1804-January-01: Jean-Jacques Dessalines formally proclaimed the independence of Haiti at Gonaïves, creating what the world would call the first independent bl

1804-January-01: Jean-Jacques Dessalines formally proclaimed the independence of Haiti at Gonaïves, creating what the world would call the first independent black republic. The declaration was followed by the mass execution of many remaining white French colonists, an act intended to ensure that the French could never return to power. In the United States, news of the independence and the accompanying violence deepened the racial anxieties of the Southern enslaving class. The Jefferson administration faced an immediate crisis of whether to acknowledge the new state or maintain the fiction of French sovereignty. Despite the declaration, the United States officially categorized Haiti as a rebellious French colony to avoid a diplomatic rupture with Napoleon.