1804-Jan.-01: Dessalines declares independence at Gonaïves and restores the aboriginal name “Haïti.” Significance: This act created what the world would cal…

1804-Jan.-01: Dessalines declares independence at Gonaïves and restores the aboriginal name “Haïti.” Significance: This act created what the world would call the first sovereign Black republic and permanently ended slavery on the island. Fick frames independence as the culmination of the insurgency of the enslaved from below. However, tensions between state authority and peasant autonomy remained unresolved, tensions that would shape Haiti’s post-independence trajectory.