The Assassination of Emperor Dessalines

“The Assassination of Emperor Dessalines” is an account of the assassination of Haiti’s first head of state, Jean-Jacques Dessalines (1758-1806). It was written by Haitian historian Thomas Madiou (1814-1884) in the 1840s.

Madiou was one of two prominent mid-nineteenth century Haitian historians. The other was Beaubrun Ardouin (1797-1865). Both men wrote long accounts of Haiti’s history. Madiou, however, had more of a tendency towards the melodramatic than his counterpart. This is evident in his account of Dessalines’ October 1806 assassination. While Ardouin gives a brief and matter-a-fact description of Dessalines’ death, Madiou provides dramatic details of the same event.

Dessalines had been born into slavery in northern Saint-Domingue in 1758. The 1789 French Revolution marked the beginning of the collapse of slavery in the French Caribbean colony that would later become Haiti. First free people- whites and people of color (mixed-race people)- began to fight amongst themselves. In the North, a free man of color, Vincent Ogé led a 1790 revolt in order to obtain equal civil rights for the free people of color.

A year later, in August 1791, a massive slave revolt broke out in the North. Dessalines, then thirty years old, joined the rebels and won de facto freedom. The rebel leader Boukman was killed in November 1791, but he was replaced by Jean-François and Biassou. Dessalines fought under the command of these men in the rebel slave armies.

In 1793 the French commissioners Sonthonax and Polverel officially abolished slavery to win the support of the colony’s black majority against the enemies of the French Republic. One black commander, Toussaint Louverture, defected from the pro-Royalist, Spanish-backed black armies of Jean-François and Biassou to join the French Republic. Dessalines followed Louverture.

Along with Henri Christophe, Dessalines became one of Louverture’s most loyal commanders. He fought for Louverture against Rigaud in the South, against black rebels in the North, and against the French armies of Napoleon Bonaparte and Charles Leclerc in 1802.

After Louverture’s capture and arrest by Leclerc, Dessalines became the chief commander of the “indigenous” army fighting against the French. In this capacity he oversaw the final defeat of the French army under Rochambeau at the November 1803 Battle of Vertières near Le Cap (Cap-Français, now Cap-Haitien).

After the French army evacuated the colony, Dessalines and the other Haitian commanders declared their independence from France on January 1, 1804. Dessalines first took the title of “Governor-for-Life”. But in September 1804 he crowned himself Emperor of Haiti, following Napoleon’s example.


Dessalines’ reign was short-lived. He antagonized members of the country’s economic and military elite, who began to plot against him. In October 1806 he was assassinated near to Port-au-Prince. After his death, Madiou describes how his body was torn apart by a mob and stoned by children. He describes how an old mad woman named Défilée, a former camp follower of Dessalines’ armies, put his remains in a bag to bury them.

Madiou was born eight years after Dessalines’ death, and it is unclear how accurate the details that he provides are. Ardouin, who would have been old enough to remember the time when Dessalines was murdered, disputes some of Madiou’s details. For example, Ardouin wrote that he had known the woman Défilée, and that she was a small woman who would not have been strong enough to carry Dessalines’ remains, since the Emperor was a large man. Whether or not it is completely accurate, however, Madiou’s account is nothing, if not entertaining.