Secondary sourceBook1804

La vie de J.J. Dessalines, chef des noirs révoltés de Saint-Domingue

Louis Dubroca · 1804

A 1804 Paris biography portraying Dessalines as a barbarous tyrant, written as French propaganda during his rule.

A hostile biography written and circulated to discredit Dessalines while he ruled newly independent Haiti.

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Front cover of a worn, dark red leather-bound book, shown against a pale background. The cover is scuffed and faded, with a small lighter mark near the center and a raised spine edge on the left side. No title or text is visible. — Louis Dubroca, La vie de J.J. Dessalines, chef des noirs révoltés de Saint-Domingue, Paris, 1804.

About this source

What it is

This book, written by Louis Dubroca and published in Paris in 1804, is a biography of Jean-Jacques Dessalines produced while he ruled Haiti. It was widely translated, including into Spanish, and copies are held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the John Carter Brown Library.

Why it matters

Dubroca wrote this book as French propaganda, portraying Dessalines as a barbarous and violent leader to turn European and colonial opinion against Haiti's independence. Its wide translation and reprinting show how European powers tried to control the story of the Haitian Revolution and discredit its Black leadership.

Look closer

Why might a French writer in 1804 want to portray Dessalines negatively?
How might a book written by an enemy of Dessalines differ from one written by someone who supported Haitian independence?
Why do you think this biography was translated into other languages and distributed widely?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Jean-Jacques Dessalines on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.