishment is ready sixty thousand men, equipped, inured to war, obedient to my orders, burn to offer a new sacrifice to the manes of their assassinated brothers. Let that nation coine, who may be mad and daring enough to attack me. Already at its approach, the irritated genius of Hayti, arising out of the bosom of the ocean, appears; his menacing aspect throws the waves into commotion, excites tempests, and with his mighty hand disperses ships, or dashes them in pieces! to his formidable voice the laws of nature pay obedience! Diseases, plague, famine, conflagration, poison, are his constant attendants. But why calculate on the assistance of the climate and of the elements? Flave I forgot that I command a people of no common cast, brought up in adversity, whose audacious daring frowns at obstacles and increases by dangers? Let them come then, these homicidal cohorts! 1 wait for them with firmness and with a steady eye. I abandon to them freely the sea shore, and the places where cities have existed; but woe to those who may approach too near the mountains! It were better for them that the sea received them into its profound abyss, than to be devoured by the anger of the children of Hayti.. War to death to tyrants !" this is my motto; "Liberty! independence!" this is our rallying cry. Generals, officers, soldiers, a little unlike him who has preceded me, the ex-general Toussaint Louverture, I have been faithful to the promise which I made to you when I took arms against tyranny, and whilst a spark of life remains in me, I shall keep my oath-" Never again shall a colonist or an European set his foot upon this territory with the title of master or proprietor." This resolution shall hence forward form the fundamental basi of our constitution. Should other chicfs, after me, by pursuing a conduct diametrically opposite to mine, dig their owa graves and those of their own species, you will have to accuse only the law of destiny, which shall have taken me away from the happiness and welfare of my fellowcitizens. May my successors fol low low the path I shall have traced out for them! It is the system best adapted for consolidating their power; it is the highest homage they can render to my memory. As it is derogatory to my character and my dignity to punish the innocent for the crimes of the guilty, a handful of whites, commendable by the religion they have always professed, and who have besides taken the oath to live with us in the woods, have experienced my clemency. I order that the sword respect them, and that they be unmolested. I recommend anew and order to all the generals of departments, &c, to grant succours, encouragement, and protection, to all neutral and friendly nations, who may wish to establish commercial relations in this island. Head-quarters at the Cape, 28th April, 1801, first year of independence. (Signed) DESSALINES. The secretary-general, JUSTE CHANLATTE. A true copy. |