Haitian Declaration of Independence

The Haitian Declaration of Independence was issued on January 1, 1804 at Gonaives by Jean-Jacques Dessalines, proclaiming Haiti's sovereignty and marking the end of the thirteen year Haitian Revolution. It made Haiti the first independent nation in Latin America and the Caribbean and only the second in the Americas after the United States, and it grew out of the only successful large scale slave revolt in history, following Napoleon's 1802 attempt to restore slavery in the colony. Because Dessalines was illiterate and did not speak French, his secretary Louis Boisrond-Tonnerre wrote and publicly read the declaration and the accompanying act of independence, a text in three parts addressed to French, Creole, American, Latin American and both mixed race and Black Haitian audiences, deliberately tempered in tone so as not to alarm neighboring colonial powers. Only two original printed copies are known to survive, both found in the United Kingdom's National Archives in 2010 and 2011.