10/03/2016

Dessalines is coming...

Hello, I commence the series posts about mister Dessalines. What do you know about him? I expect that nothing. Meanwhile he was the first Emperor of Haiti and maybe the most important person in its history.



https://www.flickr.com/photos/historystack/18914133815

By the time of Dessalines, the island of Haiti had been divided by political borders into 2 different states. One part belonged to Spain (now it is Dominican Republic), while the second one was French property. After colonization of these territories by Europeans those carried on the island about half of million black slaves from Africa. Poor slaves usually worked on plantations of sugarcane and didn't very pleased with this. After epic French revolution had started in Paris, echo of it began to sound over the ocean. In 1791 year the first slave riot broke out, which evolved future Emperor of the independent Haiti Jean-Jacques Dessalines.

In a little while the ruler of France Napoleon sent his troops to suppress the slave rebellion. After series of maneuvers and sieges French army was forced to surrender, while Jean-Jacques Dessalines became the Emperor of Haiti. You can think that former slaves gained the freedom and happiness. But it turned out that just like in most of similar cases this idea was utopian. Instead of building the flourishing state of African people the New World got pure African state. Dirt is still poured out in rivers, roads are similar rather to a field, and people like sitting on a fence. It is the result of the only successful rebellion of slaves...

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