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Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Charles Belair

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Maurice de Young
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Extract

To students of the West Indies, the Negro in the New World, the French Revolution, or Haiti, the name of Jean-Jacques Dessalines appears with alarming frequency. Alarming, because it is so difficult to reconcile the deed of the successful organization and culmination of more than a decade of revolutionary struggle with the character presented by the classical historians.

Chief lieutenant of the heroic and tragic Toussaint L'ouverture, he was, on the submission of the colonial army, reduced to command of a small force, although officially “General of Division,” on the right bank of the isolated Artibonite River Valley. Then, if we are to accept the interpretation of B. Ardouin, St.—Remy (Les Cayes), Madison, Stoddard, and other leading authorities on the period, after the particularly cruel and selfish act of betrayal, followed by the execution of Charles Belair, the nephew of Toussaint, Dessalines was offered the leadership of the consolidated revolutionary forces.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , October 1960 , pp. 449 - 456
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1960

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References

1 Ardouin, Alexis Beaubrun, Etudes sur l'histoire d'Haiti, (edition, Dalencour, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 1958) pp. 58, 59.Google Scholar Madiou, Thomas, Histoire d'Haiti (edition, Department de l'instruction publique, Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Tome II, pp. 278–282 Google Scholar. Lothrop Stoddard, T., The French Revolution in San Domingo, (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1914), p. 335.Google Scholar ”… for Dessalines hunted him (Belair) down, shot him offhand and massacred his soldiers.“

2 Ardouin, Etudes, p. 60, note of editor Dalencour no. 2, “Texte du judgement publié alors dans La Gazette Officielle de St. Domingue, et ensuite dans le Moniteur Universal de France.”

3 Rosier, Paul, Lettres du General Leclerc, (Paris, 1937), p. 320.Google Scholar “Dessalines est dans ce moment le boucher des noirs,” L. Leclerc au Premier Consul, 29 Fructidor (16 September, 1802), an X.

4 Ibid., p. 217, L. Leclerc au Ministre de la Marine, 7 Fructidor (25 August, 1802), an X.

5 Madiou, Histoire, p. 282.

6 Ardouin, Etudes, p. 58. Madiou, Histoire, p. 279. “ II (Dessalines) ne poursuivait avec ardeur que la perte de Charles Belair dont l'influence sur les masses contrariat ses projets ambitieux.”

7 Rosier, Lettres, p. 217-256.

8 Ibid., p. 217.

9 Collection Rochambeau, item 35, (Document Collection, University of Florida).

10 Young, Maurice de, editor, Collection Nationale, Fonds Rochambeau, (Microfilm, University of Florida Library), Vol. III, item 110, correspondence, 3 L. Cmt. Repussard au General Rochambeau.Google Scholar

11 Rosier, Lettres, pp. 230, 231.

12 Collection Rochambeau, items, 109, 118, 119, (Document Collection, University of Florida).

13 Rosier, Lettres, p. 256.