Jean-Jacques Dessalines

(c. 1758 - 1806)

Enslaved as a field laborer under a free Black master, Jean-Jacques Dessalines joined the Saint-Domingue slave rebellion in 1791 and eventually became a lieutenant to Toussaint Louverture; after Toussaint was arrested and imprisoned in France, Dessalines took his place as leader of the Haitian Revolution. After the French army was expelled from Saint-Domingue in 1803, Dessalines renamed the country Haiti and redistributed all white-owned property to Black and mixed-race people, though he maintained the use of forced labor on plantations.