The Republic of Haiti, the second Western Hemisphere nation (after the U.S.) to gain freedom, last week jubilantly marked the 150th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence from France. U.S. Negro Contralto Marian Anderson was there to sing for the celebrations, which included a dinner for 700 local and foreign notables at the ruined palace of the fabulous Black Emperor Henri Christophe. There were speeches, dances, pageants. But the eye-popping main event was a sham battle near Cap Haitien, watched intently by President Paul E. Magloire, U.S. Senator Mike Mansfield, the U.N.'s Dr. Ralph J. Bunche and a crowd of thousands.
In the battle, Haitian army cadets, using up 10,000 blank cartridges and 2,000 heavy charges of powder, re-enacted the final victory over the French. Twice the Haitians attacked the French ramparts, rebuilt on the original spot, and twice fell back. Then a daring cadet, taking the role of the rebel Colonel Capois, mounted a horse and led them forward again. In the real battle, the horse was shot from under Capois; in simulation, the mock colonel actually shot his own mount. Falling, he charged on afoot, like Capois, brandishing his saber.
From the fort, as it had 150 years ago, came a roll of drums to halt the fighting momentarily. The "French" commander sent out a new mount and the general's compliments on the horseman's bravery. Then the drums rolled again, the' battle was resumed, the fort captured.
Crafty Emperor. The brave show recalled a brave history. In the decade before the real battle, 400,000 Haitian slaves had risen against their 40,000 French masters and beaten them in fighting so bloody that the population dropped by 150,000. The first rebel leader, an ex-slave himself, was Toussaint Louverture. To regain the colony, rich in sugar and indigo, Napoleon sent 70 ships and 40,000 men against Toussaint, and captured him. Toussaint died in prison in France. It fell to a successor, General Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the crafty "Tiger," to destroy the French.
At first, Dessalines made an uneasy peace, explaining privately: "If I surrender a hundred times it will be to betray them a hundred times." Later he led 50,000 black troops in a two-year battle to victory. His hatred of whites, already strong, grew violent. To make his flag, he tore out the white from a French tricolor. When he came to declare in dependence on Jan. 1, 1804, the illiterate Dessalines turned the task over to a patriot who declaimed that "to write the Act of Independence, we need the skin of a white man for parchment, his skull for an inkwell, his blood for ink, and a bayonet for a pen!" Dessalines made himself Emperor and slaughtered or exiled almost every white in Haiti.