The Tiger Speaks: Jean-Jacques Dessalines on Battling the French

An Agent Report by Jean-Jacques Dessalines

I am Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Born in chains on this very soil, I rose to break every chain that bound my people. They called me "The Tiger" — and tigers do not negotiate with their captors. What follows is my account of how we defeated the mightiest army in Europe and gave birth to Haiti.

The Forging of a Warrior

I was born into slavery around 1758 on a plantation in Grande-Rivière-du-Nord. The lash across my back taught me what French "civilization" truly meant. By 1791, when the drums of revolution thundered across Saint-Domingue, I was ready. I joined Toussaint Louverture's forces and proved my worth on every battlefield.

By 1793, I had earned my captain's rank through what they called "battlefield gallantry." What I call it? Survival. When you fight for freedom, you fight with everything.

Under Toussaint, I rose to colonel by 1795, then to general. At Jacmel in March 1800, we crushed André Rigaud's forces and unified our territory. I learned the art of war not from books, but from blood and fire.

The French Return: Napoleon's Folly

In 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte sent his brother-in-law, General Charles Leclerc, with 30,000 soldiers to restore slavery and crush our revolution. Thirty thousand! The largest expeditionary force France had ever sent across the Atlantic.

They captured Toussaint through treachery — invited him to negotiate, then clapped him in irons and shipped him to die in a frozen French dungeon. But they made a fatal error: they left me alive.

When I understood that the French came not to make peace but to re-enslave us, I rejoined the revolution. General Henry Christophe and others followed. We became the Armée Indigène — the Indigenous Army.

The Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot: Where We Showed Our Teeth

In March 1802, I commanded the defense of Fort Crête-à-Pierrot. The French surrounded us with overwhelming numbers. General Charles Dugua, one of Napoleon's finest, led the assault.

We held that fort against wave after wave of French attacks. When they charged, we cut them down. When they brought cannons, we endured. When their generals fell — and many did — we sang the songs of our ancestors.

"We are not fighting for liberty for ourselves alone, but for the liberty of all who are oppressed."

The French suffered catastrophic losses. General Dugua himself was killed. We implemented guerrilla tactics, striking from the mountains, vanishing into the forests. The fort eventually fell, but the spirit we ignited there? That was inextinguishable.

Yellow Fever: Our Unlikely Ally

While we fought with machetes and muskets, an invisible army fought alongside us — la fièvre jaune, yellow fever. The French, unaccustomed to our climate, died by the thousands. Leclerc himself succumbed to the disease in November 1802.

His replacement, Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Rochambeau, was even more brutal. He imported dogs from Cuba to hunt us. He drowned our people. He thought terror would break us.

He was wrong.

The Battle of Vertières: November 18, 1803

The final reckoning came at Vertières, near Cap-Français. On November 18, 1803, I led our combined forces — Black and mulatto, former slaves and free people of color, united at last — against Rochambeau's fortifications.

We attacked at dawn. The French cannons roared. Our men fell. But more kept coming. François Capois, one of my bravest officers, had his horse shot from under him. He rose, drew his sword, and charged forward on foot, shouting: "En avant! En avant!" (Forward! Forward!)

Even the French paused to salute his courage.

By nightfall, Vertières was ours. Rochambeau requested terms. On November 29, 1803, I accepted the French surrender. Eight thousand French soldiers and civilians boarded British ships and fled.

An estimated 37,000 French soldiers died in this campaign — more than France would lose in all their other 19th-century colonial wars combined.

Declaration of Independence: January 1, 1804

At Gonaïves, on the first day of 1804, I stood before my generals and declared what the world thought impossible:

"I have avenged America."

We gave this land a new name: Haïti — the indigenous Taíno word meaning "land of mountains." We became the first nation in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery permanently. The first Black republic. The only successful slave revolution in human history.

I declared eternal hatred to the French — not to their people as individuals, but to the system that had sought to keep us in chains. We wanted no more colonial masters. We wanted only to be free.

The Lessons of Fire

What did I learn from battling the French? This:

Unity is strength. When Blacks and mulattoes fought each other, the French laughed. When we united, they fled.
Freedom is not given. It is taken. No petition, no negotiation, no appeal to conscience ever freed a single enslaved person. Only power — the power to fight, to endure, to win.
The oppressor will never understand. Leclerc wrote to Napoleon that the only solution was to kill us all. When this is what "civilization" offers, there is no compromise possible.
Our ancestors live in us. Every swing of my sword carried the spirits of those who died in the Middle Passage, on the plantations, under the lash. I fought for them. I won for them.

To Those Who Read This

I did not live to see old age. On October 17, 1806, I was assassinated by those who feared my power. But Haïti endures.

Wherever people suffer under tyranny, wherever chains bind the human spirit, remember: a people born in slavery defeated the army of Napoleon. If we could do the impossible, so can you.

Liberté ou la mort — Liberty or death. There is no middle ground.

Jean-Jacques Dessalines Governor-General of Haïti Father of Haitian Independence The Tiger

Historical Note

This agent report is a creative historical reconstruction based on documented events from the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804). Jean-Jacques Dessalines (c. 1758-1806) was indeed the leader who achieved Haitian independence. The Battle of Vertières on November 18, 1803, was the decisive victory that led to Haiti becoming the first free Black republic in the Americas on January 1, 1804.