Jean-Jacques Dessalines is one of the most influential leaders of Haiti. He is also recognized as the first black president of a majority-black Caribbean nation. During the early stages of the Haiti revolution, Dessalines took over from Haiti’s last king and served as his vice president. He later went on to lead the way in drafting the new constitution in 1811.
Early life
Jean-Jacques Dessalines was born in 1758. He was born into slavery in the French colony of Saint Dominique. His parents were Congolese. Dessalines was originally given the name Duclos after the plantation owner, where he was a slave. He later adopted the surname Dessalines from the black landowner who bought him over from Duclos.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines is recognized as a key player in the history of slavery in Haiti. He had been a leading figure in the slave trade during the time of Napoleon Bonaparte. As a young man, he had also been involved in the politics of his native island of Guadeloupe. Dessalines became very famous as a negotiator during the debates among the Caribbean island nations over colonization. The policy he initiated concerning the slave trade helped the slaves in their quest for freedom.
Economic Policies
Dessalines was responsible for laying the cornerstone of the future economic policies of Haiti. These policies would help the fledging country progress. He established free trade in the country and encouraged growth both domestically and internationally. One of Dessalines’ most popular achievements is the creation of the National Bank of Haiti.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines also played an important role as an economic adviser to his national assembly. He advocated the policy of centralization of economic policies to make better use of the country’s wealth. Dessalines argued that economic policies should be planned with the local population in mind. Although he had the strong support of the poor and disadvantaged sectors of the population, he was accused of being a paternalistic figure who favored a strong economic system based on extreme indifference. However, many of his economic policies were controversial due to the clauses he included in the constitution.
Abolition of Slave Trade
Dessalines became a favorite for a number of political reasons. First, he was almost single-handedly responsible for the popular rejection of slavery. Slavery existed throughout the Caribbean region at the time; however, it was illegal in all of them at the time of Dessalines’ reign. Furthermore, he implemented a policy of rigorous censorship, which courts and laws enforced.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines also tried to introduce social equity in the policies he implemented. For example, the National Household Assistance Program (NHA) policy required all citizens to receive assistance from the government when they became dependent upon others. This policy was meant to help the poor, the disabled, and those with families who were scattered across the countryside. However, this policy did not have any bearing on a person’s ability to work or earn. Dessalines also introduced a policy that allowed women to hold higher positions in the armed forces; he believed that the unequal distribution of wealth among genders in the military was a major cause of concern among women.
Socialism
Jean-Jacques Dessalines also tried to introduce a more socialist economic policy. This policy failed largely because of widespread illiteracy and poverty. Nonetheless, he did introduce the Confrétal System that allowed workers to buy shares in the national stock market. Though this policy was later revoked, it marked a beginning towards greater equality in the workplace.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines is best known for his book, Les Pecules de la Suisse (The Peculiar Economic), wherein he attempted to analyze economic policy’s role in a country’s development. He argued that a policy based on indifference would fail because entrepreneurs would be too preoccupied with their profit goals to contribute to a society’s well-being. Rather than relying on these individuals, Dessalines argued, it was better to rely on large corporations that can pool resources to finance public goods and services. Dessalines also tried making economic theory more realistic by proposing that some notions, such as rent-seeking or self-interest, were obsolete in a modern economy.
Forced Labor
Under Dessalines, Haiti was the first island in the western hemisphere to legally abolish slavery. Like many former slave societies, Haiti had a very high rate of forced labor in its early years. The main difference between Haiti and other countries with a similarly low rate of slave labor is that during the years of Dessallines’ rule, the number of slaves rose sharply. As the slave trade developed in the Caribbean, more ships were to carry more people, so there was an urgent need for more manpower.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines did not completely do away with the institution of slavery in the Caribbean. The Caribbean Islands were, after all, colony vessels that made their way into the New World and established new communities there. However, Dessalines did see fit to abolish the majority of the slaves on his plantations. Some escaped to neighboring regions, but most remained on the plantations.
Food Production
There were two main ways that Jean-Jacques Dessalines worked to ensure that the lives of the slaves were better than those of the Europeans. First, he organized his planters to farm the plants of different groups of slaves co-operatively. This was to ensure that there would be a greater variety of food production. For instance, in some areas of the plantation where the cocoa plant was the primary industry, there were heavy local shortages of cocoa, and the planter families had to be creative. They began to grow coffee and tobacco in place of what was being shipped in from the New World.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines tried to increase the standard of living through slave labor on his plantations in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic by putting up what he called “forced labor camps.” These were camps in which slaves were housed in trailers and kept outside the walls of the plantation. They were given food and water only after they had rendered services for the owner. This was an open violation of international law, yet it was common practice in the plantation United States.
Brutality
The practices that took place in the Dessallines’ forced labor camps were particularly brutal. The worst were summary executions. Men would be beaten to death with sticks and clubs. Women were sexually abused with the use of implements such as the rattles described above. Children were separated from their parents and subjected to sexual abuse, including rape.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines saw himself as the defender of the colonially oppressed. But because of his vision of a monolithic society controlled by a small number of wealthy people, the Dessalines feared that other African cultures, along with the traditional societies of the people of Jamaica, would be erased from the face of the earth. By eliminating these smaller groups, he believed the indigenous population’s power and independence would be eliminated. This policy of exterminating smaller groups that threaten American colonizers was condemned by the United Nations and the United States government.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines argued that these “assimilated” or forced laborers should not be considered criminals. Rather, they should be classified as laborers who became victims of a cruel and oppressive American policy. Though this view has been vigorously debated ever since the policy did affect the way the people dealt with their Jamaican slaves.
When the British finally removed Dessalines and his plantation from Jamaica, his followers took everything they could from the area. Many of them ended up in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which was under the United States’ control. Some of them became prominent citizens in that area, while others moved to Miami Beach, Florida, and established a number of well-known hotels there.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines kept many of Toussaint’s policies, including the use of forced labor on plantations. This was meant to prevent Haiti from reverting to a pure subsistence economy. He confiscated land owned by most whites, making it illegal for them to own property. He preempted another French invasion and did all he could to avoid that occurrence. He launched a campaign to wipe out the country’s white population. Thousands were killed in the process. Resistance to Dessalines’ brutal and autocratic rule grew among the mulatto elites.
A Divided Haiti
Jean-Jacques Dessalines died while trying to stop a revolt under the mulatto leader Alexandre Petion. Dessalines’ rule could not bring stability to Haiti. Two of his closest lieutenants sought to overthrow him. In 1806, Jean-Jacques Dessalines was assassinated. Upon his death, Henri Christophe and Alexandre Petion divided the country between them.
Christophe, a former slave, a semi-feudal regime of forced labor in conditions similar to slavery. This way, he maintained sugar production on large estates and generated a lot of export trade. Therefore, the economy was prosperous. He also embarked on a construction plan. He built eight palaces as well as the magnificent citadel of Laferriere to ward off a French attack.
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