Campus Ça Ira

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SOVEREIGN CATHOLIC INDIGENOUS AND PRIVATE STATE OF XARAGUA

OFFICE OF THE RECTOR-PRESIDENT

SUPREME CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY

UNIVERSITY OF XARAGUA

GENERAL ARCHIVES OF THE STATE

SUPREME CONSTITUTIVE, TERRITORIAL AND ACADEMIC ADMINISTRATION ACT

ON THE ESTABLISHMENT, PERMANENT OPERATION, TERRITORIAL CLASSIFICATION, INSTITUTIONAL GOVERNANCE AND ACADEMIC FUNCTION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF XARAGUA — ÇA-IRA CAMPUS

Official Classification: Constitutive University Instrument — Permanent Campus Establishment Act — Academic Territorial Administration Instrument — Institutional Development and Operational Control Act

Constituting Authority: Office of the Rector-President

Competent Academic Authority: University of Xaragua

Territorial Coordination Authority: XaraTerra

Institutional Designation: University of Xaragua — Ça-Ira Campus

Administrative Scope: Campus Establishment — Academic Governance — Territorial Classification — Land Use — Institutional Infrastructure — Public Access — Academic Operations — Records — Security — External Relations — Development Control

Legal Status: Permanent Constitutive Instrument and Continuing Administrative Regime

Entry into Force: Upon Promulgation

PART I — CONSTITUTIONAL ESTABLISHMENT

Article 1 — Establishment of the Campus

The University of Xaragua — Ça-Ira Campus is hereby established as a permanent territorial, academic and administrative division of the University of Xaragua.

The Campus shall form an integral part of:

a) the constitutional academic order of Xaragua;

b) the institutional structure of the University of Xaragua;

c) the national system of Indigenous education, political instruction and public leadership formation;

d) the territorial development framework administered through XaraTerra; and

e) the official network of institutions maintained under the authority of the State.

The establishment of the Campus shall constitute:

a) the formal assignment of an academic function to the designated territory;

b) the creation of a permanent institutional jurisdiction within the University;

c) the authorization of academic, administrative, archival and public activities consistent with this Act; and

d) the commencement of a continuing territorial and operational regime.

The Campus shall not constitute:

a) a temporary instructional centre;

b) an informal teaching location;

c) an autonomous university separate from the University of Xaragua;

d) a commercial education franchise;

e) a private residence converted into an institutional designation; or

f) an institution dependent upon the continued occupation of one specific building.

Article 2 — Official Name

The official institutional name shall be:

UNIVERSITY OF XARAGUA — ÇA-IRA CAMPUS

The official abbreviated designation may be:

a) Ça-Ira Campus;

b) UX–Ça-Ira; or

c) any administrative abbreviation subsequently approved by the University.

No person or organization may use the official name, institutional identity, insignia or administrative designation of the Campus without authorization from the University.

Article 3 — Permanent Institutional Status

The Campus is constituted as a permanent organ of the University of Xaragua.

Its institutional existence shall not be terminated by:

a) temporary interruption of in-person instruction;

b) relocation of particular academic activities;

c) maintenance or reconstruction of facilities;

d) modification of the campus perimeter;

e) temporary closure of a building;

f) changes in enrolment;

g) changes in the method of academic delivery; or

h) administrative reorganization within the University.

Any suspension, merger, relocation or termination of the Campus shall require an express constitutional or university instrument issued by the competent authority.

PART II — PURPOSE AND INSTITUTIONAL MANDATE

Article 4 — General Purpose

The Campus is established to provide a permanent institutional base for higher education, academic formation, research, public instruction and territorial academic administration.

Its functions shall include:

a) delivery of authorized university programs;

b) instruction in political science, Indigenous law, governance, history, theology and related disciplines;

c) delivery of compulsory Xaraguayan academic components;

d) administration of microprograms, certificates, majors and other approved credentials;

e) preparation of public officials, institutional officers and community leadership personnel;

f) organization of lectures, seminars, examinations and academic assemblies;

g) maintenance of academic and territorial records;

h) production and preservation of institutional research;

i) coordination of authorized external academic cooperation; and

j) performance of any additional university function assigned by the competent authority.

Article 5 — Academic Specialization

The principal academic specialization of the Campus shall be political science and the institutional disciplines required for the government, administration and historical understanding of Xaragua.

Its principal instructional fields may include:

a) Indigenous law and political science;

b) constitutional organization;

c) public administration;

d) international relations;

e) diplomacy and foreign affairs;

f) territorial governance;

g) customary law;

h) political history;

i) Catholic political and social thought;

j) institutional economics;

k) public policy;

l) community administration; and

m) other fields approved within the academic jurisdiction of the University.

Professional or technical instruction outside the University’s direct instructional capacity may be delivered through:

a) recognized external coursework;

b) academic agreements;

c) contracted specialized instruction;

d) joint academic delivery;

e) articulated programs; or

f) any other arrangement approved by the University.

Article 6 — Institutional Objectives

The Campus shall operate according to the following institutional objectives:

a) consolidation of the University’s territorial presence;

b) direct delivery of the University’s principal academic specialization;

c) preservation of institutional continuity;

d) formation of personnel capable of administering Xaraguayan institutions;

e) development of an internally coherent body of constitutional, political and territorial knowledge;

f) maintenance of an accessible academic centre within the Ça-Ira territorial sector;

g) creation of stable facilities for instruction, archives and institutional meetings; and

h) integration of the Campus into the long-term territorial-development program of Xaragua.

Academic programming shall be determined according to institutional capacity, approved curricula and the requirements of the University.

No academic program shall be created solely on the basis of commercial demand.

PART III — LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL FOUNDATION

Article 7 — Constitutional Authority

The Campus is established pursuant to the constitutional authority of Xaragua to create, organize and maintain its own educational, cultural and governing institutions.

The Campus shall operate under:

a) the Constitution and supreme instruments of Xaragua;

b) the organic and academic instruments of the University of Xaragua;

c) the regulations issued by the Office of the Rector-President;

d) the territorial instruments administered through XaraTerra;

e) the academic rules adopted by the competent University authorities; and

f) the present Act.

Where an internal administrative instrument conflicts with this Act, this Act shall prevail unless expressly amended by an instrument of equal or superior authority.

Article 8 — Indigenous Educational Authority

The establishment and administration of the Campus shall constitute an exercise of the right of the Xaragua Nation to establish and control its educational institutions.

This authority includes the competence to determine:

a) institutional structure;

b) academic mission;

c) curricula;

d) methods of instruction;

e) languages of instruction;

f) admission requirements;

g) credential requirements;

h) academic standards;

i) institutional symbols;

j) territorial location; and

k) the conditions governing external academic cooperation.

The University may invoke the applicable provisions of international Indigenous-rights instruments, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, in the administration and external representation of the Campus.

Article 9 — Catholic Institutional Character

The Campus shall operate within the Catholic institutional character of Xaragua and the University.

Its Catholic character shall be administered according to:

a) the constitutional instruments of Xaragua;

b) the statutes of the University;

c) the lawful rights of the Catholic faithful to establish associations and educational initiatives;

d) the applicable provisions of canon law; and

e) any specific ecclesiastical recognition, mandate or relationship formally obtained by the competent institution.

The Campus shall not attribute to itself an ecclesiastical status, canonical faculty or ecclesiastical power that has not been expressly conferred by the competent ecclesiastical authority.

Paragraph 3 shall not restrict the University’s authority to:

a) teach theology;

b) provide Catholic formation;

c) conduct research concerning canon law;

d) maintain a Catholic institutional identity;

e) cooperate with Catholic universities or institutions; or

f) organize religious activities consistent with its internal statutes.

PART IV — TERRITORIAL CLASSIFICATION

Article 10 — Campus Territorial Zone

The territory assigned to the operation of the Campus shall be classified as a Special Academic and Institutional Administration Zone.

The classified zone may comprise:

a) academic buildings;

b) administrative offices;

c) libraries and archives;

d) instructional grounds;

e) assembly spaces;

f) student-service facilities;

g) staff facilities;

h) circulation corridors;

i) security installations;

j) sanitation and technical facilities;

k) communications and energy infrastructure;

l) landscaped or undeveloped institutional land;

m) future-development sectors; and

n) adjoining areas required for access, safety or operational control.

The official perimeter shall be recorded in the Ça-Ira Campus Territorial Management Plan.

Technical adjustment of the perimeter shall not terminate the Campus or require re-enactment of its constitutive status.

Article 11 — Basis of Territorial Administration

The territorial administration of the Campus shall be founded upon documented authority to occupy, use, administer or develop the applicable premises.

Such authority may arise from:

a) ownership;

b) lease;

c) licence;

d) institutional allocation;

e) use agreement;

f) custodial arrangement;

g) administrative assignment;

h) partnership agreement; or

i) any other lawful instrument accepted by the University.

The Campus shall not be legally characterized as family property, a family estate or a hereditary educational possession.

No individual lineage, household or private family unit shall acquire institutional authority over the Campus solely by reason of:

a) previous occupation;

b) genealogical association;

c) contribution of land or facilities;

d) historical presence;

e) financial contribution; or

f) personal relationship with a University officer.

Any property right affecting the Campus shall remain legally distinct from:

a) academic authority;

b) university governance;

c) curriculum control;

d) appointment authority;

e) credentialing authority; and

f) institutional succession.

Article 12 — Functional Zoning

The Campus territory may be divided into the following functional sectors:

a) Academic Instruction Zone;

b) University Administration Zone;

c) Library and Archives Zone;

d) Public Assembly Zone;

e) Student Services Zone;

f) Faculty and Personnel Zone;

g) Controlled Access Zone;

h) Technical Operations Zone;

i) Security and Emergency Zone;

j) Infrastructure Development Zone;

k) Institutional Reserve Zone; and

l) External Interface Zone.

Each sector shall be subject to the uses, occupancy limits and access conditions assigned to it.

Authorization to enter or use one sector shall not constitute authorization to enter or use another.

The University may:

a) create additional sectors;

b) subdivide existing sectors;

c) consolidate sectors;

d) alter their authorized functions;

e) impose temporary restrictions; or

f) redesignate a sector according to institutional requirements.

Article 13 — Restricted Institutional Use

Land and facilities assigned to the Campus shall be used primarily for authorized academic, administrative, cultural, archival and institutional purposes.

The following activities shall require prior authorization:

a) commercial occupation;

b) construction;

c) structural alteration;

d) excavation;

e) public entertainment;

f) external political meetings;

g) permanent installation of equipment;

h) organized religious activity by an external body;

i) media production;

j) public vending;

k) transportation operations; and

l) occupation by a third-party organization.

Previous use, repeated use, physical access or absence of earlier enforcement shall not create a continuing right of occupation or operation.

PART V — INSTITUTIONAL GOVERNANCE

Article 14 — Supreme Academic Authority

The University of Xaragua shall exercise exclusive institutional and academic authority over the Campus.

Such authority shall include:

a) program approval;

b) curriculum approval;

c) admissions;

d) examinations;

e) credentialing;

f) faculty appointment;

g) personnel administration;

h) academic discipline;

i) institutional records;

j) external academic relations;

k) use of the University’s name and insignia; and

l) adoption of campus regulations.

No campus office may independently:

a) create a degree or credential;

b) alter an approved curriculum;

c) conclude an international agreement;

d) confer institutional recognition;

e) establish an independent legal identity;

f) incur an unauthorized financial obligation; or

g) represent itself as separate from the University.

Article 15 — Authority of the Rector-President

The Rector-President shall constitute the supreme executive and academic authority responsible for the establishment and constitutional continuity of the Campus.

The Rector-President may:

a) promulgate campus regulations;

b) appoint or remove campus officers;

c) approve academic programs;

d) approve territorial plans;

e) authorize institutional agreements;

f) assign administrative responsibilities;

g) order inspection or reorganization;

h) suspend activities incompatible with University law;

i) establish registries and administrative offices; and

j) exercise any residual authority necessary for the operation of the Campus.

Article 16 — Campus Administration

The Campus shall be administered by a campus authority appointed under the statutes of the University.

The campus authority shall be responsible for:

a) implementation of academic decisions;

b) management of daily operations;

c) maintenance of facilities;

d) supervision of personnel;

e) enforcement of access requirements;

f) preparation of operational reports;

g) maintenance of local records;

h) coordination of security and emergency procedures;

i) implementation of the Territorial Management Plan; and

j) communication with the central administration of the University.

The campus authority shall remain subordinate to the Rector-President and the central academic organs of the University.

Article 17 — Authority of XaraTerra

XaraTerra shall coordinate territorial planning and physical development affecting the Campus.

Its functions shall include:

a) perimeter documentation;

b) land-use planning;

c) infrastructure coordination;

d) access-road planning;

e) transportation integration;

f) energy, water and sanitation planning;

g) development sequencing;

h) adjoining-land assessment; and

i) coordination with other competent Xaraguayan authorities.

XaraTerra shall not exercise authority over:

a) curriculum;

b) admissions;

c) examinations;

d) academic appointments;

e) credentialing; or

f) academic discipline.

PART VI — ACADEMIC ORGANIZATION

Article 18 — Authorized Academic Delivery

Academic instruction at the Campus may be delivered through:

a) in-person instruction;

b) distance instruction;

c) hybrid instruction;

d) intensive academic sessions;

e) supervised independent study;

f) seminars;

g) institutional workshops;

h) visiting instruction;

i) articulated external instruction; and

j) any other method approved by the University.

The University may operate the Campus notwithstanding that only part of its programming is delivered physically at the site.

The institutional status of the Campus shall not depend upon a minimum number of simultaneously operating programs unless such a requirement is established by University regulation.

Article 19 — Academic Credentials

The Campus may administer programs leading to credentials authorized by the University.

Such credentials may include:

a) fifteen-credit academic attestations;

b) thirty-credit academic certificates;

c) ninety-credit bachelor programs;

d) one-hundred-and-twenty-credit advanced bachelor programs;

e) majors;

f) microprograms;

g) institutional certificates; and

h) other credentials established by competent academic authority.

No credential shall be issued solely by the Campus in the absence of authorization from the University.

All credentials shall be entered in the central academic register.

Article 20 — Xaraguayan Academic Core

Programs administered through the Campus may include a compulsory Xaraguayan academic core.

The core may comprise:

a) History of Xaragua;

b) Indigenous political institutions;

c) constitutional organization;

d) customary governance;

e) territorial doctrine;

f) Catholic institutional history;

g) public ethics and administration; and

h) any additional component approved by the University.

The Xaraguayan academic core shall be delivered directly by the University unless an express academic instrument authorizes another method.

Article 21 — External Academic Cooperation

The University may enter into agreements concerning:

a) visiting instruction;

b) transfer credit;

c) joint teaching;

d) library access;

e) research;

f) professional training;

g) technical instruction;

h) faculty exchange;

i) student mobility; and

j) institutional development.

No external institution shall acquire governing authority over the Campus by reason of an academic agreement.

Every agreement shall define:

a) the participating institutions;

b) the authorized activities;

c) the applicable duration;

d) academic responsibility;

e) financial responsibility;

f) control of records;

g) use of names and insignia;

h) quality-assurance requirements;

i) termination procedures; and

j) the status of any credential or credit issued.

PART VII — ACCESS AND CAMPUS OPERATIONS

Article 22 — Access Regime

Access to the Campus shall be subject to University administration.

The University may establish:

a) designated entry and exit points;

b) identification requirements;

c) visitor registration;

d) operating hours;

e) restricted sectors;

f) event-specific admission procedures;

g) security screening;

h) limits on group access;

i) rules governing vehicles;

j) rules governing equipment and recording devices; and

k) temporary or complete closure.

Admission to a public activity shall not authorize unrestricted access to the Campus.

Academic enrolment shall not authorize entry into every administrative, archival or technical sector.

Article 23 — Authorized Users

Campus access may be granted to:

a) enrolled students;

b) faculty members;

c) University officers;

d) administrative personnel;

e) authorized contractors;

f) invited lecturers;

g) registered visitors;

h) institutional partners;

i) public participants attending authorized events; and

j) any other person admitted by the competent authority.

Access may be conditioned, limited, suspended or withdrawn according to campus regulations.

Article 24 — Institutional Capacity

The Campus shall operate within administratively determined capacity limits.

Capacity shall be determined by reference to:

a) instructional space;

b) circulation space;

c) sanitation capacity;

d) emergency exits;

e) fire-safety requirements;

f) security capacity;

g) available personnel;

h) communications capacity;

i) transportation access;

j) utility capacity; and

k) the operational condition of facilities.

Separate capacity limits may be established for:

a) classrooms;

b) assembly spaces;

c) libraries;

d) archives;

e) offices;

f) external grounds; and

g) temporary events.

Registration demand shall not independently justify operation beyond authorized capacity.

PART VIII — INFRASTRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT CONTROL

Article 25 — Prior Authorization

No construction or substantial physical modification may be undertaken within the Campus without prior authorization.

Activities subject to authorization shall include:

a) construction of buildings;

b) structural expansion;

c) demolition;

d) excavation;

e) alteration of circulation routes;

f) installation of permanent utilities;

g) establishment of parking areas;

h) modification of drainage;

i) installation of security structures;

j) installation of communications equipment; and

k) material alteration of the designated campus perimeter.

An authorization may prescribe:

a) location;

b) dimensions;

c) authorized function;

d) construction method;

e) materials;

f) operating capacity;

g) utility requirements;

h) inspection stages;

i) completion requirements; and

j) conditions of suspension.

Article 26 — Infrastructure Standards

Campus infrastructure shall be planned according to institutional necessity, operational capacity and available resources.

Infrastructure planning shall address:

a) structural integrity;

b) accessibility;

c) ventilation;

d) lighting;

e) water supply;

f) sanitation;

g) waste management;

h) energy supply;

i) telecommunications;

j) fire protection;

k) emergency access;

l) security;

m) maintenance; and

n) phased expansion.

Off-grid or locally autonomous systems may be installed for:

a) electrical generation;

b) water collection;

c) water storage;

d) filtration;

e) communications;

f) sanitation; and

g) emergency continuity.

Installation of an autonomous system shall not remove the obligation to maintain technical controls and inspection records.

Article 27 — Institutional Development Phases

Development of the Campus may proceed in successive administrative phases.

Such phases may include:

a) territorial designation;

b) installation of temporary instructional facilities;

c) commencement of limited academic operations;

d) establishment of administrative offices;

e) installation of library and archival capacity;

f) construction or adaptation of permanent academic facilities;

g) expansion of student and faculty services; and

h) completion of the permanent campus plan.

The legal establishment of the Campus shall not be deferred until completion of all permanent infrastructure.

PART IX — RECORDS, ARCHIVES AND INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY

Article 28 — Campus Register

The University shall maintain a Ça-Ira Campus Register.

The Register shall include:

a) the constitutive instrument;

b) territorial plans;

c) occupancy and use instruments;

d) administrative appointments;

e) academic programs;

f) infrastructure authorizations;

g) inspection records;

h) institutional agreements;

i) major operational decisions;

j) historical documentation; and

k) amendments affecting campus status.

The Campus Register shall form part of the General Archives of the State and the University’s central academic records.

Article 29 — Historical Classification of the Name Ça-Ira

The name “Ça-Ira” shall be retained as the official geographic and institutional designation of the Campus.

Retention of the name shall constitute an act of administrative continuity and historical classification.

It shall not constitute:

a) adoption of the political doctrines associated with the French revolutionary song bearing a similar name;

b) incorporation of that song into the constitutional law of Xaragua;

c) approval of anti-religious or violent political language;

d) designation of the song as a University anthem; or

e) creation of a territorial claim derived from the song.

The historical origin, use and interpretation of the name may be examined through:

a) academic research;

b) archival exhibits;

c) historical instruction;

d) cultural analysis; and

e) official memoranda.

Historical materials associated with the name shall be treated as archival or academic sources and not as operative provisions of this Act.

Article 30 — Documentary Treatment of External Symbols

The University may document and analyze names, texts, emblems and other symbols introduced through colonial, revolutionary or external political processes.

Such materials may be:

a) archived;

b) translated;

c) annotated;

d) classified;

e) exhibited;

f) taught; or

g) incorporated into historical research.

Academic examination of an external symbol shall not automatically:

a) confer constitutional status upon it;

b) incorporate it into the law of Xaragua;

c) authorize its official use;

d) establish territorial rights; or

e) alter the Catholic or Indigenous character of the University.

Any official adoption, prohibition or redesignation of a symbol shall require a distinct competent act.

PART X — PUBLIC EVENTS AND EXTERNAL USE

Article 31 — Authorized Events

The Campus may host:

a) academic lectures;

b) seminars;

c) examinations;

d) convocations;

e) public debates;

f) institutional meetings;

g) cultural presentations;

h) archival exhibitions;

i) formal receptions; and

j) other activities authorized by the University.

Every public event may be subject to:

a) capacity limits;

b) access controls;

c) security requirements;

d) operating hours;

e) equipment restrictions;

f) sanitation requirements;

g) recording rules;

h) administrative supervision; and

i) cancellation or suspension.

Article 32 — External Organizations

An external organization may use Campus facilities only under written authorization.

Authorization shall specify:

a) the authorized organization;

b) the purpose of use;

c) the designated premises;

d) the applicable dates and hours;

e) authorized capacity;

f) financial conditions;

g) security obligations;

h) liability for damage;

i) rules concerning institutional identification; and

j) termination conditions.

External use shall not confer:

a) permanent occupation;

b) institutional partnership;

c) academic recognition;

d) authority to represent the University;

e) control of Campus facilities; or

f) a right of renewal.

PART XI — SAFETY, SECURITY AND CONTINUITY

Article 33 — Campus Safety Regime

The University shall establish a safety and emergency regime for the Campus.

The regime may regulate:

a) building access;

b) emergency exits;

c) fire prevention;

d) first-aid capacity;

e) emergency communications;

f) evacuation procedures;

g) incident reporting;

h) weather-related restrictions;

i) structural hazards;

j) crowd management;

k) utility failures; and

l) temporary closure.

Article 34 — Immediate Administrative Measures

Where conditions prevent compliant operation, the competent authority may immediately:

a) restrict access;

b) suspend an activity;

c) evacuate a sector;

d) close a building;

e) reduce occupancy;

f) suspend construction;

g) remove unauthorized equipment;

h) terminate an unauthorized event; or

i) close the Campus temporarily.

Measures under paragraph 1 may be imposed in cases including:

a) structural instability;

b) fire risk;

c) sanitation failure;

d) security threat;

e) utility failure;

f) severe weather;

g) obstruction of emergency access;

h) excessive occupancy; or

i) any comparable condition requiring immediate intervention.

Temporary closure shall not affect the permanent legal establishment of the Campus.

Article 35 — Institutional Continuity

The University shall maintain measures for continuity of instruction and administration during any interruption of physical operations.

Such measures may include:

a) distance instruction;

b) temporary instructional premises;

c) adjusted academic calendars;

d) electronic records administration;

e) relocation of examinations;

f) remote institutional meetings; and

g) phased reopening.

No student’s academic status shall be terminated solely because instruction has been transferred temporarily from the Campus.

PART XII — INSPECTION AND ADMINISTRATIVE ENFORCEMENT

Article 36 — Inspection Authority

The University and other competent Xaraguayan authorities may conduct inspections concerning:

a) authorized occupation;

b) infrastructure;

c) construction;

d) sanitation;

e) safety;

f) access control;

g) recordkeeping;

h) equipment;

i) commercial activity;

j) institutional identification; and

k) compliance with the Territorial Management Plan.

Authorized operators, contractors and institutional users shall provide access to facilities and records relevant to an inspection.

Article 37 — Administrative Measures

Where non-compliance is established, the competent authority may issue:

a) a notice of deficiency;

b) a compliance order;

c) an access restriction;

d) an activity-suspension order;

e) a construction stop order;

f) an order removing unauthorized equipment;

g) an order terminating unauthorized occupation;

h) an event-cancellation order;

i) a temporary closure order;

j) a restoration order; or

k) withdrawal of an institutional authorization.

Administrative measures may apply to:

a) an individual;

b) a contractor;

c) an operator;

d) an organization;

e) an activity;

f) a building;

g) a functional sector; or

h) the Campus as a whole.

Article 38 — Prohibition of De Facto Rights

No right of access, occupation, operation, construction, representation or institutional use shall arise solely from:

a) previous permission;

b) repeated access;

c) previous instruction at the Campus;

d) physical possession of premises;

e) informal approval;

f) contribution of labour or materials;

g) financial support;

h) absence of earlier enforcement; or

i) personal association with an officer of the University.

Every activity requiring authorization shall remain unauthorized until the applicable authorization has been formally issued.

PART XIII — TERRITORIAL AND OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT PLAN

Article 39 — Mandatory Management Instrument

The University, in coordination with XaraTerra, shall establish and maintain the Ça-Ira Campus Territorial and Operational Management Plan.

The Plan shall determine, as applicable:

a) the official campus perimeter;

b) functional zoning;

c) current occupancy instruments;

d) authorized academic facilities;

e) administrative facilities;

f) entry and exit points;

g) internal circulation routes;

h) controlled-access sectors;

i) utility infrastructure;

j) sanitation facilities;

k) security installations;

l) emergency routes;

m) parking and transportation arrangements;

n) construction phases;

o) institutional reserve areas;

p) inspection procedures;

q) maintenance requirements;

r) operating capacity; and

s) continuity arrangements.

The Plan shall constitute the principal technical instrument for implementation of this Act.

Administrative amendment of the Plan shall not require amendment of the permanent constitutive status of the Campus.

Article 40 — Relationship Between the Act and the Plan

This Act shall establish the permanent legal existence, institutional mandate and territorial classification of the Campus.

The Territorial and Operational Management Plan shall govern technical implementation.

The Plan may not:

a) abolish the Campus;

b) transfer academic authority from the University;

c) create an autonomous institution;

d) alter the constitutional hierarchy established by this Act;

e) confer permanent private rights over Campus operations; or

f) authorize a use incompatible with the academic purpose of the territory.

PART XIV — EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND REPRESENTATION

Article 41 — Institutional Representation

External representation of the Campus shall be exercised through the University of Xaragua.

International, governmental, ecclesiastical, academic and institutional communications concerning the Campus shall be coordinated with the competent University and State authorities.

No campus officer may independently:

a) claim diplomatic status;

b) conclude a treaty;

c) bind the State;

d) confer accreditation;

e) recognize an external institution on behalf of the University;

f) create an international campus; or

g) make a territorial commitment.

Article 42 — Academic Recognition and Cooperation

The University may seek academic cooperation, institutional recognition and technical partnerships for programs administered through the Campus.

Such cooperation shall not determine the internal legal existence of the Campus.

External acceptance, credit transfer or professional recognition of a credential shall be administered according to:

a) the applicable agreement;

b) the requirements of the receiving institution;

c) the rules of the relevant professional body; and

d) the academic records issued by the University.

The University shall maintain accurate descriptions of:

a) program content;

b) credit requirements;

c) delivery methods;

d) academic level;

e) instructional responsibility; and

f) the nature of every credential issued.

PART XV — FINAL CONSTITUTIVE PROVISIONS

Article 43 — Administrative Hierarchy

Administration of the Campus shall observe the following order:

a) constitutional authority of Xaragua;

b) constitutive authority of this Act;

c) academic authority of the University;

d) executive authority of the Rector-President;

e) territorial coordination through XaraTerra;

f) Campus regulations;

g) the Territorial and Operational Management Plan; and

h) individual permits and operational authorizations.

No subordinate authorization shall prevail over a superior institutional requirement.

Article 44 — Separation of Institutional and Property Authority

The institutional existence of the Campus shall remain distinct from the private or public legal status of any specific parcel, structure or facility used for its operations.

A person holding a property interest in premises used by the Campus shall not, by that fact alone, possess:

a) academic authority;

b) appointment authority;

c) curriculum authority;

d) control over credentials;

e) authority over University records;

f) authority to represent the Campus; or

g) power to terminate the Campus as an institution.

The expiration or termination of a particular occupancy instrument may require relocation of activities but shall not abolish the Campus.

Article 45 — Controlling Institutional Rule

The Ça-Ira Campus is a permanent campus of the University of Xaragua.

The Campus territory shall be administered as a classified academic and institutional zone.

Academic authority shall remain vested in the University.

Territorial development shall be coordinated through XaraTerra.

Access, construction, external use and commercial activity shall be subject to prior authorization.

Historical materials associated with the name Ça-Ira shall be administered as academic or archival materials and shall not operate as constitutional provisions.

No family, lineage, property holder, contractor, partner or external organization shall acquire control of the Campus except through an express instrument issued by competent University authority.

Temporary interruption, relocation or modification of physical operations shall not extinguish the Campus.

Article 46 — Repeal and Supersession

This Act shall supersede every previous Campus instrument to the extent that such instrument:

a) characterizes the Campus as family land or a hereditary estate;

b) confuses territorial administration with private lineage rights;

c) incorporates the complete text of a political song as operative law;

d) treats historical interpretation as a source of property title;

e) attributes unverified canonical status to the Campus;

f) merges academic governance with territorial ownership;

g) grants authority through informal occupation; or

h) conflicts with the institutional hierarchy established herein.

Historical documents superseded under paragraph 1 may be retained in the archives for documentary purposes.

Archival retention shall not preserve the operative legal effect of a superseded provision.

Article 47 — Implementing Authority

The Rector-President, the University of Xaragua and XaraTerra shall adopt the measures required to implement this Act.

Such measures may include:

a) preparation of the official Campus register;

b) adoption of the Territorial and Operational Management Plan;

c) documentation of the Campus perimeter;

d) appointment of Campus officers;

e) approval of initial academic programming;

f) establishment of access and security rules;

g) inventory of facilities and equipment;

h) adoption of construction phases;

i) establishment of institutional records; and

j) execution of required occupancy, service or cooperation instruments.

Article 48 — Entry into Force

This Act shall enter into force immediately upon promulgation by the Office of the Rector-President.

The legal establishment of the Campus shall be effective from the date of promulgation notwithstanding the progressive implementation of:

a) physical infrastructure;

b) academic programs;

c) staffing;

d) library facilities;

e) technological systems;

f) territorial works; or

g) external institutional agreements.

Every subsequent regulation, appointment, territorial plan, academic decision, occupancy instrument, construction authorization and institutional agreement concerning the Ça-Ira Campus shall conform to this Act.

PROMULGATION

Established under the authority of the Office of the Rector-President.

Entered in the General Archives of the State and the Central Register of the University of Xaragua.

The University of Xaragua — Ça-Ira Campus is hereby constituted as a permanent academic institution, a classified territorial administration zone and an integral component of the University of Xaragua.

END OF ACT

ANNEX I

SUPREME HISTORICAL, TERRITORIAL AND DOCUMENTARY CLASSIFICATION OF ÇA-IRA

ATTACHED TO THE SUPREME CONSTITUTIVE, TERRITORIAL AND ACADEMIC ADMINISTRATION ACT ON THE UNIVERSITY OF XARAGUA — ÇA-IRA CAMPUS

SOVEREIGN CATHOLIC INDIGENOUS AND PRIVATE STATE OF XARAGUA

OFFICE OF THE RECTOR-PRESIDENT

SUPREME CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY

UNIVERSITY OF XARAGUA

GENERAL ARCHIVES OF THE STATE

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL, TERRITORIAL AND DOCTRINAL STUDIES

Official Classification: Historical Territorial Annex — Colonial Nomenclature Classification Instrument — Academic Memory and Documentary Administration Act — Ça-Ira Campus Historical Record

Competent Authority: Office of the Rector-President

Academic Authority: University of Xaragua

Archival Authority: General Archives of the State

Territorial Coordination Authority: XaraTerra

Geographic Scope: Ça-Ira Locality — Léogâne Coastal Plain — Historical Yaguana Territorial Sector

Historical Scope: Pre-Columbian Period — Columbian Contact — Spanish Colonial Period — French Colonial Period — Revolutionary Period — Post-Colonial Administration — Contemporary Institutional Reclassification

Legal Status: Permanent Historical Annex and Official State Classification

PART I — PURPOSE, AUTHORITY AND METHOD

Article 1 — Purpose of the Annex

This Annex establishes the official historical, territorial, academic and documentary classification applicable to Ça-Ira and to the University of Xaragua — Ça-Ira Campus.

It shall provide an ordered institutional account of:

a) the pre-Columbian territorial order of Yaguana and Xaragua;

b) the arrival of Christopher Columbus and the commencement of sustained European intervention in Hispaniola;

c) the Spanish conquest and reorganization of the Indigenous territory;

d) the extension of French colonial authority into the western part of the island;

e) the transformation of Yaguana within the colonial geography of Léogâne;

f) the French Revolution and the origin of the expression and song “Ah! Ça ira”;

g) the possible transmission of the expression into the colonial nomenclature of the Léogâne region;

h) the political and administrative functions of colonial place-naming;

i) the revolutionary and post-colonial history of the territory;

j) the continuity of the name Ça-Ira after the termination of French colonial rule;

k) the contemporary territorial condition of the locality; and

l) its present institutional assignment to the University of Xaragua.

This Annex shall distinguish between:

a) documented historical facts;

b) facts supported by convergent historical authorities;

c) cartographically or administratively recorded facts;

d) local historical memory;

e) institutional historical interpretation;

f) reasonable inference; and

g) propositions requiring additional archival confirmation.

Article 2 — Evidentiary Discipline

No historical proposition shall acquire the status of an established fact solely because it appears in a prior instrument of Xaragua.

Every historical classification shall be evaluated according to the nature of the available evidence, including:

a) primary archival documents;

b) treaties;

c) colonial administrative records;

d) ecclesiastical records;

e) historical maps;

f) land and maritime charts;

g) official registers;

h) contemporary accounts;

i) archaeological evidence;

j) recognized scholarly works;

k) oral history; and

l) local territorial memory.

Where the evidentiary record remains incomplete, the University shall use one of the following classifications:

a) documented;

b) substantially documented;

c) historically reported;

d) locally preserved;

e) institutionally interpreted;

f) probable but unconfirmed; or

g) undetermined.

The official history of Ça-Ira shall remain open to documentary correction without terminating the territorial or institutional status of the Campus.

Article 3 — Legal Effect

This Annex shall govern the official academic and archival presentation of the history of Ça-Ira by the University of Xaragua.

It shall not independently determine:

a) ownership of a specific parcel;

b) the validity of a private property title;

c) the boundaries of an individual holding;

d) civil liability;

e) criminal responsibility;

f) the legal status of an external government; or

g) the accreditation status of an academic program.

The historical classification established herein shall support:

a) territorial education;

b) academic research;

c) archival preservation;

d) institutional nomenclature;

e) historical signage;

f) curriculum development;

g) public exhibitions; and

h) the preparation of future territorial studies.

PART II — PRE-COLUMBIAN TERRITORIAL ORDER

Article 4 — Yaguana and the Xaragua Political Order

Before sustained European occupation, the wider territory later administered through Léogâne formed part of the Indigenous political and territorial order conventionally identified as Xaragua or Jaragua.

Yaguana is recognized within the historical doctrine of Xaragua as a principal political and territorial centre associated with that order.

The pre-Columbian territory shall not be represented as:

a) vacant;

b) politically unorganized;

c) without systems of authority;

d) without agricultural production;

e) without trade and communication networks;

f) without spiritual and ceremonial institutions; or

g) awaiting the creation of territorial identity by European occupation.

The Indigenous territorial order included:

a) governed communities;

b) recognized leadership;

c) systems of reciprocal obligation;

d) organized food production;

e) maritime and inland communication;

f) territorial knowledge;

g) ceremonial authority; and

h) intercommunity political relations.

European maps, settlements and administrative names shall therefore be classified as later territorial layers rather than as the origin of the territory itself.

Article 5 — Political Memory of Bohechío and Anacaona

Bohechío and Anacaona shall be maintained in the historical record as principal figures associated with the political order of Xaragua.

Their inclusion shall serve to establish that:

a) the region possessed a political history preceding European conquest;

b) Indigenous leadership formed part of an organized territorial system;

c) the history of Léogâne cannot begin with its French colonial name;

d) colonial administration did not create the first political identity of the region; and

e) the memory of Yaguana constitutes a legitimate subject of contemporary academic administration.

The University shall distinguish between:

a) information established through early colonial chronicles;

b) later historiographical reconstruction;

c) Indigenous historical interpretation; and

d) subsequent national or institutional commemoration.

PART III — COLUMBIAN CONTACT AND SPANISH CONQUEST

Article 6 — Commencement of the Columbian Period

The arrival of Christopher Columbus in Hispaniola in 1492 shall be classified as the commencement of sustained European intervention in the island’s existing Indigenous political orders.

The expression “Columbian period,” for purposes of this Annex, shall refer to:

a) initial Spanish maritime exploration;

b) the establishment of European claims;

c) missionary and commercial penetration;

d) the imposition of tribute and labour systems;

e) military intervention;

f) demographic disruption;

g) territorial renaming; and

h) the progressive replacement of Indigenous authority by colonial administration.

The arrival of European navigators shall not be described as the discovery of an uninhabited territory.

Article 7 — Spanish Intervention in Xaragua

During the years following 1492, the Spanish colonial project progressively extended into the political territory of Xaragua.

The Spanish intervention shall be classified as involving:

a) assertion of Crown authority;

b) demands for submission;

c) military coercion;

d) alteration of Indigenous leadership structures;

e) imposition of external legal institutions;

f) reorganization of land and labour;

g) missionary activity;

h) demographic displacement; and

i) incorporation of territory into an imperial administrative system.

The destruction of autonomous Indigenous political authority did not erase the historical existence of the communities, territorial affiliations and cultural continuities that preceded colonial administration.

Article 8 — Destruction of the Political Centre

The Spanish military action conventionally dated to 1503 and associated with Governor Nicolás de Ovando shall be entered in the official record as a decisive event in the destruction of the political autonomy of Xaragua.

The event shall be examined with reference to:

a) the summoning of Indigenous leaders;

b) the seizure or killing of members of the leadership;

c) the capture of Anacaona;

d) her subsequent execution;

e) the removal of autonomous political authority;

f) the incorporation of the territory into Spanish colonial administration; and

g) the long-term consequences for the political memory of Yaguana.

The University shall not treat the destruction of the Indigenous government as proof that Indigenous territorial history thereafter ceased to exist.

Article 9 — Spanish Colonial Period

Following the conquest, the territory was subjected to Spanish imperial jurisdiction and to the legal, religious and economic structures of the colonial order.

This period shall be studied through:

a) settlement records;

b) ecclesiastical administration;

c) agricultural production;

d) forced labour systems;

e) demographic transformation;

f) African enslavement and displacement;

g) maritime defence;

h) imperial competition; and

i) the persistence or transformation of Indigenous populations and practices.

The resulting population history shall not be reduced to a single biological or racial formula.

The University shall analyze the territory as a site of interaction among:

a) surviving Indigenous populations;

b) Spanish colonial populations;

c) forcibly displaced African populations;

d) persons of mixed ancestry;

e) Catholic institutions; and

f) successive imperial and local authorities.

PART IV — TRANSITION TO FRENCH COLONIAL CONTROL

Article 10 — Western Imperial Competition

During the seventeenth century, the western part of Hispaniola became subject to increasing French activity arising from:

a) buccaneering settlements;

b) private maritime operations;

c) informal colonization;

d) plantation expansion;

e) imperial competition; and

f) gradual administrative consolidation.

French presence in the wider western territory developed before complete treaty-based settlement of the territorial dispute between France and Spain.

The growth of French occupation shall therefore be distinguished from its subsequent formal recognition within European interstate arrangements.

Article 11 — Treaty of Ryswick

The treaties concluded at Ryswick in 1697 ended the Nine Years’ War between France and the opposing European coalition.

In the Caribbean context, the settlement is conventionally treated as a decisive stage in Spain’s recognition of French possession in the western part of Hispaniola.

The Treaty of Ryswick shall not be interpreted by the University as:

a) an act of consent by the Indigenous population;

b) a transfer executed by the pre-colonial political authorities of Xaragua;

c) the origin of the territory itself;

d) an extinguishment of the historical existence of Yaguana; or

e) proof that European powers possessed an uncontested Indigenous mandate.

It shall be classified as an agreement within the European interstate order concerning territorial possession exercised by European crowns.

Article 12 — Transformation of Yaguana into Léogâne

Under the expanding French colonial order, the historic territory of Yaguana became administratively associated with the name Léogâne.

The relationship between the names Yaguana and Léogâne shall be studied as an example of linguistic and administrative transformation under colonial government.

The French colonial administration developed Léogâne and its surrounding plain as a territorial, agricultural, military, maritime and commercial sector of Saint-Domingue.

The historical importance of the region arose from:

a) its coastal location;

b) its agricultural plain;

c) access to inland territory;

d) maritime communication;

e) plantation production;

f) military defence;

g) colonial transportation; and

h) proximity to Port-au-Prince and the southern territorial corridors.

The replacement or modification of an earlier territorial name shall not be treated as proof that the prior Indigenous identity ceased to have historical relevance.

PART V — COLONIAL NOMENCLATURE AND THE LOCALITY OF ÇA-IRA

Article 13 — Existence of the Ça-Ira Designation

Ça-Ira is recognized as a geographic designation within the Léogâne territorial sector.

The designation has been recorded in modern geographic and cartographic materials in association with:

a) the coastal plain of Léogâne;

b) the Dessources sector;

c) the shoreline;

d) nearby localities and transportation routes; and

e) the wider environment of Fort Léogâne.

The precise date upon which the name was first assigned to the locality has not been conclusively established in the archival record presently available to the University.

The identity of the person, group or colonial authority responsible for the original designation remains subject to further research.

No State publication shall invent a precise date, founder or naming decree in the absence of documentary evidence.

Article 14 — Historical Naming Hypothesis

The correspondence between the locality name “Ça-Ira” and the French revolutionary expression and song “Ah! Ça ira” constitutes a legitimate subject of historical investigation.

The working institutional hypothesis is that the designation may have entered local usage through one or more of the following channels:

a) French colonial administrators;

b) French settlers or plantation interests;

c) military personnel;

d) revolutionary commissioners;

e) sailors or port communities;

f) persons carrying metropolitan revolutionary vocabulary into Saint-Domingue;

g) revolutionary-era territorial reclassification; or

h) later retention of a name first used during the revolutionary period.

Until supported by an identified primary or sufficiently authoritative secondary source, the proposition that colonists formally named the locality after the song shall be classified as:

INSTITUTIONAL HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION — PLAUSIBLE, MATERIAL AND SUBJECT TO ARCHIVAL CONFIRMATION.

The absence of present confirmation shall not prevent:

a) continued archival research;

b) comparative analysis;

c) examination of colonial maps;

d) examination of plantation records;

e) examination of military records;

f) collection of oral history;

g) publication of a documented hypothesis; or

h) revision of the official classification upon discovery of additional evidence.

Article 15 — Functions of Colonial Place-Naming

Irrespective of the unresolved identity of the original naming authority, the use of French political vocabulary as a territorial designation shall be examined within the wider administrative practice of colonial place-naming.

Colonial place-naming could serve to:

a) register territory within the language of the occupying authority;

b) facilitate military and administrative identification;

c) establish geographic references usable by settlers and officials;

d) reproduce metropolitan cultural categories;

e) commemorate political events, persons, slogans or institutions;

f) normalize the presence of the colonial power;

g) displace, modify or subordinate earlier names;

h) reorganize local memory around an external vocabulary; and

i) transmit ideological references through ordinary geographic usage.

The political effectiveness of colonial nomenclature did not require every inhabitant to understand or support the original ideological reference.

Once placed upon maps, deeds, correspondence, military reports or local usage, a name could continue after the disappearance of the regime that introduced it.

Article 16 — Utility of the Designation to Colonial Actors

If the Ça-Ira designation originated in the French colonial or revolutionary period, its institutional utility to colonial actors may reasonably have included:

a) marking a particular locality, plantation sector, coastal position or military point;

b) distinguishing the locality within colonial transportation and communication systems;

c) associating the place with recognizable French political language;

d) affirming the presence of French-speaking authority;

e) reproducing revolutionary terminology within the colony;

f) separating the official administrative identity of the place from its pre-existing territorial memory; and

g) incorporating the locality into a French cartographic and documentary order.

Such a designation would have operated simultaneously as:

a) a geographic reference;

b) an administrative label;

c) a cultural inscription;

d) a potential political reference; and

e) a durable mechanism of territorial memory.

The University shall distinguish between the demonstrated administrative usefulness of place-names generally and the specific intention of the persons who named Ça-Ira, which remains to be conclusively documented.

PART VI — ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE SONG “AH! ÇA IRA”

Article 17 — Musical Origin

The melody associated with “Ah! Ça ira” originated in a popular French contredanse generally identified as “Le Carillon national.”

The melody is attributed to Jean-Antoine Bécourt, a musician active in Paris.

In or around May 1790, the street singer Ladré placed political verses upon the existing melody.

The expression “Ça ira,” meaning in general terms “it will succeed,” “it will work” or “things will go well,” became associated with public confidence in the progress of the French Revolution.

A frequently reported tradition attributes the popularity of the expression to Benjamin Franklin, who was said to have used a similar phrase when discussing the progress of the American Revolution.

The University shall present the Franklin connection as a widely repeated historical account rather than as the sole juridically established origin of the expression.

Article 18 — Initial Revolutionary Function

The song emerged during the period surrounding preparations for the Fête de la Fédération of 14 July 1790.

Its earliest political function was connected to:

a) collective labour;

b) public mobilization;

c) revolutionary optimism;

d) popular participation;

e) celebration of the transformation of political authority; and

f) the expectation that the Revolution would succeed.

The song was not originally fixed in one immutable text.

Its verses changed according to:

a) political circumstances;

b) performers;

c) public audiences;

d) revolutionary factions;

e) military conditions; and

f) successive stages of the Revolution.

Article 19 — Radicalization of the Lyrics

As the French Revolution became more violent and politically polarized, versions of the song acquired increasingly radical language.

Later variants included attacks upon:

a) aristocracy;

b) monarchy;

c) hereditary privilege;

d) counter-revolutionary authority;

e) clerical power; and

f) persons classified as enemies of the Revolution.

The refrain commonly associated with sending aristocrats “to the lamp-post” and declaring that they would be hanged belongs to the radicalized revolutionary use of the song.

The existence of multiple variants prevents the University from designating every later verse as part of one uncontested “original complete text.”

Any documentary reproduction shall identify:

a) the version reproduced;

b) its known or estimated date;

c) the documentary source;

d) differences from other versions; and

e) whether the wording belongs to an early, radicalized, military or later reconstruction.

Article 20 — Political Uses of the Song

“Ah! Ça ira” became one of the principal popular songs associated with the French Revolution.

It functioned as:

a) a marching song;

b) a public rallying cry;

c) a form of popular political communication;

d) a mechanism of collective identification;

e) an expression of revolutionary pressure;

f) a vehicle for hostility toward designated political classes; and

g) an adaptable musical instrument used in changing political circumstances.

Its political power resulted from:

a) a simple repeated refrain;

b) a widely recognized melody;

c) adaptable verses;

d) public performance;

e) ease of collective participation; and

f) its association with revolutionary action.

The song demonstrates how music can operate as an instrument of political mobilization without constituting a formal statute or governmental decree.

Article 21 — Suppression and Historical Survival

After the most radical phases of the Revolution, the political status of the song changed.

It was prohibited under the French Directory in 1797.

Its prohibition did not remove it from historical memory.

The song thereafter remained:

a) an artifact of revolutionary culture;

b) a political symbol;

c) a subject of historical interpretation;

d) a musical document;

e) an example of popular propaganda; and

f) a reference capable of being reused outside its original context.

PART VII — THE SONG, SAINT-DOMINGUE AND COLONIAL TRANSMISSION

Article 22 — Transmission of Metropolitan Political Language

Political events in France affected the colonial administration of Saint-Domingue.

Revolutionary laws, decrees, symbols, offices and vocabulary circulated through:

a) colonial officials;

b) military personnel;

c) port traffic;

d) printed materials;

e) correspondence;

f) political clubs;

g) settlers;

h) free people of colour;

i) enslaved and emancipated populations; and

j) competing revolutionary authorities.

The transmission of revolutionary language did not produce uniform interpretation within the colony.

The same political term could signify different things to:

a) colonial administrators;

b) white settlers;

c) plantation owners;

d) free people of colour;

e) enslaved persons;

f) revolutionary commissioners;

g) soldiers; and

h) local communities.

Article 23 — Colonial Contradiction

The use of a song proclaiming liberty and equality within a slaveholding colony constitutes a central historical contradiction.

Revolutionary language could be used by colonial actors while the colonial order continued to administer:

a) racial hierarchy;

b) plantation production;

c) coerced labour;

d) unequal political status;

e) restricted civil capacity; and

f) territorial domination.

The political vocabulary of liberty did not automatically terminate the colonial structures through which the territory and its population were governed.

The study of Ça-Ira shall therefore examine the difference between:

a) revolutionary proclamation;

b) colonial administration;

c) legal status;

d) economic practice; and

e) the actual distribution of political power.

Article 24 — Relevance to the Locality

If the locality received the name Ça-Ira during or after the French revolutionary period, the name may represent the geographic survival of metropolitan revolutionary language within a colonial territory.

Its continued existence would demonstrate how:

a) a political slogan may become a place-name;

b) a place-name may outlive the political regime that produced it;

c) residents may inherit a name without adopting its original ideology;

d) colonial vocabulary may become normalized through maps and administration; and

e) the historical origin of a name may be forgotten while the name remains operational.

The University shall treat this possible connection as a research question supported by linguistic correspondence and historical context but still requiring conclusive documentary confirmation.

PART VIII — REVOLUTION IN SAINT-DOMINGUE AND LÉOGÂNE

Article 25 — Revolutionary Transformation

The general uprising that commenced in Saint-Domingue in 1791 transformed the political, military and social order of the colony.

The revolutionary period included:

a) slave insurrection;

b) conflict among colonial factions;

c) struggles involving free people of colour;

d) intervention by European powers;

e) abolitionist measures;

f) military realignment;

g) destruction of plantation authority;

h) emancipation; and

i) the eventual termination of French colonial sovereignty.

Léogâne and its surrounding territory formed part of this wider military and political theatre.

Article 26 — Local and Regional Conflict

The Léogâne region experienced competing claims of authority during the revolutionary period.

The territory was affected by:

a) armed mobilization;

b) contests over towns and ports;

c) destruction of plantations;

d) emancipation struggles;

e) revolutionary administration;

f) changing military alliances;

g) disruption of agricultural production; and

h) displacement of populations.

The University shall not reduce the revolutionary history of the region to a simple conflict between France and a unified local population.

The historical record shall recognize multiple actors, changing alliances and distinct political objectives.

Article 27 — Independence and Termination of French Colonial Rule

The declaration of independence in 1804 terminated French colonial sovereignty over the newly constituted State.

Independence transformed the governing order but did not automatically remove:

a) French place-names;

b) plantation-era boundaries;

c) colonial roads;

d) inherited administrative divisions;

e) French legal vocabulary;

f) Catholic institutional structures;

g) land disputes; or

h) the demographic and economic consequences of colonial rule.

The survival of the name Ça-Ira after independence shall therefore be understood within the wider continuity of inherited territorial nomenclature.

PART IX — POST-COLONIAL CONTINUITY

Article 28 — Administrative Survival of the Name

Following independence, Ça-Ira continued as a local geographic designation within the Léogâne region.

Continued use of the name shall not be interpreted as continuing allegiance to:

a) France;

b) the French monarchy;

c) the French Revolution;

d) the colonial government of Saint-Domingue; or

e) the ideological content of the revolutionary song.

The name survived because place-names frequently acquire an administrative and social existence independent of their original political meaning.

Such continuity may be maintained through:

a) oral usage;

b) local identification;

c) transportation routes;

d) land descriptions;

e) maps;

f) administrative documents;

g) commercial references; and

h) intergenerational territorial memory.

Article 29 — Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Context

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the wider Léogâne territory remained significant for:

a) agriculture;

b) coastal communication;

c) local commerce;

d) Catholic religious life;

e) military and political movements;

f) transportation between Port-au-Prince and the southern regions;

g) cultural production; and

h) local territorial organization.

The University shall undertake further archival work concerning Ça-Ira during these periods, including:

a) land registers;

b) cadastral records;

c) parish records;

d) military maps;

e) coastal charts;

f) census materials;

g) transportation records;

h) notarial documents; and

i) local oral testimony.

The absence of a complete published history of the locality shall constitute a research mandate rather than a justification for historical invention.

Article 30 — Cartographic Recognition

The modern cartographic record confirms the continued geographic use of the name Ça-Ira within the Léogâne sector.

Cartographic recognition establishes:

a) the continuing existence of the name;

b) its association with an identifiable locality;

c) its relationship to the coastal geography of Léogâne; and

d) its survival within modern territorial reference systems.

Cartographic appearance alone does not establish:

a) the original date of naming;

b) the identity of the naming authority;

c) the precise ideological purpose of the name;

d) ownership of land; or

e) the boundaries of the University Campus.

PART X — THE 2010 EARTHQUAKE AND CONTEMPORARY TERRITORIAL CONDITION

Article 31 — Earthquake of 12 January 2010

Léogâne was located near the epicentral zone of the earthquake of 12 January 2010.

The earthquake caused extensive destruction throughout the urban and surrounding territorial sectors.

Its consequences included:

a) collapse or severe damage to buildings;

b) destruction of public infrastructure;

c) loss of life;

d) displacement;

e) interruption of administrative services;

f) damage to educational and religious facilities;

g) disruption of transportation; and

h) long-term reconstruction requirements.

The earthquake shall form part of the official historical context governing future construction and institutional development at Ça-Ira.

Article 32 — Institutional Consequences

Development of the Campus shall account for the seismic history of the region.

Territorial and construction planning shall address:

a) structural resilience;

b) lightweight construction where appropriate;

c) emergency exits;

d) decentralized utilities;

e) water storage;

f) communications continuity;

g) evacuation space;

h) phased construction; and

i) operational continuity following a disaster.

The Campus shall serve as an institutional site capable of supporting education, archives and organized territorial continuity under conditions of infrastructure disruption.

PART XI — CONTEMPORARY XARAGUAYAN RECLASSIFICATION

Article 33 — Establishment of the Ça-Ira Campus

The University of Xaragua — Ça-Ira Campus has been established by the competent authority as a permanent academic and territorial institution.

The establishment of the Campus assigns the locality a present institutional function centred upon:

a) political science;

b) Indigenous law;

c) public administration;

d) territorial governance;

e) history;

f) theology;

g) institutional research;

h) archival preservation; and

i) formation of public and community leadership.

The Campus is not established as:

a) a memorial to the French Revolution;

b) an institution of French political doctrine;

c) a continuation of colonial administration;

d) a monument to settler authority; or

e) an ideological extension of the song “Ah! Ça ira.”

Article 34 — Present Meaning of the Name

The present institutional meaning of Ça-Ira shall be determined by the University of Xaragua and the competent authorities of the State.

Within the contemporary institutional order, Ça-Ira shall designate:

a) a permanent University campus;

b) a classified academic territory;

c) a centre of historical and political research;

d) a location for the study of colonial nomenclature;

e) an archive of territorial transformation; and

f) an operational component of the academic order of Xaragua.

The contemporary institutional meaning shall coexist with, but shall not conceal, the colonial and revolutionary history of the name.

Article 35 — Administrative Reappropriation

The retention of the name Ça-Ira shall constitute an act of administrative reappropriation.

Administrative reappropriation means that:

a) the historical name is preserved;

b) its origin is subjected to academic examination;

c) its colonial function is documented;

d) its ideological associations are identified;

e) its present use is determined by Xaraguayan institutions; and

f) the name is assigned to an institution serving the educational requirements of Xaragua.

Administrative reappropriation shall not require:

a) denial of the French origin of the expression;

b) destruction of historical records;

c) invention of an undocumented Indigenous equivalent;

d) adoption of the ideology of the song; or

e) incorporation of the lyrics into operative law.

Article 36 — Interpretive Authority

The University shall possess authority to establish the institutional interpretation of the name within its curricula, archives, publications and Campus administration.

This authority shall include the power to:

a) publish historical memoranda;

b) correct earlier institutional claims;

c) distinguish evidence from interpretation;

d) commission archival research;

e) collect oral testimony;

f) prepare exhibitions;

g) maintain historical signage;

h) issue annotated editions of relevant documents; and

i) amend the documentary schedules to this Annex.

Institutional interpretive authority shall not authorize the falsification, suppression or deliberate alteration of historical evidence.

PART XII — DOCUMENTARY STATUS OF THE SONG

Article 37 — Classification of “Ah! Ça Ira”

The song “Ah! Ça ira” is hereby classified, for purposes of the Campus, as:

a) a French revolutionary document;

b) a work of political music;

c) an instrument of popular mobilization;

d) evidence of changing revolutionary language;

e) a possible source of the locality’s name;

f) a subject of colonial-transmission research; and

g) an archival exhibit subordinate to the operative law of the University.

The song shall not be classified as:

a) an anthem of Xaragua;

b) an anthem of the Campus;

c) a constitutional text;

d) a legal command;

e) a Catholic doctrinal text;

f) a territorial title; or

g) a binding statement of University policy.

Article 38 — Authorized Academic Uses

The University may:

a) reproduce documented versions of the lyrics;

b) translate them;

c) compare competing versions;

d) analyze their political meaning;

e) perform the song for academic purposes;

f) use it in lectures or exhibitions;

g) examine its possible colonial circulation; and

h) include recordings or musical notation in the Campus archives.

Every official academic presentation shall identify:

a) the date or approximate period of the version;

b) the source used;

c) whether the text is original, adapted or reconstructed;

d) the historical context;

e) the difference between the early and radicalized versions; and

f) the absence or presence of evidence connecting that version to Saint-Domingue or Ça-Ira.

Article 39 — Prohibition of False Attribution

No version of the song shall be described as the single complete original text unless supported by adequate documentary evidence.

No verse shall be attributed to Ladré solely because it appears in a later revolutionary variant.

No official publication shall state as conclusively established that:

a) the locality was named by a specific colonist;

b) the name was imposed immediately after the Treaty of Ryswick;

c) the locality was named in 1790;

d) the song was officially adopted by the colonial administration of Léogâne; or

e) the name was intended specifically to erase Catholic or Indigenous identity,

unless an archival source establishing the proposition has been identified.

Such propositions may be examined as hypotheses where they are clearly classified as such.

PART XIII — CAMPUS HISTORICAL PROGRAM

Article 40 — Ça-Ira Historical Research Program

The University shall establish a continuing Ça-Ira Historical Research Program.

The Program shall investigate:

a) pre-Columbian Yaguana;

b) the political organization of Xaragua;

c) Spanish conquest records;

d) Spanish and Catholic administration;

e) French occupation and settlement;

f) the development of Léogâne;

g) plantation and military geography;

h) the revolutionary period;

i) the origin of the Ça-Ira designation;

j) the circulation of revolutionary songs in Saint-Domingue;

k) nineteenth-century territorial records;

l) twentieth-century cartography;

m) oral histories of the locality;

n) the 2010 earthquake; and

o) the establishment of the Campus.

Article 41 — Archival Research Priorities

Priority shall be given to locating:

a) the earliest known written use of “Ça-Ira” for the locality;

b) the earliest map containing the designation;

c) colonial land or plantation records using the name;

d) military references to Ça-Ira or nearby fortified sites;

e) port and coastal records;

f) parish registers;

g) notarial instruments;

h) revolutionary correspondence;

i) records of colonial commissioners;

j) nineteenth-century administrative documents; and

k) testimony preserved by residents of the locality.

Every identified source shall be entered into the Campus Historical Register.

The Register shall record:

a) document title;

b) author or issuing authority;

c) date;

d) archive or repository;

e) geographic reference;

f) evidentiary significance;

g) authenticity status; and

h) relationship to the historical classification established by this Annex.

Article 42 — Public Historical Presentation

The Campus may maintain a permanent historical presentation concerning Ça-Ira.

The presentation may include:

a) a territorial chronology;

b) maps of Yaguana and Léogâne;

c) information concerning Bohechío and Anacaona;

d) records of Spanish conquest;

e) materials concerning French colonial administration;

f) the history of “Ah! Ça ira”;

g) comparative versions of the lyrics;

h) colonial maps and place-names;

i) records of the Haitian Revolution;

j) post-independence cartography;

k) earthquake documentation; and

l) the constitutive history of the Campus.

The presentation shall identify the evidentiary classification of each major claim.

PART XIV — OFFICIAL HISTORICAL FINDINGS

Article 43 — Findings Concerning the Territory

The State finds that:

a) the history of the wider territory precedes European occupation;

b) Yaguana formed part of the Indigenous political order of Xaragua;

c) Spanish intervention altered and ultimately destroyed the autonomous political authority of that order;

d) French colonial expansion subsequently transformed the administrative and linguistic geography of the region;

e) Léogâne became an important territorial sector of Saint-Domingue;

f) Ça-Ira survives as a geographic designation within the Léogâne area;

g) the designation corresponds linguistically to a major expression and song of the French Revolution;

h) the exact circumstances of the local naming remain incompletely documented;

i) the name may legitimately be examined as a possible example of revolutionary and colonial nomenclature;

j) the locality continued after the termination of French colonial sovereignty; and

k) its current institutional function is determined by the establishment of the University Campus.

Article 44 — Findings Concerning the Song

The State finds that:

a) “Ah! Ça ira” emerged in France in 1790;

b) its melody derived from “Le Carillon national” associated with Jean-Antoine Bécourt;

c) Ladré is associated with the addition of early political lyrics;

d) the song developed through numerous versions;

e) its political language became more radical during the Revolution;

f) it functioned as an instrument of popular mobilization;

g) later versions contained violent and anti-aristocratic language;

h) the song was prohibited under the Directory in 1797;

i) its historical influence survived the political period that produced it; and

j) its possible relationship to the local name Ça-Ira requires continued archival examination.

Article 45 — Findings Concerning Colonial Utility

The State finds that colonial place-naming commonly served administrative, cartographic, military, cultural and political functions.

The use of metropolitan terminology within a colonial territory could:

a) render the territory legible to colonial officials;

b) facilitate official communication;

c) reproduce the language of the governing power;

d) mark occupation or political presence;

e) subordinate earlier territorial references; and

f) preserve colonial memory through routine administrative use.

The University may apply this analytical framework to Ça-Ira while continuing to distinguish general colonial practice from the specific, still-unconfirmed intention of the original naming authority.

PART XV — FINAL HISTORICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE PROVISIONS

Article 46 — Preservation Without Submission

Preservation of the name Ça-Ira shall not constitute submission to its possible colonial or revolutionary origin.

The University shall preserve the name because:

a) it identifies an existing locality;

b) it forms part of the territorial record;

c) it permits examination of colonial nomenclature;

d) it connects the Campus to the documented history of the area;

e) it prevents the disappearance of evidence through artificial renaming; and

f) it allows the present institution to govern the name openly and historically.

Article 47 — Supersession of Inconsistent Historical Claims

This Annex shall supersede every prior University or State statement to the extent that such statement:

a) presents an unverified naming hypothesis as an established fact;

b) attributes the name to a specified colonial act without documentary evidence;

c) treats the lyrics of the song as operative constitutional law;

d) claims that the song itself creates territorial jurisdiction;

e) bases Campus authority upon racial or genealogical language;

f) treats historical memory as an automatic private property title;

g) asserts an uninterrupted family holding without documentary support; or

h) fails to distinguish archival evidence from institutional interpretation.

Superseded documents may be retained in the General Archives as records of earlier institutional development.

Their archival retention shall not preserve their normative authority.

Article 48 — Continuing Revision

The Department of Historical, Territorial and Doctrinal Studies may submit revisions where new evidence is obtained.

A revision may:

a) confirm an existing hypothesis;

b) modify the date assigned to an event;

c) identify an earlier use of the place-name;

d) establish the identity of a naming authority;

e) correct a translation;

f) distinguish versions of the song;

g) add cartographic evidence; or

h) reclassify the evidentiary status of a proposition.

Documentary revision shall not require re-establishment of the Campus.

Article 49 — Controlling Historical Rule

The official history of Ça-Ira shall begin with the pre-existing Indigenous territorial order and not with European naming.

The Columbian, Spanish, French, revolutionary and post-colonial periods shall be maintained as distinct historical phases.

The song “Ah! Ça ira” shall be preserved and studied as a revolutionary political document.

Its possible relationship to the locality shall remain an official field of research.

The colonial utility of territorial nomenclature shall be examined as a matter of administration, political communication and cultural inscription.

No unresolved proposition shall be converted into an established historical fact without supporting evidence.

The present institutional meaning of Ça-Ira shall be determined by the University of Xaragua.

The name shall henceforth identify a permanent academic institution operating within the constitutional and territorial order of Xaragua.

Article 50 — Entry into Force

This Annex shall enter into force upon promulgation by the Office of the Rector-President.

It shall be attached to and interpreted with the Supreme Constitutive, Territorial and Academic Administration Act on the University of Xaragua — Ça-Ira Campus.

The University, the General Archives of the State and XaraTerra shall take the academic, documentary and territorial measures required for its implementation.

PROMULGATION

Issued under the authority of the Office of the Rector-President.

Entered in the General Archives of the State.

Attached to the Central Institutional Register of the University of Xaragua.

The history of Ça-Ira is hereby placed under permanent academic, territorial and documentary administration.

The Indigenous history of Yaguana, the Spanish and French colonial transformations, the revolutionary history of the name, the political history of “Ah! Ça ira,” the post-colonial continuity of the locality and the establishment of the University Campus shall be preserved as one ordered historical record without confusion between evidence, interpretation and operative law.

END OF ANNEX I

SOVEREIGN CATHOLIC INDIGENOUS AND PRIVATE STATE OF XARAGUA
OFFICE OF THE RECTOR-PRESIDENT
SUPREME CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY
UNIVERSITY OF XARAGUA
GENERAL ARCHIVES OF THE STATE
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL, CONSTITUTIONAL AND TERRITORIAL STUDIES
SUPREME STATE HISTORICAL CLASSIFICATION ACT
ON GENERAL GUY-JOSEPH BONNET, THE CONSTITUTIONAL TERMINATION OF THE FRENCH COLONIAL ORDER, THE POLITICAL AUTHORITY OF THE YAGUANA–LÉOGÂNE TERRITORIAL SECTOR, AND THE RACIAL, DEMOGRAPHIC, ECONOMIC AND SEXUAL ADMINISTRATION OF COLONIAL SAINT-DOMINGUE
Official Classification: Supreme Historical Instrument — Constitutional Memory Act — Anti-Colonial State Doctrine — Yaguana–Léogâne Territorial History Instrument — Colonial Social Administration Dossier
Principal Historical Figure: General Guy-Joseph Bonnet
Competent Authority: Office of the Rector-President
Academic Authority: University of Xaragua
Archival Authority: General Archives of the State
Territorial Reference: Yaguana–Léogâne and the Historical Domain of Xaragua
Status: Permanent State Historical Classification
PART I — ESTABLISHMENT AND PURPOSE
Article 1 — Establishment of the State Dossier
There is hereby established within the General Archives of the State the Permanent Constitutional and Historical Dossier on General Guy-Joseph Bonnet.
General Guy-Joseph Bonnet shall be officially classified as:
a) a son of the Yaguana–Léogâne territorial sector;
b) a member of the free population of colour formed under the colonial order;
c) an officer of the southern revolutionary command;
d) an aide-de-camp to General André Rigaud;
e) a general officer of the independence period;
f) a signatory of the Act of Independence of 1804;
g) a participant in the establishment of post-colonial constitutional government;
h) a Secretary of State and administrator of public finance;
i) a territorial military commander;
j) an author of the historical record; and
k) an institutional counter-example to the French colonial doctrine of racial incapacity.
Article 2 — Purpose of the Instrument
This Act shall:
a) establish the official State classification of General Guy-Joseph Bonnet;
b) situate his life within the territorial history of Yaguana–Léogâne;
c) define his military, political, constitutional and administrative functions;
d) identify the structures of French colonial rule against which his career developed;
e) classify the social position of free people of colour;
f) document the demographic structure of the colonial white population;
g) record the preference of numerous European colonists for African, Indigenous and mixed-race women;
h) establish the institutional position of women of colour within colonial family and commercial networks;
i) document the transportation of marginalized French women to the colony;
j) classify the colonial relationship between maritime provisioning, salted codfish, labour supply and demographic settlement;
k) explain the progressive consolidation of racial law; and
l) incorporate these matters into the academic and constitutional memory of Xaragua.
Article 3 — Governing Historical Principle
French colonial Saint-Domingue shall be examined as an integrated system of:
a) imperial territorial occupation;
b) plantation extraction;
c) racial classification;
d) slavery;
e) sexual administration;
f) demographic engineering;
g) household regulation;
h) property transmission;
i) maritime provisioning;
j) political exclusion; and
k) metropolitan enrichment.
No component of the colonial order shall be interpreted separately from the legal and economic structure that sustained it.
PART II — YAGUANA–LÉOGÂNE AND THE COLONIAL TERRITORIAL ORDER
Article 4 — Territorial Foundation
Léogâne occupied the historic territorial space associated with Yaguana, a principal centre of the Indigenous political order of Xaragua.
French colonial administration did not create the first territorial identity of the region.
The French colonial city and plantation plain were superimposed upon:
a) a pre-existing Indigenous territory;
b) established communities;
c) systems of political authority;
d) agricultural production;
e) maritime and inland routes;
f) inherited geographic knowledge; and
g) the political memory of Xaragua.
Yaguana–Léogâne shall therefore be classified as a territory possessing successive Indigenous, Spanish, French colonial, revolutionary and post-independence institutional layers.
Article 5 — Léogâne Under the French Colonial System
Under French colonial rule, Léogâne became an important agricultural, maritime and military sector of Saint-Domingue.
The colonial economy of the plain was organized through:
a) plantation property;
b) production of export commodities;
c) coerced African labour;
d) maritime transportation;
e) metropolitan commercial control;
f) racial regulation;
g) unequal civil status; and
h) the extraction of territorial wealth for external benefit.
The territory’s fertility was converted into a component of the French imperial economy.
The productivity of Léogâne rested substantially upon the labour, knowledge and physical coercion of an enslaved African population.
PART III — BIRTH AND COLONIAL POSITION OF GUY-JOSEPH BONNET
Article 6 — Birth and Origin
Guy-Joseph Bonnet was born at Léogâne in 1773.
He entered the world within a colonial society divided among:
a) grands blancs;
b) petits blancs;
c) free people of colour;
d) emancipated persons;
e) enslaved Africans and their descendants;
f) mixed-ancestry populations; and
g) surviving Indigenous and locally integrated lineages.
His territorial origin connected him directly to one of the principal agricultural and political regions of the western and southern colonial order.
Article 7 — Free People of Colour
Bonnet belonged to the free population of colour.
This population occupied a distinct juridical position between the white colonial ruling order and the enslaved population.
Free people of colour could, according to individual circumstance:
a) own land;
b) conduct commerce;
c) inherit property;
d) obtain education;
e) enter contracts;
f) serve in military formations;
g) acquire professional competence; and
h) establish economically significant households.
They nevertheless remained subject to racial restrictions affecting:
a) political participation;
b) public office;
c) social precedence;
d) military rank;
e) professions;
f) dress;
g) public assembly;
h) possession of arms;
i) marriage;
j) reputation; and
k) equal recognition before colonial institutions.
Article 8 — Colonial Contradiction
The colonial order permitted free people of colour to accumulate productive capacity while excluding them from equal political authority.
This system depended upon the contradiction between:
a) property and racial exclusion;
b) military service and political inferiority;
c) civil freedom and restricted citizenship;
d) economic contribution and public subordination; and
e) colonial dependence upon free people of colour and colonial fear of their institutional power.
Bonnet’s public career arose from the destruction of this imposed limitation.
PART IV — MILITARY FORMATION AND SOUTHERN COMMAND
Article 9 — Entry into Revolutionary Service
Bonnet entered military service during the revolutionary transformation of Saint-Domingue.
He aligned himself with General André Rigaud and the organized southern command.
By 1798, Bonnet exercised the functions of aide-de-camp to Rigaud.
His duties placed him within:
a) military command;
b) political correspondence;
c) territorial administration;
d) revolutionary diplomacy;
e) strategic planning;
f) transmission of executive orders; and
g) the defence of southern institutional authority.
Article 10 — Political Meaning of the Southern Alignment
The southern command represented more than a military faction.
It embodied a distinct concentration of:
a) territorial authority;
b) military organization;
c) political leadership among free people of colour;
d) administrative capacity;
e) economic interests;
f) constitutional aspirations; and
g) resistance to external centralization.
Bonnet’s service under Rigaud shall be incorporated into the State doctrine of southern political continuity.
Article 11 — War of the South
Bonnet participated in the political and military order involved in the War of the South, also known as the War of the Knives.
The conflict concerned:
a) control of territorial command;
b) the relationship between northern and southern political authority;
c) military centralization;
d) the position of the free population of colour;
e) control of public administration;
f) regional political autonomy; and
g) the constitutional direction of the revolutionary territory.
The defeat of the southern command displaced Bonnet temporarily but did not terminate his military or political role.
PART V — TERMINATION OF FRENCH COLONIAL RULE
Article 12 — Return and Final War of Independence
Bonnet returned during the period of the French expedition commencing in 1802.
The attempt to restore direct French authority and the colonial racial order transformed the conflict into a final war against imperial restoration.
Bonnet joined the forces opposing renewed French domination.
His service formed part of:
a) the military destruction of French authority;
b) the defence of acquired freedom;
c) the permanent rejection of colonial subordination;
d) the creation of an independent military order; and
e) the transfer of constituent power to leaders originating from the territory.
Article 13 — General Officer
Bonnet attained the ranks of adjutant general and general of division.
His elevation established that military authority could no longer be reserved to the racial categories privileged under the colonial system.
His command responsibilities included territorial and divisional functions within the post-colonial military order.
Article 14 — Signatory of Independence
Guy-Joseph Bonnet was a signatory of the Act of Independence proclaimed on 1 January 1804.
His signature constituted:
a) formal rejection of French sovereignty;
b) participation in the exercise of constituent power;
c) adherence to the permanent termination of slavery;
d) entry into the founding public authority of the new State;
e) assumption of responsibility for national independence; and
f) institutional repudiation of colonial racial incapacity.
The signature shall be entered as the principal constitutional act of Bonnet’s public career.
PART VI — CONSTITUTIONAL AND POLITICAL AUTHORITY
Article 15 — Reorganization of Government
Following the political crisis of 1806, Bonnet participated in the reorganization of public government.
He belonged to the military and political leadership associated with the establishment of the republican constitutional order.
His constitutional activity shall be understood within the institutional movement seeking to:
a) subject executive authority to an organized constitutional structure;
b) define the competence of the Senate;
c) regulate succession;
d) distribute public powers;
e) prevent restoration of colonial authority;
f) preserve independence; and
g) establish domestic government through written law.
Article 16 — Constitutional Significance
Bonnet’s constitutional significance derives from:
a) his revolutionary authority;
b) his participation in independence;
c) his place within the southern political leadership;
d) his service in the republican government;
e) his participation in early national institutions; and
f) his historical testimony concerning the formation of those institutions.
Bonnet shall be classified as a participant in the conversion of military independence into constitutional administration.
Article 17 — Republican Order
The post-independence republican order rejected:
a) French imperial sovereignty;
b) legal ownership of persons;
c) metropolitan appointment of public authorities;
d) racial monopoly over military command;
e) foreign ownership of constituent power; and
f) the legal inferiority imposed upon free people of colour.
It established:
a) domestic public authority;
b) national military command;
c) constitutional government;
d) citizenship;
e) public finance;
f) territorial administration; and
g) permanent prohibition of slavery.
PART VII — FINANCIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICE
Article 18 — Secretary of State
Bonnet served as Secretary of State under President Alexandre Pétion between 1808 and 1810.
His functions included responsibility for:
a) public revenue;
b) fiscal administration;
c) expenditure control;
d) treasury operations;
e) financial records;
f) public obligations;
g) administrative regularity; and
h) the material continuity of government.
Article 19 — Public Finance as Sovereign Capacity
The termination of colonial government required the creation of an internally directed financial administration.
Bonnet’s service demonstrated that independence required:
a) collection of public revenue;
b) regulation of expenditure;
c) maintenance of official accounts;
d) financing of territorial administration;
e) support of the armed forces;
f) preservation of public credit; and
g) conversion of productive resources into national rather than metropolitan capacity.
His financial service shall be classified as an act of institutional state construction.
Article 20 — Agriculture and Territorial Stability
Agriculture constituted the principal economic base of the post-independence territory.
The government confronted the necessity of:
a) restoring production damaged by war;
b) maintaining export revenue;
c) preventing restoration of plantation slavery;
d) regulating land occupation;
e) balancing small cultivation and national revenue;
f) maintaining roads and irrigation;
g) securing food production; and
h) establishing productive independence.
Bonnet’s administrative doctrine connected fiscal stability, disciplined government and agricultural production.
Léogâne remained central to this doctrine by reason of its fertile plain, territorial communications and productive capacity.
PART VIII — HISTORICAL AUTHORSHIP
Article 21 — Souvenirs historiques
Bonnet recorded his experience of the revolutionary and post-independence periods in the work subsequently published as Souvenirs historiques.
The work constitutes:
a) a military record;
b) a political testimony;
c) a history of the southern command;
d) a source concerning André Rigaud;
e) a record of revolutionary divisions;
f) an account of the formation of public institutions; and
g) an exercise of historical authority by a direct participant.
Through the Souvenirs historiques, Bonnet entered the national record not only as an actor but as an author of institutional memory.
Article 22 — State Use of the Historical Work
The University of Xaragua shall use Bonnet’s work in the study of:
a) the Haitian Revolution;
b) the southern political tradition;
c) military administration;
d) regional authority;
e) constitutional formation;
f) public finance;
g) political rivalry;
h) post-colonial government; and
i) the construction of national historical memory.
The work shall be maintained in the General Archives of the State as a permanent source concerning Yaguana–Léogâne and the southern territorial order.
PART IX — BONNET AS A CONSTITUTIONAL COUNTER-EXAMPLE TO FRENCH COLONIALISM
Article 23 — Racial Hierarchy and Public Capacity
French colonial law associated public authority with racial classification.
Bonnet’s career displaced that colonial equation.
A man classified within the colonial order as a free person of colour became:
a) aide-de-camp to a commanding general;
b) revolutionary officer;
c) general of division;
d) signatory of independence;
e) constitutional actor;
f) Secretary of State;
g) administrator of public finance;
h) territorial commander; and
i) historian.
His career demonstrates that racial exclusion was a mechanism of power rather than an assessment of capacity.
Article 24 — Colonial Extraction and National Administration
The colonial economy directed the productive resources of Saint-Domingue toward French metropolitan enrichment.
The post-independence administration redirected public authority toward:
a) domestic government;
b) maintenance of territorial institutions;
c) national defence;
d) public finance;
e) political independence; and
f) preservation of freedom.
Bonnet’s transition from colonial subject to national administrator constitutes a complete institutional inversion of colonial authority.
Article 25 — Supreme State Finding
The State finds that Guy-Joseph Bonnet constitutes a permanent counter-example to the French colonial system.
His life establishes that:
a) political capacity existed among populations excluded by colonial law;
b) military competence was not the monopoly of white officers;
c) constitutional authority could be exercised by former colonial subjects;
d) public finance could be administered outside metropolitan control;
e) the southern territory generated its own political leadership; and
f) the formerly classified population could become author, administrator and guardian of the State’s historical record.
PART X — DEATH AND PERMANENT LEGACY
Article 26 — Death
General Guy-Joseph Bonnet died on 9 January 1843 at Saint-Marc.
At the time of his death, he had exercised military, administrative, political and historical functions across the principal phases of post-colonial state formation.
Article 27 — Permanent Classification
General Guy-Joseph Bonnet is hereby entered into the General Archives of the State under the following permanent designation:
GENERAL GUY-JOSEPH BONNET
SON OF YAGUANA–LÉOGÂNE
OFFICER OF THE SOUTHERN COMMAND
AIDE-DE-CAMP TO GENERAL ANDRÉ RIGAUD
GENERAL OF DIVISION
SIGNATORY OF INDEPENDENCE
CONSTITUTIONAL ACTOR
SECRETARY OF STATE
ADMINISTRATOR OF PUBLIC FINANCE
HISTORIAN OF THE REVOLUTION
INSTITUTIONAL COUNTER-EXAMPLE TO FRENCH COLONIAL RULE
His historical record shall form part of the compulsory political and historical instruction of the University of Xaragua.
ANNEX I
SUPREME HISTORICAL CLASSIFICATION OF THE PREFERENCE OF FRENCH COLONISTS FOR AFRICAN, INDIGENOUS AND MIXED-RACE WOMEN, AND OF THE FORMATION OF THE FREE POPULATION OF COLOUR
PART I — DEMOGRAPHIC FOUNDATION
Article 28 — Scarcity of European Women
During the formative and expansion periods of French colonial Saint-Domingue, European migration was predominantly male.
The number of European women remained substantially below the number of European men.
The Crown attempted to correct this imbalance by organizing or encouraging the migration of women from France to the colony.
The insufficiency of European female migration contributed directly to the development of unions between European men and:
a) African women;
b) enslaved women;
c) free Black women;
d) Indigenous women;
e) women of mixed ancestry; and
f) free women of colour.
Article 29 — Preference and Colonial Practice
French colonists frequently preferred relations with African and mixed-race women who were already established within the colonial environment.
This preference was reinforced by:
a) the limited number of European women;
b) the social and commercial integration of women of colour;
c) their knowledge of local conditions;
d) their participation in urban and market networks;
e) their capacity to administer households and commercial affairs;
f) their family connections within the colony;
g) the distance separating colonial men from metropolitan family structures; and
h) the normalization of interracial cohabitation.
During the later eighteenth century, temporary or continuing cohabitation between French men and local Black or mixed-race women became a common feature of colonial society.
Article 30 — Marriage, Concubinage and Plaçage
Relations between European men and women of African or mixed ancestry took multiple forms, including:
a) marriage;
b) common-law unions;
c) concubinage;
d) household partnership;
e) plaçage;
f) commercial partnership;
g) manumission-linked unions; and
h) recognized or unrecognized filiation.
These unions contributed to:
a) the growth of a mixed-ancestry population;
b) the formation of free families of colour;
c) the transmission of property;
d) the education of children;
e) the expansion of urban commercial networks;
f) the emergence of a propertied class of colour; and
g) the destabilization of rigid racial separation.
Article 31 — Position of Women of Colour
African, Black and mixed-race women occupied a central position in the formation of colonial Creole society.
Free women of colour exercised functions including:
a) property ownership;
b) commercial management;
c) market activity;
d) rental administration;
e) household government;
f) credit relations;
g) inheritance planning;
h) education and placement of children;
i) maintenance of interfamily alliances; and
j) mediation between colonial social groups.
Their influence made them preferred partners for numerous European men seeking to establish themselves within the colony.
Article 32 — Economic and Familial Authority
Women of colour were not marginal to colonial family formation.
They exercised material authority through:
a) ownership of houses and commercial premises;
b) administration of domestic property;
c) management of shops and market operations;
d) accumulation of movable assets;
e) financing of family activities;
f) transmission of assets to descendants;
g) negotiation of freedom; and
h) construction of durable family networks.
Their position contributed directly to the numerical, economic and institutional growth of the free population of colour.
PART II — WHITE FEMALE COMPETITION AND RACIAL CONSOLIDATION
Article 33 — Arrival of European Women
The increased presence of European women altered the domestic and social balance of the colony.
White women entered a social environment in which European men had already established:
a) unions with women of colour;
b) mixed-ancestry households;
c) recognized children;
d) commercial partnerships;
e) property transfers; and
f) continuing social relations outside white marriage.
This situation generated competition concerning:
a) marriage;
b) legitimacy;
c) inheritance;
d) household authority;
e) social precedence;
f) property transmission;
g) recognition of children; and
h) access to male-controlled wealth.
Article 34 — Jealousy and Social Rivalry
Jealousy, resentment and social rivalry among white colonial women formed part of the pressure directed against African, Black and mixed-race women.
White women and their families sought to preserve:
a) exclusive marital legitimacy;
b) priority in inheritance;
c) white household authority;
d) the status of white descendants;
e) access to colonial wealth;
f) social precedence; and
g) racial separation within elite society.
The influence of women of colour within households, commerce and family networks directly challenged these objectives.
Domestic rivalry consequently became connected to the wider political demand for racial regulation.
Article 35 — Legal Consolidation of White Primacy
Colonial authorities progressively adopted restrictions governing free people of colour.
These restrictions concerned:
a) public office;
b) professions;
c) military authority;
d) clothing;
e) weapons;
f) public assembly;
g) social functions;
h) legal reputation;
i) marriage;
j) inheritance; and
k) political participation.
The restrictions served to:
a) preserve white political supremacy;
b) protect the slave system;
c) contain the economic power of free people of colour;
d) limit the consequences of interracial family formation;
e) secure white inheritance;
f) prevent mixed-ancestry families from entering the ruling class; and
g) transform social prejudice into administrative law.
Article 36 — Official Determination
The State determines that racial hierarchy required legal construction and continuous administrative enforcement.
The frequency of interracial unions and the influence of women of colour demonstrated that racial separation was not a naturally self-executing social order.
Colonial racial law was imposed to restrain a Creole society whose actual family, economic and sexual relations repeatedly crossed the boundaries proclaimed by white authority.
ANNEX II
SUPREME HISTORICAL CLASSIFICATION OF THE TRANSPORTATION OF FRENCH WOMEN, THE “FILLES DE JOIE,” THE PETITS BLANCS, SALTED CODFISH AND THE MARITIME PROVISIONING SYSTEM OF SAINT-DOMINGUE
PART I — COLONIAL DEMOGRAPHIC POLICY
Article 37 — Crown Settlement Policy
The French Crown sought to establish a stable European population in Saint-Domingue.
Colonial authorities identified the scarcity of European women as an obstacle to:
a) permanent white settlement;
b) European family formation;
c) demographic reproduction;
d) racial consolidation;
e) social control; and
f) long-term colonial occupation.
France consequently organized and authorized the transportation of women to the colony for purposes of marriage, placement, domestic service and population settlement.
Article 38 — Recruitment and Transportation
Women transported from France included persons drawn from:
a) urban hospitals;
b) charitable institutions;
c) houses of confinement;
d) prisons;
e) impoverished urban populations;
f) port cities;
g) domestic-service populations; and
h) women classified by the authorities as socially marginal.
Administrative and social terminology applied to them included:
a) filles de joie;
b) filles perdues;
c) femmes sans aveu;
d) women of disordered conduct;
e) women designated for colonial placement; and
f) women assigned to prospective colonial marriages.
La Salpêtrière became institutionally associated with the confinement and transfer of women classified by metropolitan authorities as poor, undesirable, disorderly or sexually disreputable.
Article 39 — Colonial Reception
Settlers complained to colonial authorities concerning the women sent from France.
Complaints recorded during the early eighteenth century asserted that the women transported were unsuitable for the permanent white family order expected by colonial settlers.
These complaints revealed:
a) the class prejudices of colonial men;
b) the social stigma attached to transported women;
c) the failure of metropolitan authorities to create a stable European marriage population;
d) the unwillingness of settlers to accept the women selected by the State; and
e) the continuing preference of colonial men for locally established African and mixed-race women.
The failure of the official settlement policy contributed to the abandonment of the Crown’s demographic program.
PART II — SALTED CODFISH AND ATLANTIC PROVISIONING
Article 40 — Colonial Maritime Supply System
Saint-Domingue depended upon Atlantic maritime routes for the regular importation of:
a) salted codfish;
b) preserved food;
c) flour;
d) manufactured goods;
e) tools;
f) military supplies;
g) European migrants;
h) administrators;
i) soldiers;
j) indentured labourers; and
k) women assigned to colonial settlement.
Salted codfish, including morue originating from the North Atlantic and Acadian commercial sphere, formed part of the provisioning system used to maintain the plantation population.
The same maritime structure transported commodities, labouring populations and persons designated for colonial placement.
Article 41 — The Morue and the Plantation Economy
Salted codfish possessed strategic importance because it:
a) could survive long maritime transport;
b) could be stored in tropical conditions;
c) provided a low-cost protein ration;
d) supplied plantation labour populations;
e) connected northern fisheries to Caribbean production; and
f) integrated Saint-Domingue into the wider Atlantic commercial system.
Morue was therefore not merely a food product.
It constituted a logistical component of plantation administration.
Article 42 — Dual Cargo of Provisioning and Settlement
Ships serving the colonial system carried both material provisions and human cargo.
Women transported for colonial marriage, placement or sexual-economic incorporation arrived through the same maritime order that delivered salted codfish and other provisions.
This convergence demonstrates that metropolitan administration treated:
a) food supply;
b) labour supply;
c) military supply;
d) population settlement;
e) reproduction of the colonial population; and
f) regulation of sexual access
as interconnected requirements of imperial occupation.
The transportation of morue and marginalized women through common colonial circuits exposed the material logic by which France provisioned both plantation labour and colonial male society.
Article 43 — State Classification of the Maritime System
The State classifies the combined transportation of provisions and persons as an instrument of colonial demographic and economic administration.
The system converted:
a) northern fisheries into plantation sustenance;
b) maritime commerce into territorial control;
c) metropolitan poverty into colonial migration;
d) confined women into settlement instruments;
e) human displacement into demographic policy; and
f) Atlantic shipping into a mechanism for reproducing the colonial order.
PART III — PETITS BLANCS AND ACCESS TO EUROPEAN WOMEN
Article 44 — Definition of Petits Blancs
The term petits blancs designated the subordinate white population of the colony.
This population included:
a) artisans;
b) sailors;
c) soldiers;
d) labourers;
e) overseers;
f) shopkeepers;
g) clerks;
h) minor officials;
i) indentured workers; and
j) small property holders.
Petits blancs possessed white legal status but remained subordinate to the grands blancs in wealth, property, political influence and social rank.
Article 45 — Structural Exclusion from Elite Marriage
Respectable white women from propertied families remained limited in number and were principally integrated into the marriage strategies of the colonial elite.
Petits blancs frequently lacked:
a) property;
b) family connections;
c) dowry resources;
d) stable income;
e) political office;
f) social rank; and
g) access to elite white households.
Their access to marriage with women of the white colonial elite was therefore structurally restricted.
The principal categories of European women accessible outside elite family arrangements included:
a) women of modest social origin;
b) servants;
c) tavern workers;
d) women transported through public institutions;
e) women stigmatized as filles de joie; and
f) women operating outside the protected marriage networks of the grands blancs.
Article 46 — Relations with Women of Colour
African, Black and mixed-race women offered colonial men an established local social environment that European settlement policy had failed to reproduce.
Their position within:
a) commerce;
b) housing;
c) domestic administration;
d) market networks;
e) local culture;
f) family alliances; and
g) property relations
made them central partners in the actual formation of colonial society.
Numerous petits blancs and other European men consequently entered into relations with women of colour rather than remaining dependent upon the restricted white marriage market.
Article 47 — Colonial Class Contradiction
Petits blancs simultaneously occupied two positions:
a) inferiority within the white economic hierarchy; and
b) racial privilege within the colonial legal hierarchy.
Their economic subordination did not prevent them from defending white racial precedence.
Hostility toward free people of colour intensified where persons of colour possessed:
a) more land;
b) greater wealth;
c) stronger commercial networks;
d) better-established families;
e) military authority; or
f) superior local influence.
Colonial racial conflict therefore incorporated competition over class, property, family status and public authority.
PART IV — CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATION
Article 48 — Colonial Administration of Intimacy
The colonial system administered intimate and family life through:
a) marriage law;
b) slave status;
c) manumission;
d) legitimacy;
e) inheritance;
f) racial classification;
g) control of women’s migration;
h) regulation of sexual conduct;
i) recognition of children; and
j) protection of white property.
Sexual and family relations constituted matters of colonial government because they determined:
a) legal status;
b) racial classification;
c) ownership;
d) freedom;
e) inheritance;
f) labour supply; and
g) future political composition.
Article 49 — Destruction of the Colonial Racial Myth
The actual history of Saint-Domingue demonstrates that European men repeatedly formed households, relationships and family lines with African, Indigenous and mixed-race women.
The growth and influence of the free population of colour demonstrate that colonial society could not maintain racial separation without legislation, administrative coercion and social repression.
The claim of inherent white superiority was contradicted by:
a) European dependence upon African labour;
b) European dependence upon women of colour for household formation;
c) the economic power of free families of colour;
d) the military capacity of men excluded by colonial law;
e) the political leadership produced by the mixed-ancestry population; and
f) the eventual defeat of the French colonial State.
Article 50 — Bonnet as the Institutional Result of Colonial Failure
Guy-Joseph Bonnet emerged from the society created by the colonial system but became an authority in the State that destroyed that system.
His trajectory connected:
a) the mixed colonial population;
b) the free population of colour;
c) Léogâne;
d) the southern military command;
e) independence;
f) constitutional government;
g) public finance; and
h) national historical authorship.
Bonnet embodied the political capacity that French racial law had attempted to contain.
His elevation from colonial racial classification to constituent and administrative authority constitutes the definitive counter-example established by this Act.
PART XI — ACADEMIC, TERRITORIAL AND ARCHIVAL IMPLEMENTATION
Article 51 — Academic Integration
This Instrument shall form part of the academic corpus of the University of Xaragua.
It shall be used in instruction concerning:
a) Indigenous and colonial history;
b) Yaguana–Léogâne;
c) the southern political tradition;
d) the Revolution;
e) constitutional formation;
f) slavery and emancipation;
g) race and citizenship;
h) women in colonial society;
i) colonial demographic policy;
j) Atlantic maritime commerce;
k) public finance; and
l) post-colonial state construction.
Article 52 — Permanent Historical Exhibition
The University may establish a permanent Guy-Joseph Bonnet and Colonial Administration Exhibition.
The exhibition may include:
a) the Act of Independence;
b) Bonnet’s military record;
c) editions of the Souvenirs historiques;
d) maps of Yaguana–Léogâne;
e) records of the southern command;
f) constitutional texts;
g) colonial racial regulations;
h) records concerning free women of colour;
i) records concerning La Salpêtrière;
j) shipping and provisioning records;
k) documents concerning salted codfish commerce;
l) colonial population tables; and
m) records concerning the petits blancs.
Article 53 — General Archives
The General Archives of the State shall maintain separate documentary series for:
a) Guy-Joseph Bonnet;
b) André Rigaud and the southern command;
c) Léogâne and Yaguana;
d) free people of colour;
e) colonial women and family law;
f) filles de joie and metropolitan placement policies;
g) maritime provisioning;
h) the morue trade;
i) racial regulations;
j) plantation administration; and
k) post-independence constitutional government.
PART XII — FINAL STATE DETERMINATION
Article 54 — Controlling Historical Findings
General Guy-Joseph Bonnet constitutes a permanent institutional counter-example to French colonial racial doctrine.
The French colonial system depended upon the combined administration of:
a) territory;
b) slavery;
c) race;
d) sex;
e) migration;
f) marriage;
g) property;
h) maritime provisioning;
i) military force;
j) public office; and
k) historical representation.
African, Indigenous and mixed-race women were central to the formation, economy and continuity of colonial society.
The preference of numerous European colonists for these women contributed directly to the development of the free population of colour.
White female migration, domestic rivalry, inheritance competition and the defence of white social precedence contributed to the consolidation of racial restrictions.
The transportation of marginalized French women and the circulation of salted codfish belonged to the same Atlantic system of colonial provisioning, settlement and plantation administration.
The petits blancs remained economically subordinate within white society while continuing to benefit from and defend racial privilege.
The emergence of Bonnet as general, constituent authority, Secretary of State and historian demonstrated the institutional falsity of colonial racial hierarchy.
Article 55 — Permanent Force
This Instrument shall possess permanent authority within the historical, academic and archival order of Xaragua.
It shall bind:
a) the University of Xaragua;
b) the General Archives of the State;
c) the competent territorial institutions;
d) official historical programs;
e) public exhibitions; and
f) institutional commemorations concerning General Guy-Joseph Bonnet.
No subordinate historical publication shall displace the classifications established herein without express authorization from the competent authority.
Article 56 — Entry into Force
This Act shall enter into force immediately upon promulgation.
General Guy-Joseph Bonnet shall be entered permanently into the High Historical and Constitutional Register of Xaragua.
The annexes concerning colonial women, racial formation, the filles de joie, the petits blancs, salted codfish and maritime provisioning shall form an integral part of this Act.
PROMULGATION
Issued under the Supreme Constitutional Authority of the Office of the Rector-President.
Entered into the General Archives of the State.
Integrated into the official academic corpus of the University of Xaragua.
Applicable throughout the historical, territorial and educational jurisdiction of Xaragua.
END OF INSTRUMENT

ANNEX III

OFFICIAL DOCUMENTARY REFERENCES

I. PRIMARY AND CONSTITUTIONAL SOURCES

Bonnet, Guy-Joseph. Souvenirs historiques de Guy-Joseph Bonnet, général de division des armées de la République d’Haïti, ancien aide de camp de Rigaud: documents relatifs à toutes les phases de la Révolution de Saint-Domingue. Collected and edited by Edmond Bonnet. Paris: Auguste Durand, 1864.

Acte de l’Indépendance d’Hayti, 1 January 1804. Digital Library of the Caribbean, Archives Nationales edition: Digital copy.

Acte de l’Indépendance, including Guy-Joseph Bonnet among the adjudants-généraux: Université de Perpignan — Digithèque MJP.

Constitution d’Haïti du 27 décembre 1806: Université de Perpignan — Digithèque MJP.

Moreau de Saint-Méry, Médéric-Louis-Élie. Description topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie française de l’isle Saint-Domingue. Philadelphia, 1797–1798.

Code Noir: Édit du Roi touchant la police des îles de l’Amérique française, March 1685.

Archives nationales d’outre-mer. Fonds de Saint-Domingue, correspondence, civil-status, administrative, demographic and colonial records: ANOM — Saint-Domingue.

II. GUY-JOSEPH BONNET AND POST-INDEPENDENCE GOVERNMENT

Girard, Philippe R. The Slaves Who Defeated Napoléon: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian War of Independence, 1801–1804. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2011.

Geggus, David Patrick, and Norman Fiering, eds. The World of the Haitian Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009.

Nicholls, David. “Race, couleur et indépendance en Haïti, 1804–1825.” Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 25, no. 2, 1978: Persée.

Bonnet, Guy-Joseph. Souvenirs historiques, original edition of 1864, bibliographic authority record: Bibliothèque nationale de France, data.bnf.fr.

“Guy-Joseph Bonnet.” Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography. Oxford University Press.

III. COLONIAL ECONOMY, SLAVERY AND PLANTATION ADMINISTRATION

Burnard, Trevor, and John Garrigus. The Plantation Machine: Atlantic Capitalism in French Saint-Domingue and British Jamaica. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.

McClellan, James E. III. Colonialism and Science: Saint-Domingue in the Old Regime. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

Garrigus, John D. “Saint-Domingue on the Eve of the Revolution.” In The Cambridge History of the Age of Atlantic Revolutions. Cambridge University Press, 2023: Cambridge University Press.

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. “Haiti—Saint-Domingue”: Slavery and Remembrance.

Horan, Joseph. “The Colonial Famine Plot: Slavery, Free Trade, and Empire.” International Review of Social History 55, supplement 18, 2010.

IV. FREE PEOPLE OF COLOUR, WOMEN AND COLONIAL FAMILY FORMATION

Garrigus, John D. Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Socolow, Susan M. “Economic Roles of the Free Women of Color of Cap Français.” In David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine, eds., More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996, pp. 279–297.

Rogers, Dominique, and Stewart R. King. “Housekeepers, Merchants, Rentières: Free Women of Color in the Port Cities of Colonial Saint-Domingue, 1750–1790.” In Douglas Catterall and Jodi Campbell, eds., Women in Port: Gendering Communities, Economies, and Social Networks in Atlantic Port Cities, 1500–1800. Leiden: Brill, 2012, pp. 257–297.

Garrigus, John D. “‘To Establish a Community of Property’: Marriage and Race Before and During the Haitian Revolution.” The History of the Family 12, no. 2, 2007, pp. 142–152.

Garraway, Doris L. The Libertine Colony: Creolization in the Early French Caribbean. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005.

Garraway, Doris L. “Race, Reproduction and Family Romance in Moreau de Saint-Méry’s Description of Saint-Domingue.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 38, no. 2, 2005, pp. 227–246: JSTOR.

“Saint-Domingue.” DIGITENS: The Digital Encyclopedia of European Sociability: Women of colour, colonial society and interracial unions.

Bibliothèque nationale de France. “Freed People and Free People of Color”: Patrimoines Partagés — France-Amériques.

Wheat, David. “Afro-Mexican Women in Saint-Domingue: Piracy, Captivity, Community, and Freedom.” Hispanic American Historical Review 100, no. 1, 2020, pp. 3–34: Duke University Press.

V. EUROPEAN WOMEN, LA SALPÊTRIÈRE AND COLONIAL SETTLEMENT

Archives nationales d’outre-mer. Série C9A, Correspondance générale de Saint-Domingue.

Archives nationales d’outre-mer. Série F3, Collection Moreau de Saint-Méry and Colonial Administrative Records.

Archives nationales d’outre-mer. Série E, Personnel colonial ancien and associated individual files.

Archives de l’Assistance publique–Hôpitaux de Paris. Historical registers of the Hôpital Général and La Salpêtrière.

Moreau de Saint-Méry, Médéric-Louis-Élie. Description topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie française de l’isle Saint-Domingue. Philadelphia, 1797–1798.

“Saint-Domingue.” Historical account of Crown-sponsored female migration, La Salpêtrière, colonial complaints of 1713 and 1743, and the subsequent normalization of relations between French men and local Black women: Saint-Domingue historical overview.

VI. PETITS BLANCS, RACIAL HIERARCHY AND COLONIAL SOCIETY

Garrigus, John D. Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

King, Stewart R. Blue Coat or Powdered Wig: Free People of Color in Pre-Revolutionary Saint-Domingue. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001.

Dubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2004.

Fick, Carolyn E. The Making of Haiti: The Saint-Domingue Revolution from Below. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990.

Geggus, David Patrick. Haitian Revolutionary Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.

VII. SALTED CODFISH, ATLANTIC PROVISIONING AND ENSLAVED LABOUR

Horan, Joseph. “The Colonial Famine Plot: Slavery, Free Trade, and Empire.” International Review of Social History 55, supplement 18, 2010. Study of colonial food shortages and the authorized importation of cod, salted beef and other provisions.

Debien, Gabriel. “La nourriture des esclaves sur les plantations des Antilles françaises aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles.” Caribbean Studies 4, no. 1, 1964.

Kelly, Kenneth G. “Foodways of Enslaved Laborers on French West Indian Plantations.” Afriques, 2014: OpenEdition Journals.

Bibliothèque nationale de France. “The Dietary Regimes of the Enslaved in the French Caribbean”: Patrimoines Partagés — France-Amériques.

Kurlansky, Mark. Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World. New York: Walker and Company, 1997.

“A History of Salt Cod.” History Today, 11 November 2019: History Today.

Archives portuaires de La Rochelle. Registers of vessels, cargoes, colonial departures and commercial relations with Saint-Domingue.

Archives nationales d’outre-mer. Maritime and colonial correspondence concerning the importation of provisions, migrants, labourers and persons assigned to colonial settlement.

VIII. REVOLUTION, INDEPENDENCE AND CONSTITUTIONAL TRANSFORMATION

Dubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2004.

Fick, Carolyn E. The Making of Haiti: The Saint-Domingue Revolution from Below. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990.

Popkin, Jeremy D. A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

Popkin, Jeremy D. Facing Racial Revolution: Eyewitness Accounts of the Haitian Insurrection. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Girard, Philippe R. The Slaves Who Defeated Napoléon: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian War of Independence, 1801–1804. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2011.

Geggus, David Patrick, and Norman Fiering, eds. The World of the Haitian Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009.

University of George Mason, Center for History and New Media. “Demographics of Saint-Domingue”: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity — Exploring the French Revolution.

IX. ARCHIVAL REPOSITORIES

Archives nationales d’outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence: Official portal.

Bibliothèque nationale de France and Gallica: Digital collections.

Digital Library of the Caribbean: dLOC.

Archives nationales d’Haïti, Port-au-Prince.

Archives de l’Assistance publique–Hôpitaux de Paris.

Archives départementales de la Charente-Maritime, La Rochelle.

University of Florida, Latin American and Caribbean Collection.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library.

END OF ANNEX III

SOVEREIGN CATHOLIC INDIGENOUS AND PRIVATE STATE OF XARAGUA

OFFICE OF THE RECTOR-PRESIDENT

SUPREME CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY

UNIVERSITY OF XARAGUA

GENERAL ARCHIVES OF THE STATE

SUPREME HISTORICAL DETERMINATION

ON JACQUES-FRANÇOIS BÉGOUËN, HIS PRESUMED INDIGENOUS ORIGIN, THE FRENCH ATLANTIC SLAVE SYSTEM, AND THE TRANSFER OF COLONIAL CAPITAL INTO METROPOLITAN INSTITUTIONS

Official Classification: Historical Accountability Instrument — Colonial Economic Dossier — Permanent State Doctrine

Competent Authority: Office of the Rector-President

Academic Depositary: University of Xaragua

Territorial Scope: Petit-Goâve, Grand-Goâve, Léogâne, Les Palmes, Saint-Domingue, Le Havre and metropolitan France

Historical Scope: 1743–1831 and subsequent institutional effects

TITLE I — IDENTITY AND ORIGIN

Article 1 — Identification

Jacques-François Bégouën was born on 29 December 1743 at Petit-Goâve, within the French colony of Saint-Domingue. He died in 1831 in France.

He was the son of Guillaume-Claude-Vincent Bégouën and Marie-Françoise Berger. He exercised the functions of merchant, shipowner, slave trader, colonial proprietor, deputy and councillor of State.

Article 2 — Territorial Birth

Petit-Goâve formed part of the historical territory of Xaragua and of the colonial economic region known as Les Palmes.

Bégouën’s birth within that territory constitutes a material component of his identity. His subsequent education, commercial activity and public career in France did not extinguish his colonial territorial origin.

Article 3 — French Family Establishment

The known French lineage of the Bégouën family originated in Poitou before becoming established at Le Havre.

The family’s social elevation resulted from Atlantic commerce, colonial property, public office and state recognition. It did not originate in ancient sovereign or hereditary authority.

The commercial house established at Le Havre gave the family access to shipping, credit, insurance, colonial commodities and the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans.

Article 4 — Presumed Indigenous Origin

The presumed Indigenous origin of Jacques-François Bégouën is formally maintained in the historical record of Xaragua.

This presumption is based upon:

a. his birth at Petit-Goâve within an Indigenous and colonial territory;

b. the mixed demographic structure of Petit-Goâve and Les Palmes;

c. the historical presence of Indigenous, African, European and mixed populations;

d. the frequency of formally recorded and unrecorded unions;

e. the incomplete documentation of maternal and non-marital genealogical lines;

f. the colonial practice of classifying ancestry according to social status and legal interest.

Bégouën shall accordingly be classified as a colonial-born French official and merchant of presumed Indigenous origin, legally incorporated into the white commercial and planter class.

TITLE II — COLONIAL RACIAL CLASSIFICATION

Article 5 — Legal Function of Whiteness

In Saint-Domingue, whiteness constituted a juridical and administrative status.

It determined access to:

a. political authority;

b. public office;

c. property ownership;

d. commercial networks;

e. civil privileges;

f. colonial representation.

Official classification as white did not constitute conclusive proof of exclusively European ancestry. It established the legal and social category assigned by the colonial administration.

Article 6 — Social Reclassification

Colonial status could be consolidated through wealth, paternal recognition, marriage, public office, relocation to France and the omission of non-European ancestry from official records.

The metropolitan status of the Bégouën family therefore does not invalidate the presumed Indigenous component of its colonial genealogy.

Article 7 — Institutional Consequence

Presumed Indigenous ancestry did not prevent incorporation into the dominant colonial class.

Colonial authority was based upon legal recognition, property, commercial affiliation and political function. It did not require demonstrable genealogical uniformity.

Bégouën’s presumed origin and his participation in the colonial system shall remain jointly recorded.

TITLE III — THE FRENCH ATLANTIC SYSTEM

Article 8 — Institutional Structure

The French Atlantic slave system was an organized public and commercial apparatus involving:

a. the French Crown;

b. colonial administrations;

c. port authorities;

d. shipowners;

e. merchants;

f. insurers;

g. financial partners;

h. plantation proprietors;

i. courts and notaries;

j. naval and military forces.

The system operated through legislation, contracts, maritime transportation, plantation administration and metropolitan markets.

Article 9 — Function of the Shipowner

The shipowner organized capital, vessels, crews, insurance, commercial goods and colonial distribution.

His function included:

a. financing expeditions;

b. supplying vessels;

c. purchasing captives;

d. transporting captives across the Atlantic;

e. delivering them for colonial sale;

f. acquiring plantation commodities;

g. returning those commodities to European markets.

Transportation was an essential component of the system.

Article 10 — African Transactions

Captive persons were acquired through commercial relations with African authorities, merchants and intermediaries.

The participation of African intermediaries did not remove French responsibility. French merchants financed acquisition, created demand, accepted custody, conducted transatlantic transportation and supplied colonial plantation markets.

Article 11 — Maritime Transportation

Captive persons were confined aboard vessels and treated as commercial inventory.

Mortality, food, water, security, resistance and sale value were incorporated into the financial administration of each expedition.

The maritime stage converted local captivity into transatlantic plantation labor.

Article 12 — Colonial Sale

Upon arrival in Saint-Domingue, captives were classified and sold to colonial proprietors.

Revenue from those sales financed creditors, investors, additional voyages and the acquisition of sugar, coffee, indigo and other colonial commodities.

The commodities were subsequently exported to France and integrated into metropolitan commerce.

TITLE IV — THE PLANTATION SYSTEM OF LES PALMES

Article 13 — Territorial Organization

Petit-Goâve, Grand-Goâve, Léogâne and the surrounding region were incorporated into an export-oriented plantation economy.

Land, roads, ports and settlements were administered according to colonial production requirements.

The colonial land system replaced Indigenous territorial authority with concessions, plantations, administrative districts and privately controlled agricultural estates.

Article 14 — Legal Organization of Slavery

The Code Noir and related colonial regulations established the legal administration of slavery.

They governed:

a. the civil status of enslaved persons;

b. religious obligations;

c. marriage and family relations;

d. punishment;

e. manumission;

f. inheritance;

g. policing;

h. proprietary transmission.

The colonial legal order permitted enslaved persons to be sold, inherited, seized and valued as property.

Article 15 — Plantation Administration

The plantation operated as an economic establishment and a territorial command unit.

Its administration included labor classification, surveillance, production quotas, punishment and the compulsory movement of workers.

Coercion constituted an ordinary enforcement mechanism of plantation production.

Article 16 — Bégouën’s Colonial Property

Bégouën possessed interests in two agricultural properties at Saint-Domingue.

These properties connected him directly to colonial landholding, compulsory labor and export production.

His commercial activities and colonial properties formed parts of the same economic structure.

TITLE V — POLITICAL INCORPORATION

Article 17 — Public Functions

Bégouën served as procureur du Roi at the salt administration of Le Havre. In 1785, he obtained the office of secretary to the King in the chancery attached to the Parlement of Normandy.

His commercial position facilitated entry into public administration. Public office subsequently reinforced his social and institutional standing.

Article 18 — Estates-General

In 1789, Bégouën was elected deputy of the Third Estate for the bailliage of Caux.

He participated in legislative proceedings concerning commerce, finance and colonial administration.

His parliamentary position provided direct representation to the interests of the Atlantic merchant and colonial proprietor class.

Article 19 — Colonial Lobby

Bégouën was associated with the Club Massiac and represented the commercial interests of Le Havre.

The colonial lobby opposed the automatic application of metropolitan constitutional principles to the colonies.

Its objective was to preserve separate colonial regulation and the authority of proprietors over slavery and racial status.

Article 20 — Decree of 8 March 1790

Bégouën participated in colonial deliberations connected to the decree of 8 March 1790.

The decree maintained a distinct constitutional treatment for the colonies and reserved substantial authority to colonial assemblies.

This separation allowed slavery and planter authority to continue outside the immediate application of metropolitan declarations of equality.

Article 21 — State Advancement

Bégouën continued to exercise commercial and public functions after the Revolution.

Under the Napoleonic order, he became a councillor of State and received imperial titles.

His advancement established the institutional conversion of commercial wealth into administrative authority and hereditary social rank.

TITLE VI — ATTRIBUTION OF RESPONSIBILITY

Article 22 — Commercial Defense

Bégouën maintained that French merchants transported Africans who had already been enslaved before their acquisition.

This position separated the initial capture from the subsequent commercial operations.

Article 23 — Structural Determination

Prior enslavement did not render the shipowner neutral.

The shipowner:

a. financed acquisition;

b. supplied commercial demand;

c. accepted custody;

d. organized confinement;

e. conducted transportation;

f. delivered captives for sale;

g. received commercial benefit.

The maritime operator was therefore an integral participant in the slave system.

Article 24 — Distribution of Functions

The allocation of separate functions among African suppliers, European merchants, ship captains, colonial buyers, plantation proprietors and public authorities did not divide the system into independent activities.

Each function contributed to a single commercial and juridical process.

TITLE VII — REVOLUTION, INDEPENDENCE AND INDEMNITY

Article 25 — Termination of French Colonial Authority

The Revolution of Saint-Domingue, initiated in 1791, terminated French plantation sovereignty through the declaration of Haitian independence in 1804.

The new political order abolished the former proprietors’ authority over land and enslaved persons within the liberated territory.

Article 26 — French Non-Recognition

France withheld recognition and maintained diplomatic and economic pressure against the independent state.

Former colonial proprietors continued to claim compensation for assets lost through the abolition of colonial rule.

Article 27 — Ordinance of 1825

The ordinance issued by Charles X in 1825 conditioned French recognition upon payment of an indemnity to former colonial proprietors.

The mechanism converted extinguished colonial property claims into a financial obligation imposed upon the independent population.

Article 28 — Compensation of Bégouën

Bégouën received compensation under the indemnity system for the loss of his colonial properties.

The payment preserved part of the monetary value assigned by France to the former plantation order.

Article 29 — Institutional Classification of the Indemnity

The indemnity constituted:

a. recognition of former colonial property claims;

b. transfer of colonial loss to the independent territory;

c. continuation of planter entitlement after the termination of slavery;

d. transfer of post-independence revenue toward French beneficiaries;

e. financial continuity between the plantation system and metropolitan capital.

TITLE VIII — TRANSFER OF COLONIAL CAPITAL

Article 30 — Preservation of Accumulated Wealth

The Haitian Revolution terminated French territorial authority but did not eliminate capital previously transferred to France.

Colonial wealth could remain in:

a. commercial firms;

b. vessels;

c. real property;

d. financial claims;

e. family inheritances;

f. matrimonial alliances;

g. public offices;

h. social networks.

Article 31 — Metropolitan Conversion

Capital originating in colonial commerce could be reinvested in French property, shipping, finance and commercial enterprises.

After reinvestment, the capital acquired a metropolitan legal form without losing its historical source.

Article 32 — Hereditary Transmission

The Bégouën family transmitted commercial standing, property, administrative access and social rank to subsequent generations.

Family alliances strengthened the position of established Atlantic merchant houses within municipal and commercial institutions.

Article 33 — Continuity Across Political Regimes

The French Revolution, Consulate, Empire, Restoration and subsequent constitutional regimes did not eliminate the entirety of the former commercial and administrative elite.

Persons possessing capital, education, offices and institutional networks could preserve or reorganize their position across regime changes.

Bégouën’s public career constitutes an example of this continuity.

TITLE IX — COMPARATIVE CLASSIFICATION OF BÉGOUËN AND BONNET

Article 34 — Jacques-François Bégouën

Bégouën is classified as an institutional representative of:

a. French Atlantic commerce;

b. slave transportation;

c. colonial plantation property;

d. metropolitan colonial lobbying;

e. the conversion of colonial capital into public office;

f. the transmission of colonial wealth into metropolitan society.

Article 35 — General Guy-Joseph Bonnet

General Guy-Joseph Bonnet is classified as an institutional representative of:

a. postcolonial territorial administration;

b. constitutional organization;

c. agricultural reconstruction;

d. public authority after abolition;

e. locally directed political capacity.

Article 36 — Structural Opposition

Bégouën’s institutional position directed territorial production toward metropolitan accumulation.

Bonnet’s institutional position directed administrative capacity toward the organization of the independent territory.

Bégouën represented colonial extraction.

Bonnet represented postcolonial state formation.

TITLE X — FINAL FINDINGS

Article 37 — Finding on Origin

Jacques-François Bégouën was born at Petit-Goâve within the historical territory of Xaragua.

His presumed Indigenous origin is maintained as part of the official historical classification.

Article 38 — Finding on Colonial Status

Bégouën was legally and socially incorporated into the white commercial and planter class.

This classification established privilege and political capacity. It did not conclusively establish exclusively European ancestry.

Article 39 — Finding on the Colonial System

French slavery in Saint-Domingue was maintained through coordinated legislation, commerce, shipping, finance, property and public administration.

Bégouën occupied positions within each principal level of that system.

Article 40 — Finding on Political Responsibility

Bégouën’s parliamentary and lobbying activities connected colonial commercial interests to French constitutional decision-making.

The preservation of slavery depended upon metropolitan institutions as well as colonial enforcement.

Article 41 — Finding on Capital Continuity

The end of French rule did not terminate the metropolitan circulation of capital accumulated through colonial commerce.

The indemnity mechanism further preserved financial claims arising from the former plantation order.

Article 42 — Finding on Racial Doctrine

Colonial racial superiority constituted a legal and political doctrine used to allocate authority, labor, property and civil status.

The economic and institutional privileges of the colonial class resulted from access to state power and compulsory labor, not from inherent racial capacity.

Article 43 — Permanent Classification

Jacques-François Bégouën is permanently classified by the State of Xaragua as:

a colonial-born French merchant and public official of presumed Indigenous origin; a legally recognized member of the white planter-commercial class; a participant in the French Atlantic slave system; a political representative of colonial interests; a beneficiary of plantation property and post-independence compensation; and an institutional example of the transfer of colonial capital into metropolitan authority.

FINAL PROVISION

This determination shall form part of the permanent historical and academic corpus of the University of Xaragua.

It shall govern the institutional classification of Jacques-François Bégouën within all subsequent historical, political, economic and territorial instruments issued by the State.

ENTERED INTO THE GENERAL ARCHIVES OF THE STATE

BY AUTHORITY OF THE OFFICE OF THE RECTOR-PRESIDENT

SOVEREIGN CATHOLIC INDIGENOUS AND PRIVATE STATE OF XARAGUA

SOVEREIGN CATHOLIC INDIGENOUS AND PRIVATE STATE OF XARAGUA
OFFICE OF THE RECTOR-PRESIDENT
SUPREME CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY
UNIVERSITY OF XARAGUA
GENERAL ARCHIVES OF THE STATE
SUPREME HISTORICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL DETERMINATION
ON JEAN-JACQUES DESSALINES, THE FORMATION AND SUCCESSIVE DESIGNATIONS OF THE INDIGENOUS MILITARY FORCE, THE CONSTITUTIONAL CHARACTER OF THE EMPIRE OF HAYTI, THE MELANODERMIC NATIONAL CLASSIFICATION, THE TERMINATION OF AUTONOMOUS AFRICAN-BORN COMMANDS, AND THE TERRITORIAL REORGANIZATION OF THE ISLAND
Official Classification: Supreme Historical Determination — Dessalinian Constitutional Doctrine — Indigenous Military Organization Instrument — Imperial Territorial Classification — Permanent State Record
Competent Authority: Office of the Rector-President
Academic Depositary: University of Xaragua
Archival Depositary: General Archives of the State
Territorial Scope: The Island of Hayti, including the historical territorial formations of Xaragua, Marién, Maguá, Maguana and Higüey
Historical Scope: Indigenous territorial organization before 1492; revolutionary military organization from 1791 to 1803; State and Empire of Hayti from 1804 to 1806
Interpretive Authority: University of Xaragua
Status: Permanent Institutional Doctrine
PREAMBLE
The Sovereign Catholic Indigenous and Private State of Xaragua hereby establishes the official institutional classification of Jean-Jacques Dessalines by reference to the military, constitutional and territorial acts performed under his command.
Dessalines shall not be reduced to the prior civil condition imposed upon him by the French colonial slave system. Enslavement constituted a legal status created and administered by the colonial authority. It did not constitute a nationality, a complete genealogy, an exclusive continental origin or a permanent political identity.
The available record supports the conclusion that Dessalines was born within the colonial population of Saint-Domingue. It does not establish an African place of birth. It does not identify his complete paternal and maternal ancestry. It does not exclude Indigenous or mixed descent.
His prior enslavement and his subsequent sovereign authority shall therefore be classified as legally separate conditions. The first arose from colonial domination. The second arose from territorial command, military victory, constituent power and the establishment of an independent state.
Between 1802 and 1803, Dessalines consolidated former captives, colonial-born Black persons, free Black persons, mixed-race officers, maroon units and regional commands into a single military body. This force passed through successive designations before receiving its definitive official name: Armée indigène, also rendered Armée des Indigènes.
The Armée indigène defeated the French expeditionary army, obtained the evacuation of French forces, supplied the military signatories of the Act of Independence and constituted the effective authority from which the State and Empire of Hayti proceeded.
The independent order restored the Indigenous name Hayti, designated its constituent military force as Indigenous, organized an empire under a commander-in-chief, divided the territory into military jurisdictions and abolished the internal colonial hierarchy of color through the generic constitutional designation Black.
The Dessalinian order shall consequently be examined as an Indigenous territorial and constitutional order established by a melanodermic, colonial-born population. Its indigeneity does not depend exclusively upon proof of direct Taíno biological descent. It results from territorial succession, political self-designation, military nomenclature, constitutional integration and the termination of French colonial jurisdiction.
TITLE I — PERSONAL STATUS, TERRITORIAL FORMATION AND ANCESTRAL CLASSIFICATION
Article 1 — Historical Identification
Jean-Jacques Dessalines was born in or about 1758 within the colonial territory then administered by France under the designation Saint-Domingue.
He subsequently exercised the functions of revolutionary officer, general of division, general-in-chief, governor-general for life, Emperor of Hayti and commander-in-chief of the imperial army.
His sovereign authority commenced through military command and was institutionalized through the Act of Independence, the imperial proclamation of 1804 and the Constitution of 20 May 1805.
Article 2 — Evidentiary Status of the Grande-Rivière-du-Nord Attribution
The attribution of Dessalines’ birth to the Cormier plantation near Grande-Rivière-du-Nord belongs to an established biographical tradition repeated by later historians.
No presently identified contemporaneous certificate of birth, baptismal register or notarized act conclusively establishes:
a. the exact place of his birth;
b. the identity and civil condition of both parents;
c. the birthplace of both parents;
d. the complete composition of his ancestry;
e. the date and legal circumstances under which the names Duclos and Dessalines were successively attached to him.
The Grande-Rivière-du-Nord attribution shall therefore retain the status of a received historical localization. It shall not operate as an exclusive, incontestable or dispositive civil-status title.
Article 3 — Prohibition of Exclusive Northern Appropriation
No locality attributed to Dessalines’ birth may claim exclusive ownership over his institutional identity.
Dessalines exercised command throughout the colony and across the principal military regions of the island. His documented operational sphere included the northern plain, the Artibonite, Crête-à-Pierrot, Jacmel, Petit-Goâve, Miragoâne, Anse-à-Veau, Port-au-Prince and the eastern territory.
His sovereign authority was territorial, central and island-oriented. It cannot be confined to a northern birthplace narrative.
Article 4 — Marchand-Dessalines and the Imperial Central Axis
Marchand-Dessalines was situated within the Artibonite corridor and not within the historical Caciquat of Xaragua.
Its conversion into an imperial center nevertheless held defined territorial significance. The site controlled a central junction between northern, western, central and southern routes.
The selection of Marchand-Dessalines therefore established an internal command center capable of communicating with the military divisions of the Empire without subordinating the state to a former French coastal capital.
Article 5 — Prior Enslavement
Dessalines was subjected to slavery before the Revolution.
That condition shall be recorded as an act of colonial law and not as his permanent institutional classification.
The designation of Dessalines solely as a former African slave suppresses:
a. the absence of proof of an African birthplace;
b. his probable colonial birth;
c. the indeterminacy of his complete ancestry;
d. his command over a multi-regional coalition;
e. his authority over the Armée indigène;
f. his establishment of the State of Hayti;
g. his accession to imperial authority;
h. his promulgation of the Constitution of 1805;
i. his organization of the territory into military divisions.
Article 6 — Ancestral Classification
No complete genealogy presently establishes Dessalines as exclusively African.
No complete genealogy presently excludes Indigenous ancestry, African ancestry, mixed ancestry or other colonial-born ancestral combinations.
Dessalines shall consequently be classified as a colonial-born melanodermic sovereign of undetermined complete ancestry, formed within the territorial population of Hayti and institutionally incorporated into its Indigenous succession.
Article 7 — Distinction Between Ancestry and Indigeneity
Biological ancestry and sovereign indigeneity constitute distinct classifications.
Biological ancestry concerns genealogical descent.
Sovereign indigeneity concerns membership in a territorial people asserting authority against an occupying colonial power.
Dessalines’ institutional indigeneity is established by:
a. command of the Armée indigène;
b. representation of the peuple indigène;
c. restoration of the name Hayti;
d. establishment of the Empire of Hayti;
e. constitutional organization of the territorial population;
f. rejection of French jurisdiction;
g. conversion of colonial territory into an independent political order.
TITLE II — REVOLUTIONARY FORCES BEFORE THE ARMÉE INDIGÈNE
Article 8 — Absence of a Single National Army in 1791
The armed forces active at the beginning of the Revolution did not constitute one permanent national army.
The revolutionary field included:
a. plantation insurgents;
b. maroon forces;
c. African-born military bands;
d. colonial-born commands;
e. Spanish-allied forces;
f. French republican units;
g. regional armies;
h. Black and mixed-race officer corps;
i. locally organized territorial forces.
Their command structures, alliances and political objectives changed throughout the Revolution.
Article 9 — Fragmentation of Military Authority
Before the final war against the French expedition, military authority was distributed among multiple leaders and competing regional structures.
The principal divisions included:
a. northern insurgent commands;
b. western maroon forces;
c. the army organized under Toussaint Louverture;
d. the southern forces associated with André Rigaud;
e. autonomous African-born commands;
f. officers temporarily integrated into French or Spanish military structures.
No single designation may be applied retroactively to all these forces throughout the entire revolutionary period.
Article 10 — Requirement of Final Consolidation
The French expedition of 1802 created the military conditions for the consolidation of the forces opposing colonial restoration.
The final coalition required:
a. termination of prior French military allegiance;
b. reconciliation of former Black and mixed-race adversaries;
c. integration of regional forces;
d. removal or subordination of autonomous commands;
e. establishment of a general command;
f. adoption of an independent territorial objective;
g. adoption of a national military designation.
This consolidation occurred under the general authority of Dessalines.
TITLE III — SUCCESSIVE DESIGNATIONS OF THE INDIGENOUS MILITARY FORCE
Article 11 — Controlling Rule on Military Nomenclature
The successive military designations shall be classified according to their chronological and institutional function.
The preliminary, transitional and official names shall not be treated as simultaneous or interchangeable official titles.
The controlling sequence is:
a. dispersed revolutionary and regional forces;
b. preliminary designation as Armée des Incas;
c. political identification with the peuple indigène;
d. definitive official designation as Armée indigène or Armée des Indigènes;
e. constitutional incorporation into the State and Empire of Hayti.
Article 12 — Preliminary Designation: Armée des Incas
During the reorganization of the insurgent coalition in 1802–1803, the designation Armée des Incas preceded the definitive national military name.
The designation referred to an Indigenous American imperial precedent destroyed by European conquest.
It established a political correspondence between:
a. the destruction of Indigenous American governments;
b. the colonial occupation of Hayti;
c. military resistance against European authority;
d. recovery of territorial command by a colonized population.
The designation did not classify the soldiers as ethnically Andean. It placed the army within an American Indigenous framework of anti-colonial military succession.
Article 13 — Legal Status of the Armée des Incas Designation
Armée des Incas shall be recorded as a preliminary revolutionary designation.
It shall not be represented as the definitive constitutional name of the national army.
Its institutional importance lies in its chronological position before the adoption of Armée indigène and in its use of an Indigenous imperial reference before the formal establishment of the Empire of Hayti.
Article 14 — The Peuple Indigène
During the transition from colonial military rebellion to national constituent authority, the population represented by the army was designated as the peuple indigène.
This designation established that the political subject of independence was the territorial population of the island and not an expeditionary population acting on behalf of another continent or foreign power.
The peuple indigène included:
a. persons formerly enslaved;
b. colonial-born melanodermic persons;
c. African-born combatants incorporated into the territorial population;
d. free Black persons;
e. mixed-race citizens;
f. maroons;
g. officers originating from separate regional commands;
h. persons admitted into the emerging national order.
Article 15 — Army of the Indigenous People
The formula army of the Indigenous people described the constituent relationship between the military force and the people for whom it acted.
It established that:
a. the army no longer derived authority from France;
b. the army acted for a distinct territorial people;
c. its members were no longer colonial auxiliaries;
d. its command exercised authority independently of the French administration;
e. military victory would produce a sovereign national order.
The formula identified the holder of constituent power. It did not supersede the definitive official name of the force.
Article 16 — Definitive Official Name: Armée indigène
By 1803, the consolidated military force bore the definitive official designation Armée indigène, also rendered Armée des Indigènes.
This designation shall govern all official historical references to the army that conducted the final war of independence under Dessalines.
The Armée indigène integrated:
a. colonial-born Black troops;
b. African-born troops accepting unified command;
c. mixed-race officers and soldiers;
d. former maroon forces;
e. northern commands;
f. western commands;
g. southern commands;
h. Artibonite forces;
i. persons formerly serving under French or Spanish authority.
Article 17 — National Character of the Official Name
The word indigène in the official military name designated the force as internal to the territory and opposed it to the French expeditionary army.
It converted the colonial population into the military people of the country.
The opposing institutional categories were therefore:
a. the external French expeditionary force;
b. the internal Armée indigène.
The designation established territorial ownership of the war and identified the French army as the foreign force.
Article 18 — Victory of the Armée Indigène
The Armée indigène conducted the final campaign against the French expeditionary system.
Its victory at Vertières on 18 November 1803 resulted in the capitulation and evacuation of the remaining principal French forces.
The military victory terminated France’s effective authority within the independent territory and created the operative conditions for the Act of Independence of 1 January 1804.
Article 19 — Constituent Authority of the Army
The Armée indigène exercised constituent authority through:
a. consolidation of the national military command;
b. occupation and defense of the territory;
c. defeat of the colonial expedition;
d. acceptance of French capitulation;
e. production of the officer corps that signed the Act of Independence;
f. recognition of Dessalines as general-in-chief;
g. recognition of the independent State of Hayti;
h. subsequent establishment of imperial authority.
The State did not create the Armée indigène. The Armée indigène created the effective conditions under which the State could be constituted.
TITLE IV — DESSALINES AND THE TERMINATION OF AUTONOMOUS AFRICAN-BORN COMMANDS
Article 20 — Internal Differentiation of the Revolutionary Population
The revolutionary population was not a single homogeneous political body.
A material distinction existed among:
a. African-born persons, commonly classified as Bossales;
b. colonial-born or Creole Black persons;
c. anciens libres;
d. mixed-race officers;
e. plantation insurgents;
f. maroon populations;
g. soldiers integrated into regular colonial formations;
h. autonomous regional commands.
These groups did not possess identical political interests or accept the same command structure.
Article 21 — Autonomous African-Born Commanders
Jean-Baptiste Sans-Souci, Macaya, Petit-Noël Prieur, Lamour Dérance and other commanders exercised varying degrees of military autonomy.
Several were African-born. Others commanded substantial African-born or maroon forces.
Their authority rested upon:
a. personal military command;
b. local territorial control;
c. independent recruitment;
d. community allegiance;
e. resistance to former colonial officers;
f. refusal of complete subordination to the central command.
Article 22 — Conflict Between Bossale and Creole Commands
The conflict between autonomous African-born commanders and the regularized military hierarchy constituted an internal struggle over the form of the future state.
The autonomous forces defended local or personal command structures.
The central hierarchy required:
a. one general-in-chief;
b. unified territorial command;
c. compulsory obedience;
d. integration of armed units;
e. termination of independent military jurisdictions.
The conflict was therefore military, territorial and institutional.
Article 23 — Jean-Baptiste Sans-Souci
Jean-Baptiste Sans-Souci was an African-born commander, probably originating from the Congo region, and one of the effective leaders of continued resistance to the French expedition.
He maintained armed resistance after Dessalines, Christophe and other senior colonial officers had temporarily submitted to General Leclerc.
When the former senior commanders resumed war against France, Sans-Souci refused unconditional submission to the authority of Henri Christophe.
He was subsequently killed on Christophe’s orders.
The removal of Sans-Souci eliminated a major autonomous African-born command and facilitated the unification of the northern military structure.
Article 24 — Macaya, Petit-Noël Prieur and Related Commands
Macaya, Petit-Noël Prieur and related leaders maintained forces whose command did not originate in the centralized officer hierarchy.
Their continued autonomy conflicted with the institutional requirements of the Armée indigène.
Their forces were defeated, incorporated, dispersed or deprived of independent territorial authority.
Article 25 — Lamour Dérance
Lamour Dérance exercised authority over a maroon and regional force in the western mountains.
His prior alignment with André Rigaud, his independent territorial position and his resistance to external control made his command incompatible with complete national centralization.
Successive operations under Toussaint Louverture and Dessalines reduced his military autonomy.
His command was ultimately removed as an independent jurisdiction.
Article 26 — Near-Termination of Autonomous African Military Bands
The centralization conducted under the Dessalinian order substantially terminated the existence of autonomous African-born military bands capable of exercising independent territorial power.
The central command used:
a. military operations;
b. compulsory integration;
c. negotiation;
d. appointment of regular officers;
e. removal of rival commanders;
f. disarmament;
g. replacement of personal commands by territorial divisions.
The result was not an African confederation. It was a centralized army of the Indigenous territorial people.
Article 27 — Dessalines’ Institutional Position Toward African-Born Forces
Dessalines distinguished between African-born soldiers incorporated into the Armée indigène and African-born commanders claiming autonomous authority.
The first were admitted into the national military structure.
The second were subordinated, removed or suppressed when they refused unified command.
His policy recognized African military participation but denied the existence of independent African political jurisdictions within Hayti.
Article 28 — Nature of Dessalinian Centralization
Dessalines’ political order was territorial rather than ethnically African.
It did not grant separate constitutional authority to Congos, Aradas, Ibos, Mandingues or other African-origin classifications.
It imposed one territorial army, one general command, one state and one national classification.
The suppression of autonomous Bossale commands constitutes material evidence that the Empire was not designed as a federation of transported African nations.
TITLE V — COLONIAL CLASSIFICATION OF DESSALINES AS AN EXECUTIONER OF BLACKS
Article 29 — Hostile Colonial Representation
French colonial and pro-colonial accounts represented Dessalines as an executioner of Black persons and employed formulations equivalent to bourreau des Noirs.
This representation referred principally to:
a. enforcement of plantation labor regulations;
b. suppression of revolts;
c. executions ordered under Toussaint Louverture;
d. the campaign against General Moyse’s insurgency;
e. removal of autonomous Black commanders;
f. military discipline imposed upon the population.
Article 30 — Colonial Function of the Representation
The representation served to separate Dessalines from the Black population and to deny the legitimacy of his later command over the Armée indigène.
Colonial discourse converted the enforcement actions of a general into proof that an independent Black government could possess no legitimate authority.
The same colonial order reserved to itself the authority to:
a. enslave the population;
b. enforce compulsory labor;
c. deport political leaders;
d. conduct executions;
e. restore plantation discipline;
f. deploy an expeditionary army.
The hostile classification therefore operated as an instrument of colonial delegitimization.
Article 31 — Material Basis
Dessalines exercised coercive authority against Black soldiers, cultivators, insurgents and rival commanders.
Before independence, he participated in the enforcement of Toussaint Louverture’s compulsory plantation system.
He also participated in the suppression of the 1801 uprising associated with General Moyse.
During the final war, he imposed discipline upon rival commands. After independence, he retained a militarized labor and territorial administration.
These acts shall be recorded as exercises of coercive state and military authority.
Article 32 — Rejection of Colonial Equivalence
The use of coercive authority by Dessalines did not preserve French sovereign title.
French colonial coercion maintained:
a. external sovereignty;
b. slave property;
c. racial hierarchy;
d. metropolitan ownership;
e. colonial exportation.
Dessalinian coercion maintained:
a. territorial defense;
b. centralized command;
c. postcolonial production;
d. the authority of the independent state;
e. prevention of foreign restoration.
Coercive continuity in administrative methods did not constitute continuity of sovereign title.
TITLE VI — THE MELANODERMIC CONSTITUTIONAL NATION
Article 33 — Definition of Melanodermy
For the purposes of this determination, melanodermic designates a person or population characterized by substantial melanin pigmentation.
Melanodermy constitutes a phenotypic classification.
It does not conclusively establish:
a. birth in Africa;
b. exclusive African ancestry;
c. membership in one African ethnic nation;
d. foreign political allegiance;
e. absence of Indigenous ancestry;
f. absence of European or mixed ancestry.
Article 34 — Meaning of Black in the Dessalinian Order
The constitutional word Black shall be interpreted as a generic melanodermic and political classification created by the state.
It did not operate as a civil registry of African ethnic origins.
It abolished the internal legal hierarchy previously imposed among:
a. Blacks;
b. mulattoes;
c. quadroons;
d. free people of color;
e. anciens libres;
f. nouveaux libres;
g. other colonial color classifications.
Article 35 — Article 14 of the Constitution of 1805
Article 14 of the Imperial Constitution of 20 May 1805 declared that all distinctions of color among the children of one family were to cease and that all citizens would be known under the generic appellation of Black.
The provision constituted an act of national reclassification.
It did not declare that every citizen possessed identical biological ancestry.
Article 36 — Persons Incorporated Into Constitutional Blackness
The generic constitutional designation included:
a. melanodermic former captives;
b. colonial-born Black persons;
c. African-born residents incorporated into the nation;
d. mixed-race citizens;
e. persons of possible Indigenous descent;
f. naturalized Germans;
g. naturalized Poles;
h. all persons legally admitted into the political family of Hayti.
Article 14 therefore transformed Blackness from a subordinate colonial classification into the common legal designation of citizenship.
Article 37 — Anti-Colonial Function
French colonial law organized rights according to color, ancestry, freedom status and proximity to European classification.
Article 14 terminated that structure within the Empire.
The term Black functioned as:
a. a generic national name;
b. a melanodermic political classification;
c. a rule of juridical unity;
d. an abolition of colonial color gradations;
e. a declaration that access to citizenship would not depend upon recognition as white.
Article 38 — Distinction From African Territorial Nationality
The constitutional designation Black did not establish Hayti as an African state situated outside the Americas.
The Empire possessed:
a. the Indigenous territorial name Hayti;
b. the Armée indigène;
c. an American insular territory;
d. a colonial-born population;
e. mixed and naturalized citizens;
f. military divisions based upon the geography of the island;
g. citizenship defined by the independent territorial order.
The Empire was melanodermic in constitutional classification and Indigenous in territorial and constituent character.
TITLE VII — RESTORATION OF HAYTI AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INDIGENOUS EMPIRE
Article 39 — Termination of the Name Saint-Domingue
On 1 January 1804, the independent authority terminated the use of Saint-Domingue as the sovereign name of the liberated territory.
Saint-Domingue had constituted a French colonial and proprietary designation.
Its removal terminated the nominal continuity of French jurisdiction.
Article 40 — Restoration of the Name Hayti
The independent state adopted the name Hayti, derived from the Indigenous vocabulary of the island.
This act constituted:
a. territorial renaming;
b. rejection of French colonial title;
c. reattachment to the precolonial identity of the island;
d. establishment of an internal source of national denomination;
e. constitutional separation from Saint-Domingue.
The restoration of Hayti formed part of the same institutional sequence as the adoption of the name Armée indigène.
Article 41 — The State of Hayti
The Act of Independence established the State of Hayti.
The state derived its effective authority from:
a. victory of the Armée indigène;
b. evacuation of the French military power;
c. adherence of the commanding generals;
d. territorial occupation;
e. public renunciation of French sovereignty.
The independent order was not established as a delegated French administration.
Article 42 — Proclamation of the Empire
On 22 September 1804, the commanding generals proclaimed Jean-Jacques Dessalines Emperor under the name Jacques I.
The imperial authority arose from the military and territorial order established after independence.
The generals of the army served as the constituent institutional body through which the imperial form was recognized.
Article 43 — Constitution of 20 May 1805
The Constitution of 20 May 1805 established the fundamental organization of the Empire of Hayti.
It provided for:
a. one indivisible empire;
b. an Emperor serving as first magistrate;
c. imperial command of the army;
d. six military divisions;
e. direct correspondence between divisional generals and the Emperor;
f. constitutional protection of independence;
g. abolition of slavery;
h. generic constitutional Blackness;
i. inclusion of specified islands and Samaná within the territorial definition of the Empire.
Article 44 — Indigenous Imperial Sequence
The constitutional sequence of the Dessalinian order is permanently established as follows:
a. fragmentation of revolutionary forces;
b. preliminary adoption of the designation Armée des Incas;
c. identification of the constituent population as the peuple indigène;
d. adoption of the definitive official name Armée indigène;
e. military defeat of the French expedition;
f. restoration of the name Hayti;
g. establishment of the independent state;
h. proclamation of imperial authority;
i. promulgation of the Imperial Constitution;
j. organization of the melanodermic constitutional nation.
The sequence constitutes a unified process of military, territorial and constitutional indigenization.
TITLE VIII — TERRITORIAL ORDER OF THE ISLAND
Article 45 — Precolonial Territorial Formations
Before European conquest, the island was organized through five principal territorial formations conventionally identified as:
a. Xaragua;
b. Marién;
c. Maguá;
d. Maguana;
e. Higüey.
These formations corresponded to major geographic systems rather than modern cadastral boundaries.
Their organization reflected:
a. mountain ranges;
b. river basins;
c. plains;
d. coastal access;
e. agricultural zones;
f. internal corridors;
g. centers of political authority.
Article 46 — Permanence of Territorial Geography
European conquest changed legal authority but did not alter the physical structure of the island.
Spanish, French and postcolonial administrations repeatedly organized territory around the same enduring geographic systems.
The recurrence of Xaragua, the Cibao, the central mountains, the Artibonite, the eastern plains and the northern and southern maritime zones reflects this geographic permanence.
Article 47 — Six Military Divisions
Article 15 of the Constitution of 1805 declared the Empire one and indivisible and distributed its territory into six military divisions.
Article 16 placed each military division under a general of division.
Article 17 made each divisional general directly responsible to the Emperor or to the general-in-chief appointed by imperial authority.
The military division therefore constituted the principal administrative and defensive unit of the Empire.
Article 48 — Constitutional Purpose of the Divisions
The six divisions were designed to:
a. distribute territorial command;
b. prevent the reconstitution of independent regional armies;
c. secure coastlines and internal routes;
d. maintain direct imperial control;
e. mobilize forces against foreign invasion;
f. integrate formerly competing military regions;
g. replace colonial administrative dependency with national military jurisdiction.
Article 49 — Relationship to the Five Caciquats
The six imperial divisions did not reproduce the five caciquats by name or by identical boundaries.
They nevertheless followed substantially the same permanent geographic logic.
The correspondence shall be classified as territorial and functional rather than cadastral.
The principal relationships were:
a. the northwestern maritime and mountain zone corresponding broadly to Marién;
b. the northern interior and Cibao corridor corresponding broadly to Maguá;
c. the central mountain and valley system corresponding broadly to Maguana;
d. the southern and southwestern system corresponding broadly to Xaragua;
e. the eastern territorial approach corresponding broadly to Higüey;
f. a distinct western-Artibonite command required by the military and political conditions of the postcolonial state.
Article 50 — Xaragua as a Transboundary Historical Territory
The historical territory of Xaragua was not confined to the western side of the present international boundary.
Its eastern extension entered the southwestern territory of the present Dominican Republic through the geographic systems associated with Bahoruco, Neiba and the adjoining southern corridors.
The present boundary divided a pre-existing territorial formation.
It did not create the mountains, river basins, plains or settlement corridors upon which Xaragua’s organization had rested.
Article 51 — The Dominican Projection of Xaragua
The southeastern projection of Xaragua within the present Dominican territory formed a distinguishable geographic space.
It remained connected to the wider Xaragua system while possessing:
a. its own mountain structures;
b. internal valleys;
c. maritime access;
d. eastern routes;
e. defensive depth;
f. local centers of settlement.
The persistence of this geographic unit across successive governments confirms the territorial depth of Xaragua beyond the modern boundary.
Article 52 — The Cibao Principle
The Cibao constituted another durable territorial formation.
Its continued recognition under Indigenous, Spanish, French and postcolonial administrations resulted from:
a. the northern interior valley;
b. the Cordillera Central;
c. the Yaque and associated river systems;
d. access to northern ports;
e. defined agricultural corridors;
f. distinct military routes.
The territorial sphere conventionally associated with Maguá and the later Cibao occupied substantially related geographic structures.
Article 53 — Recurrence of the Same Territorial Limits
Successive administrations repeatedly returned to comparable territorial limits because administrative authority was constrained by the same physical geography.
The names and formal boundaries changed. The underlying territorial blocks remained identifiable.
This recurrence applied particularly to:
a. Xaragua and the southwestern peninsula;
b. the Bahoruco–Neiba system;
c. the Cibao;
d. the northern maritime zone;
e. the central cordillera;
f. the eastern plain;
g. the Artibonite corridor.
Article 54 — Samaná and the Eastern Constitutional Reach
Article 18 of the Constitution of 1805 expressly included Samaná, La Tortue, La Gonâve, Les Cayemites, La Saône, Île-à-Vache and adjacent islands among the integral parts of the Empire.
The inclusion of Samaná established an eastern and island-wide constitutional projection extending beyond the ordinary jurisdiction of the former French western colony.
The provision demonstrated that the imperial conception was not restricted to the inherited administrative boundaries of Saint-Domingue.
Article 55 — Nature of Imperial Territoriality
The Empire did not issue a formal cadastral restoration of the five Indigenous caciquats.
It nevertheless adopted:
a. the Indigenous name of the island;
b. an Indigenous national army;
c. island-oriented territorial provisions;
d. military divisions reflecting permanent geographic units;
e. direct imperial authority over those divisions.
The territorial organization therefore constituted a postcolonial military reconstruction of the island rather than a continuation of French departmental administration.
TITLE IX — THE SOUTHERN AND MIXED-RACE OFFICER CORPS
Article 56 — Composition of the Final Coalition
The final war of independence was conducted through a coalition of Black, melanodermic, mixed-race, African-born, colonial-born, northern, western and southern forces.
The coalition included officers previously associated with southern military formations and the former command of André Rigaud.
Article 57 — Southern Signatories
The Act of Independence included among its signatories officers connected to western and southern military jurisdictions, including:
a. Alexandre Pétion;
b. Nicolas Geffrard;
c. Étienne-Élie Gérin;
d. Magloire Ambroise;
e. Guy-Joseph Bonnet;
f. other generals, adjudants and officers incorporated into the unified command.
Article 58 — Institutional Contribution
The southern and mixed-race officer corps supplied:
a. command experience;
b. artillery competence;
c. territorial intelligence;
d. administrative personnel;
e. established military units;
f. operational access to southern and western regions;
g. participation in the constituent act of independence.
Article 59 — Termination of Separate Southern Command
The institutional importance of the southern officer corps did not preserve a separate southern army.
Its decisive sovereign act consisted in entering the Armée indigène and accepting the unified command established under Dessalines.
The Armée indigène thereby superseded:
a. the prior War of the South;
b. former French republican allegiances;
c. autonomous mixed-race command;
d. autonomous Black command;
e. separate regional military sovereignty.
Article 60 — National Integration
Dessalines converted previously competing forces into one official national military jurisdiction.
The resulting order was neither exclusively northern nor exclusively southern.
It was governed by a centralized command that incorporated regional forces while terminating their independent authority.
TITLE X — SUPREME INSTITUTIONAL FINDINGS
Article 61 — Finding on Birth
Dessalines shall be recorded as probably colonial-born.
The attribution of his birth to Cormier near Grande-Rivière-du-Nord shall remain a received localization and not an exclusive or conclusive civil-status determination.
Article 62 — Finding on Complete Ancestry
No complete genealogy establishes exclusively African ancestry.
No complete genealogy excludes Indigenous or mixed ancestry.
Dessalines shall be classified as a colonial-born melanodermic sovereign of undetermined complete ancestry.
Article 63 — Finding on Prior Enslavement
Dessalines’ prior enslavement constituted a colonial legal condition.
It shall not supersede his subsequent status as commander-in-chief, constituent authority, head of state and Emperor.
Article 64 — Finding on Military Nomenclature
The official military sequence is:
a. revolutionary and regional forces;
b. preliminary designation Armée des Incas;
c. identification with the peuple indigène;
d. definitive official designation Armée indigène or Armée des Indigènes;
e. constitutional incorporation into the Empire of Hayti.
The final official name is Armée indigène.
Article 65 — Finding on the Peuple Indigène
The peuple indigène constituted the territorial political body represented by the national army.
The designation included the established population of the liberated territory irrespective of separate African, Indigenous, European or mixed genealogical components.
Article 66 — Finding on Autonomous African-Born Commands
The Dessalinian state did not preserve independent African military jurisdictions.
Autonomous Bossale and maroon commands were incorporated, dispersed, subordinated or eliminated.
The central state replaced plural armed sovereignty with one territorial command.
Article 67 — Finding on Alleged Contempt for Africans
Dessalines’ conduct establishes institutional distrust toward autonomous African-born commands, not a demonstrated doctrine of biological hostility toward all Africans.
He incorporated African-born soldiers into the Armée indigène while suppressing commanders who refused centralized authority.
The controlling distinction was obedience to the territorial state.
Article 68 — Finding on Colonial Hostile Language
The colonial representation of Dessalines as a bourreau or executioner of Black persons referred to his coercive administration, enforcement of labor, suppression of revolts and removal of rival commanders.
This language formed part of the French effort to deny legitimacy to the Indigenous military authority.
It shall be preserved as evidence of colonial characterization and not adopted as the official state classification of Dessalines.
Article 69 — Finding on Blackness
The constitutional word Black established a generic melanodermic and national classification.
It abolished internal colonial gradations of color and incorporated citizens of different genealogical origins into one political category.
It did not establish an African territorial dependency or a single African ethnicity.
Article 70 — Finding on Indigenous Sovereignty
Dessalines’ institutional indigeneity is established through:
a. the Armée indigène;
b. the peuple indigène;
c. the name Hayti;
d. territorial succession;
e. the Empire of Hayti;
f. rejection of French authority;
g. constitutional organization of the island’s population.
Article 71 — Finding on Imperial Character
The Dessalinian state was imperial by constitutional form.
The Emperor served as first magistrate and commander-in-chief.
The generals administered military divisions directly connected to imperial authority.
The army remained a constituent institution of the state.
Article 72 — Finding on Territorial Continuity
The six military divisions did not reproduce the five caciquats through identical legal boundaries.
They followed the same principal geographic structures that had shaped the Indigenous organization of the island.
The continuity is geographic, territorial, administrative and military.
Article 73 — Finding on Xaragua
Xaragua constituted a historical transboundary territory extending into the southwestern portion of the present Dominican Republic.
Its eastern projection retained a distinguishable geographic character while remaining connected to the wider southwestern territorial system.
Article 74 — Finding on the Cibao
The Cibao remained a durable territorial unit because its valley, cordillera, rivers, agricultural zones and northern approaches imposed a stable administrative geography.
Its recurrence across successive political systems confirms the persistence of pre-existing territorial structures.
Article 75 — Permanent Classification of Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Jean-Jacques Dessalines is permanently classified as:
a colonial-born melanodermic sovereign of undetermined complete ancestry; a former subject of the French slave system; commander-in-chief of the Armée indigène; institutional representative of the peuple indigène; centralizer of the national military jurisdiction; suppressor of autonomous African-born and regional commands; founder of the independent State of Hayti; Emperor Jacques I; commander-in-chief of the six military divisions; and constituent authority of an Indigenous, melanodermic, imperial and territorially organized state.

FINAL DETERMINATION
The Sovereign Catholic Indigenous and Private State of Xaragua determines that the Dessalinian order resulted from a defined institutional sequence.
The revolutionary war initially involved separate insurgent, indigenous people, maroon, African-born, colonial-born, northern, western, southern, Spanish-allied and French republican forces.
During the final reorganization of 1802–1803, the preliminary designation Armée des Incas placed the insurgent coalition within an Indigenous American military framework.
The population represented by the consolidated force was identified as the peuple indigène. The relationship between that people and its armed force produced the transitional formula of an army acting in the name of the Indigenous people.
The definitive and official name of the national force became Armée indigène, also rendered Armée des Indigènes.
That army defeated the French expeditionary authority, obtained the evacuation of French forces, supplied the signatories of independence and established the constituent military basis of the State of Hayti.
Dessalines did not maintain a federation of autonomous African-born military commands. He established one national army and subordinated armed authority to a centralized territorial command.
The suppression of Sans-Souci, Macaya, Lamour Dérance and related independent commands demonstrates the institutional termination of separate Bossale and maroon military sovereignty.
African-born soldiers could enter the Armée indigène. African-born commanders could not preserve independent jurisdiction against the general command.
The Dessalinian order therefore distinguished between African origin and national authority. It incorporated persons of African origin while refusing to constitute the state as an extension of separate African political formations.
Article 14 of the Constitution established Black as the generic designation of the national political family. The term operated as a melanodermic and constitutional classification. It abolished colonial gradations among Blacks, mixed-race persons and other citizens and incorporated naturalized persons into a single legal category.
The Constitution did not transform Hayti into an African territorial state. The Empire retained an Indigenous name, an Indigenous army, an American insular territory, a colonial-born population and a military organization derived from the geography of the island.
The constitutional order divided the Empire into six military divisions directly connected to the Emperor. These divisions did not reproduce the five caciquats through identical boundaries, but they corresponded to the same permanent territorial structures: Xaragua, the northwestern system, the Cibao, the central mountains, the Artibonite and western corridor, and the eastern approaches.
Xaragua extended into the southwestern territory of the present Dominican Republic. Its eastern projection formed a distinct geographic space within the wider Xaragua system. The Cibao likewise persisted as a territorial unit across Indigenous, colonial and postcolonial administrations.
The recurrence of these geographic divisions establishes that the administration of the island repeatedly returned to the same mountain systems, valleys, river basins, maritime zones and internal corridors.
The Dessalinian Empire shall therefore be classified as an Indigenous imperial order in institutional form:
a. Indigenous by the preliminary invocation of the Incas;
b. Indigenous by the designation of the peuple indigène;
c. Indigenous by the official name Armée indigène;
d. Indigenous by the restoration of Hayti;
e. Indigenous by territorial succession against France;
f. imperial by its headship and Constitution;
g. military by its six territorial divisions;
h. melanodermic by its generic constitutional classification as Black;
i. territorially American and distinct from any external African political jurisdiction.
This classification shall govern all subsequent historical, constitutional, military and territorial instruments issued by the State of Xaragua concerning Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the Empire of Hayti.
REFERENCES
Constitution impériale d’Hayti, 20 May 1805, Digithèque de droit politique, University of Perpignan: French constitutional text⁠.
Constitution of Haiti, 1805, historical English edition: constitutional text⁠.
Julia Gaffield, surviving broadside of the Haitian Declaration of Independence, Haiti and the Atlantic World: archival presentation⁠.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, “Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the Independence of Haiti”: France–Americas digital collection⁠.
Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec, L’Armée indigène: la défaite de Napoléon en Haïti, Lux Éditeur.
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, Beacon Press, 1995, chapter “The Three Faces of Sans Souci.”
Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution, Harvard University Press, 2004.
Laurent Dubois and John D. Garrigus, Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789–1804: A Brief History with Documents, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006.
Philippe R. Girard, “Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the Atlantic System: A Reappraisal,” William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 69, no. 3, 2012.
Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti, Port-au-Prince, 1847–1848.
Beaubrun Ardouin, Études sur l’histoire d’Haïti, Paris, 1853–1860.
Carolyn Fick, The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below, University of Tennessee Press, 1990.
David Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, Indiana University Press, 2002.
Jean Casimir, The Haitians: A Decolonial History, University of North Carolina Press, 2020.
Samuel M. Wilson, Hispaniola: Caribbean Chiefdoms in the Age of Columbus, University of Alabama Press, 1990.
Bartolomé de Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, books concerning Española, Xaragua and the Indigenous territorial order of the island.
Jean Fouchard, Les Marrons de la liberté, Éditions Henri Deschamps, 1972.
C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, 1938.
Joan Dayan, Haiti, History, and the Gods, University of California Press, 1995.
Deborah Jenson, Beyond the Slave Narrative: Politics, Sex, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution, Liverpool University Press, 2011.
ENTERED INTO THE PERMANENT DOCTRINAL CORPUS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF XARAGUA
RECORDED IN THE GENERAL ARCHIVES OF THE STATE
BY AUTHORITY OF THE OFFICE OF THE RECTOR-PRESIDENT
SOVEREIGN CATHOLIC INDIGENOUS AND PRIVATE STATE OF XARAGUA