1 January 1804: Independence and Dessalines

On 1 January 1804 at Gonaïves, Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed the independence of Haiti, restoring the island's Indigenous name. The Act of Independence rejected France forever. Dessalines, born enslaved, had become the revolution's leading general after Toussaint's capture. In 1804 he ordered the killing of most remaining French colonists, an act historians describe as a massacre, which some explain as a response to fears of a French return and the brutal war of 1802–03, and which shaped how the outside world viewed Haiti for generations.

He had himself proclaimed emperor later in 1804, echoing Napoleon. The 1805 constitution banned white men from owning property, outlawed slavery and declared that all Haitians would be known as 'black', making race a marker of citizenship rather than enslavement. Dessalines was assassinated in 1806, and the country split into rival northern and southern states.