Gonaïves. Independence proclaimed on the parade ground; the Act of Independence and the act naming Dessalines governor general signed.

Dessalines fixed 1 January 1804 for the solemn declaration of the Independence of Haiti, which he had already proclaimed, as had Pétion, from the moment he took up arms against the French in October 1802. Toward the end of December 1803 the generals of the South, the West, the Artibonite and the North assembled at the Gonaïves, the place chosen for the celebration of this solemnity. Chareron and Dessalines’s other secretaries were charged with drafting the Act of Independence, which was to be short and maturely considered, together with the proclamation by which this great event was to be announced to the Nation. After several days of work Chareron and the other secretaries had still not finished the act of the declaration of Independence: and it was already 31 December. This document, preceded by a long statement of motives, without warmth but deeply meditated and modeled on the American act of independence, displeased Dessalines by the many expressions of right, of principle and of justice it contained. It was nonetheless a good piece of work. The general in chief did not find in it the fury that blazed in his soul against the white man. He would have wished them simply to draw up an act of extermination in thundering terms. Boisrond-Tonnerre, seizing his thought, cried out: “Nothing that has been done is in harmony with our present feelings; to draw up the Act of Independence we need the skin of a white man for parchment, his skull for an inkwell, his blood for ink, and a bayonet for a pen!” Bloody words, which at the time aroused an almost general admiration. Dessalines, for his part, cried out: that is exactly what I feel myself; Boisrond, I charge you with expressing to the people my sentiments toward the whites.

Boisrond-Tonnerre spent the whole night of 31 December to 1 January 1804 working on the Act of Independence and on the proclamation that was to be addressed to the nation, shut up alone in a room, seated at a table.

At the first light of dawn the générale was heard in the streets of the Gonaïves. It was 1 January 1804. Martial instruments resounded on every side; people and soldiers mingled with enthusiasm, embracing one another. While the sun flooded the town with its sparkling rays, the country people poured into it from every direction. The crowd pressed onto the parade ground around the tree consecrated to Liberty, whose foliage shaded the altar of the homeland, magnificently decorated. Women and young girls, richly dressed, mingled among the warriors, whom they exalted with patriotic songs. The sky was filled with the name of Haiti, which the Indigenous had given to their new homeland. This original name of the country recalled to them a people that had preferred extermination to servitude.

It was already past seven in the morning, and still Boisrond-Tonnerre, without whom the ceremony could not take place, was nowhere to be seen. Everything was ready and they waited only for him. He was sought everywhere, at first without success; at last, looking through the keyhole of the room in which he had shut himself, they found him fast asleep. A light was still burning on his table. They broke down the door and woke him. He bathed in haste, collected himself and went to the Government Palace.

A few moments later, cries of liberty and independence announced the arrival on the parade ground of the procession of the generals who represented the nation. In their midst the general in chief Dessalines shone with all the brilliance of his immortal glory. Around him could be seen a host of heroes whose courage and talents had powerfully seconded him during the national war: the Pétions, the Christophes, the Geffrards, the Capoix, the Clervaux, the Vernets, the Daut Braves, the Romains, the Gabarts, the Gérins, the Férous, the Cangés, the Bazelais, the Jean-Louis François. Dessalines, clad in gilded garments, holding between his jeweled fingers the Act of Independence that our most illustrious warriors had just signed at the Government Palace, mounted the altar of the homeland amid the joyful acclamations of the people and the army.

After recounting, in the Creole language, the history of the cruelties the French had practiced upon the Indigenous, he cried: “Let us swear to fight to our last breath for the Independence of our country.”