Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upOur lens: how we read itOpen: not yet proven
Year: 1805 · Places: Ayiti, Europe
SUMMARY1805: Ayiti breaks the color ladder
RECORDthe Imperial Constitution of 1805, issued under Emperor Jean-Jacques Dessalines, speaks in the name of 24 generals ("WE, H. Christophe, Clerveaux, Vernet, Gabart, Petion...") and is signed by Henri Christophe for all of them (English text: New-York Evening Post, July 15, 1805). Article 12: "No whiteman of whatever nation he may be, shall put his foot on this territory" as master or owner. Article 13: naturalized white women, Germans and Poles are exempted. Article 14: "All acception of colour among the children of one and the same family" must cease, and "the Haytians shall hence forward be known only by the generic appellation of Blacks."
RECORD (1804)the Act of Independence is headed "Armée indigène" (P919)
PATTERNthe French colony ran on a ladder of color names; the new state ended it by law and made one political name for every citizen, so that even naturalized Germans and Poles were legally Black
LENSthe founders took the colonizer's own word and turned it into citizenship; it was a win in the war over labels, not a renaming of us. In Kreyòl, blan still means foreigner, whatever the skin
OPEN (a question, not a dispute)who drafted Article 14, and how Indigène and Noir sat side by side in the founders' own words; needs deep research in French and Kreyòl.