1804-January-01: Jean-Jacques Dessalines formally proclaimed the independence of Haiti at Gonaïves, creating the first independent black republic in the world.

1804-January-01: Jean-Jacques Dessalines formally proclaimed the independence of Haiti at Gonaïves, creating the first independent black republic in the world. 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 slaveholding 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.