1803, December – 1804, January 1: (The Cradle of Liberty and the Act of Independence): Following the defeat of French forces, the Haitian generals assembled …

1803, December – 1804, January 1: (The Cradle of Liberty and the Act of Independence): Following the defeat of French forces, the Haitian generals assembled at Gonaïves in December 1803 to formalize their victory in ink. Boisrond-Tonnerre, an intense young mulâtre secretary, rejected initial drafts of the independence decree as too mild, famously declaring that the document required “the skin of a blanc for parchment, his skull for inkwell, his blood for ink, and a bayonet for pen!”. At dawn on January 1, 1804, Dessalines addressed the crowds in Kreyòl to ensure every formerly enslaved person understood that they would forever live and die free. Boisrond-Tonnerre then read the Act of Independence in Jacobin French, renouncing France and bestowing the ancient Arawak name of Haiti upon the land. This historic proclamation birthed what the world would call the first Black republic and the Western Hemisphere’s second independent nation.