Dessalines published at the Cap a proclamation drafted by Chanlatte that celebrated the massacres and excluded the French from civil and political rights.
“Crimes hitherto unheard of,” cries Chanlatte in the proclamation which Dessalines published at the Cap on 28 April, “crimes hitherto unheard of made nature shudder; the measure was full to overflowing.
“At last the hour of vengeance has struck, and the implacable enemies of the rights of man have undergone the punishment due to their crimes.
“I have raised my arm, too long heavy over their guilty heads. At this signal which a just god provoked, your hands, holily armed, have laid the axe to the ancient tree of slavery and of prejudices. In vain had time, and above all the infernal policy of the Europeans, wrapped it in a triple brass; you have stripped off its armor, you have placed it upon your heart to become, like your natural enemies, cruel and pitiless. Like an overflowing torrent that roars, tears up, sweeps away, your avenging fury has carried everything off in its impetuous course. So perish every tyrant of innocence, every oppressor of the human race!
“What then! bowed for two centuries beneath a yoke of iron, playthings of the passions of men, of their injustices and of the caprices of fate; victims of the cupidity of the French whites, after having fattened with our sweat these insatiable leeches, with a patience and a resignation without example, we should still have seen this sacrilegious horde attempt our destruction, without distinction of sex or age; and we, men without energy, without virtue, without delicacy, we should have refrained from plunging our desperate arms into their breasts! Who is that vile Haitian, so little worthy of his regeneration, who does not believe he has accomplished the eternal decrees in exterminating these tigers thirsting for blood? If there is one, let him go away; indignant nature thrusts him from our bosom. Let him go and hide his shame far from these places; the air that one breathes there, the pure air of liberty, august and triumphant, is unfit for his gross organs.
“Yes, we have rendered to these true cannibals war for war, crimes for crimes, outrages for outrages. Yes, I have saved my country, I have avenged America. My pride and my glory lie in the avowal I make of it before the face of mortals and of gods. What matters the judgment that contemporary and future races shall pass upon me? I have done my duty; my own esteem remains to me; it suffices me. But what do I say? My reward extends beyond the preservation of our unfortunate brothers and the testimony of my conscience: I have seen two classes of men born to love one another, to aid one another, to succor one another, mingled at last and confounded together, run to vengeance, dispute the honor of the first blows. Black men and men of color, whom the refined duplicity of the Europeans has so long sought to divide, you who today form but one whole, one family, doubt it not, your perfect reconciliation needed to be sealed with the blood of your executioners. The same calamities have weighed upon your proscribed heads, the same ardor in striking your enemies has distinguished you, the same fate is reserved for you, the same angers must render you forever united, indivisible and inseparable. Maintain this precious concord, this happy harmony among you: it is the pledge of your happiness, of your safety, of your successes; it is the secret of being invincible.