Record: the document says itLens: our readingOpen: not yet provenCode: a stated code
Year: 1765 · Places: Ayiti, South America, Europe
SUMMARYWhere Dessalines got "indigène" [Connections: indigenous word drop, Nov 5, 2026]
RECORD (the word)French indigène, from Latin indigena ("born within"). Louis de Jaucourt's article in Diderot's Encyclopédie (1765) used it to separate first inhabitants from later arrivals, with colonial examples (the Dutch and the Khoikhoi at the Cape)
RECORD (first self-use)The term was in use in Ayiti by 1803 at the latest; the Act of Independence (Jan 1, 1804) names the troops the Armée indigène. Scholars call it the first time colonized or enslaved people called themselves indigènes; who first chose the name is still unknown (needs deep research: Dessalines's 1803 letters and orders, e.g., the Gaffield/Haiti DOI document trail)
RECORD (the tie to the first people)The declaration invokes the island's first inhabitants, and the nation took their name, Haiti (Ayiti). Dessalines's proclamation of Apr 28, 1804 is known as the "I have avenged America" speech (UK National Archives, CO 137/111 manuscript, CO 137/113 printed)
CODEThe revolutionaries' reading list: Raynal and Diderot's Histoire des deux Indes ("History of the Two Indies," 1770/1780) prophesied a "new Spartacus" who would avenge the Americas; Toussaint is said to have read it (Disputed). "Two Indies" again: the East and West Indies were one frame
OPENDid the army ever call itself "Incas" or "children of the Sun"? Geggus, "The Naming of Haiti," New West Indian Guide 71 (1997): 43–68, is the place to check
LENS (WW9)They didn't borrow the colonizer's meaning; they flipped it. The dictionary's "indigène" sorted first inhabitants from newcomers, and the newcomers who wrote it were the colonizers. The Armée indigène put itself on the first inhabitants' side, took back their name, and said it avenged America
SOURCECambridge Core, "The Armée indigène" (chapter); Haiti DOI (Gaffield), Dessalines Reader, Apr 28, 1804; Geggus 1997 (abstract).