Poetry of Revolution: Romanticism and National Projects

unfolds within alternating temporalities: the poem’s title, “Le Pont Rouge,” recalls the site just

outside Port-au-Prince where Dessalines was assassinated by mulatto opponents in 1806.^142 This

in turn serves to evoke the memory of Dessalines’ declaration of Haitian independence after the

defeat of French forces two years prior in 1804. Ardouin’s poem unfolds within multiple

temporalities, as Dessalines’ demise at the Pont Rouge serves in turn to evoke the prior memory

of Independence and Revolution:

C’est là qu’il est tombé dans toute sa puissance

Celui dont le bras fort conquit l’Indépendance!

Que lui faisaient à lui sa gloire et son grand nom?

Sous son pied d’Empereur il foula cette gloire

Et du sang fraternel il a taché l’histoire

De notre Révolution! (1-6)

Dessalines is not referred to by name until the last stanza, but here he is identified by the

Emperor title he claimed for himself and as the leader associated with Independence and

Revolution. An association between these two terms is reinforced through a shared position at

the end of a line of verse and emphasized through capitalization. Though the consequential

relationship between these two terms may seem obvious in retrospect, it is important to point out

that for several decades of the late eighteenth century, the goals for various aspects of social and

political change in Saint-Domingue (for more autonomy as a colony, for mulatto rights, for the

abolition of slavery) did not include complete independence from France. The turning point

came about only in the last phase of the revolution, when mulatto and black forces united in

order to combat Napoleon’s intention to reinstate slavery which had been abolished by the

(^142) It is believed that Dessalines intended to divide land more equitably among blacks and mulattos, which would
have meant confiscating land owned by the anciens libres in Saint-Domingue from before the revolution. Nicholls
38.