Independence brings the fall of religious authority; Dessalines unites civil and ecclesiastical power

On 1 January 1804 the hour of independence struck for Haiti. It was not French authority alone that went under at that time; through an unfortunate confusion of powers, religious authority was swept away with the rest. Dessalines gathered into his own hands both the civil and the ecclesiastical power. He created parishes, appointed and dismissed the parish priests as the needs of the moment required, and in a word took for himself the divine prerogatives that Jesus Christ left to the sovereign pontiff and to the bishops established by him. There were then very few priests in the country, and they were priests scarcely worthy of their sacred character. It was necessary to turn to foreigners to recruit them. Since it was the government that verified their testimonial letters, that approved them, and that assigned them their posts, a wide door stood open to all who presented themselves. No good priest could accept this situation, so subversive of the hierarchical order. Lamentable consequences followed for the faithful and for the clergy themselves. A man who in the first half of this…

Rouzier tells this under the entry HAÏTI: the general article.