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1803-05-18

1803-05-18: (Catherine Flon Sews the First Haitian Flag, Blue and Red Stripes Taken From the French Tricolor With the White Band Ripped Away, the Symbolic Er…

Haitian

1803-05-18: (Catherine Flon Sews the First Haitian Flag, Blue and Red Stripes Taken From the French Tricolor With the White Band Ripped Away, the Symbolic Erasure of Whiteness From the Nation’s Identity): On May 18, 1803, during the Arcahaye Congress, Dessalines commissioned Catherine Flon to sew the first Haitian flag. The design was an act of symbolic violence against the colonizer: Dessalines took the French tricolor, ripped out the white band that represented the white population, and kept the blue and red stripes, which he declared would represent the unity of Black and mulatto Haitians. Flon sewed the remaining bands together, creating a flag that was both a national symbol and a statement of racial erasure. May 18 is celebrated in Haiti as Flag Day. Catherine Flon is remembered as the Haitian Betsy Ross, though the comparison understates the radicalism of what she stitched: not a symbol of a colony seeking self-governance within the colonial framework, but a flag that announced the expulsion of an entire racial caste from the body of the nation.