Jean-Jacques Dessalines (1758-1806) and the Haitian Revolution

FAIN: FZ-280056-21

Julia Kohler Gaffield
Georgia State University (Atlanta, GA 30303-3011)

Research and writing a history of Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the Haitian Revolution.

Jean-Jacques Dessalines was the abolitionist founding father of the most radical nation-state in the Age of Revolution. This biography neither venerates Dessalines nor condemns him. Instead, it offers a true account of his life and rule while emphasizing his global impact. Dessalines’s country prioritized freedom, equal citizenship, and Blackness—this directly exposed the fallacies of Enlightenment universalism and positioned race explicitly at the center of the world hierarchy that emerged in the nineteenth century and that remains relevant today. The man who proclaimed the Haitian Declaration of Independence does not currently fit comfortably in the popular US conception of a founding father. This book challenges that assumption by reevaluating the criteria by which a person qualifies as a “founding father” and I situate him amongst his contemporaries in the hemisphere to reveal his pragmatic strategy and his profound vision.

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Five Myths about the Haitian Revolution (Article)
Title: Five Myths about the Haitian Revolution
Author: Julia Gaffield
Abstract: This month marks the 230th anniversary of the beginning of the Haitian Revolution. In August 1791, enslaved people in the French colony of Saint-Domingue revolted, and eventually abolished slavery and created Haiti, the second independent country in the Americas. Recent media efforts to contextualize the assassination of Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, on July 7 have often relied on myths that undermine the country’s leadership in world history and the racist repercussions that it faced during and after its fight for freedom and independence.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths-about-the-haitian-revolution/2021/08/04/1cf7be4e-f3c1-11eb-a49b-d96f2dac0942_story.html
Format: Newspaper
Publisher: Washington Post

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