The father of the nation:  Jean-Jacques Dessalines

One of Toussaint's lieutenants in the final years of his campaigns was Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Dessalines was born a slave at Grande Riviere du Nord in 1758. He had no formal education, but later did learn to sign his name. He gained a liberal practical education, however, after running away from his masters and joining bands of runaway slaves who harassed the slave traders and the plantation owners in the forests and mountains. Acquiring skill in the leadership of men, he joined Toussaint's forces when the revolt against the French began. He followed Toussaint in his various allegiances and became one of his principal officers. When Leclerc wanted to negotiate for peace, Dessalines counseled against it, but finally yielded, against his better judgment. He accepted appointment as a general in the French army and served as Governor of the southern part of the island. When Toussaint was made a prisoner, Dessalines resumed the fight against the French. Now he was convinced that Napoleon intended to re-establish slavery in Haiti, despite his promises to the contrary. He fought with savage courage and cruelty. What helped him more than his armed supporters was fever that decimated the French ranks and ultimately took the life of Leclerc. A siege and battles at Crete-a-Pierrot brought Haiti's next heroes into prominence. Crete-a-Pierrot was a fortress atop a hill near the village of Petite Riviere which had been built by freed slaves in the early stages of the struggle and strengthened with redoubt by the British during their occupation of western Haiti.
In March 1802 the fortress itself had been further strengthened into a virtual citadel under the command of Dessalines, seconded by Magny, Martiniere, Monpoint and Larose, with a garrison of 1.200, mostly former slaves. In his continuing efforts to subdue the rebels, General Leclerc ordered an attack on the redoubt and fortress by 12,000 seasoned troops, veterans of Napoleon's campaigns in Germany and Italy. Repelled in this attack with the loss of 300 French soldiers and 50 officers, and with the loss of further lives in three additional unsuccessful assaults, Leclerc ordered a siege and continuing cannonade of the fortress. While this continued, hundreds of his troops were killed or died of fever. Some 20 days after the initial French attack, the defenders were in desperate. They had no food, little water and hundreds of dead and wounded. The French, believing the defenders reduced to helplessness, advanced to overrun the redoubt. In the midst of this inferno what did they see but a young female mulatto wearing a red bonnet, sabre at her side, her waist knotted with a scarf and rifle in her hand, circling fearlessly in range on the walls of the redoubt shouting encouragement to the besieged. This was Jeanne Marie, the wife of Brigade Commander Lamartiniere. As Haitian books record, she fought like a brown Jeanne d'Arc!