Haiti and La Dessalinienne

Thanks for coming and checking out the notes. I seriously am brand new at this so expect whatever I do here to change.

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If you're wondering I played the intro/outro music on a tenor ukulele string gCEA

I found an excellent 8 bit channel that has national anthems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyOhVVUCC5k

As indicated in the show here are the lyrics in the relevant languages

First in French (the original language of the song):

Pour le Pays, pour les Ancêtres,

Marchons unis, marchons unis.

Dans nos rangs point de traîtres!

Du sol soyons seuls maîtres.

Marchons unis, marchons unis

Pour le Pays, pour les Ancêtres,

Marchons, marchons, marchons unis,

Pour le Pays, pour les Ancêtres...

Pour les Aïeux, pour la Patrie

Bêchons joyeux, bêchons joyeux

Quand le champ fructifie

L'âme se fortifie

Bêchons joyeux, bêchons joyeux

Pour les Aïeux, pour la Patrie

Bêchons, bêchons, bêchons joyeux

Pour les Aïeux, pour la Patrie.

Pour le Pays et pour nos Pères

Formons des Fils, formons des Fils

Libres, forts et prospères

Toujours nous serons frères

Formons des Fils, formons des Fils

Pour le Pays et pour nos Pères

Formons, formons, formons des Fils

Pour le Pays et pour nos Pères.

Pour les Aïeux, pour la Patrie

O Dieu des Preux, O Dieu des Preux!

Sous ta garde infinie

Prends nos droits, notre vie

O Dieu des Preux, O Dieu des Preux!

Pour les Aïeux, pour la Patrie

O Dieu, O Dieu, O Dieu des Preux

Pour les Aïeux, pour la Patrie.

Pour le Drapeau, pour la Patrie

Mourir est beau, mourir est beau!

Notre passé nous crie:

Ayez l'âme aguerrie!

Mourir est beau, mourir est beau

Pour le Drapeau, pour la Patrie

Mourir, mourir, mourir est beau

Pour le Drapeau, pour la Patrie.

The English translation of that:

For the Country, for the Ancestors,

Let us march united, let us march united.

Let there be no traitors in our ranks!

Let us be the only masters of the soil.

Let us march united, let us march united

For the Country, for the Ancestors,

Let us march, let us march, let us march united,

For the Country, for the Ancestors...

For the Forefathers, for the Fatherland

Let us toil joyous, let us toil joyous.

When the field fructifies

The soul fortifies

Let us toil joyous, let us toil joyous

For the Forefathers, for the Fatherland

Let us toil, let us toil, let us toil joyous

For the Forefathers, for the Fatherland.

For the Country and for our Fathers

Let us train Sons, let us train Sons

Free, strong and prosperous

We shall always be brothers

Let us train Sons, Let us train Sons

For the Country and for our Fathers

Let us train, let us train, let us train Sons

For the Country and for our Fathers.

For the Forefathers, for the Fatherland

Oh God of the Valiant, Oh God of the Valiant!

Under your infinite protection

Take our rights, our life

Oh God of the Valiant, Oh God of the Valiant!

For the Forefathers, for the Fatherland

Oh God, Oh God, Oh God of the Valiant

For the Forefathers, for the Fatherland.

For the Flag, for the Fatherland

To die is beautiful, to die is beautiful!

Our past cries out to us:

Have a hardened soul!

To die is beautiful, to die is beautiful

For the Flag, for the Fatherland

To die, to die, to die is beautiful

For the Flag, for the Fatherland.

Then in Haitian Creole:

Pou Ayiti peyi Zansèt yo

Se pou n mache men nan lamen

Nan mitan n pa fèt pou gen trèt

Nou fèt pou n sèl mèt tèt nou.

Annou mache men nan lamen

Pou Ayiti ka vin pi bèl

Annou, annou, met tèt ansanm

Pou Ayiti onon tout Zansèt yo.

Pou Ayiti onon Zansèt yo

Se pou n sekle se pou n plante

Se nan tè tout fòs nou chita

Se li k ba nou manje

Ann bite tè, ann voye wou

Ak kè kontan, fòk tè a bay

Sekle, wouze, fanm tankou gason

Pou-n rive viv ak sèl fòs ponyèt nou.

Pou Ayiti ak pou Zansèt yo

Fo nou kapab vanyan gason

Moun pa fèt pou ret avèk moun

Se sa k fè tout Manman ak tout Papa

Dwe pou voye Timoun lekòl

Pou yo aprann, pou yo konnen

Sa Tousen, Desalin, Kristòf, Petyon

Te fè pou wet Ayisyen anba kòd blan.

Pou Ayiti onon Zansèt yo

Ann leve tèt nou gad anlè

Pou tout moun mande Granmèt la

Pou l ba nou pwoteksyon

Pou move zanj pa detounen n

Pou-n ka mache nan bon chimen

Pou libète ka libète

Fòk lajistis blayi sou peyi a!

Nou gen drapo tankou tout pèp

Se pou n renmen l mouri pou li

Se pa kado blan te fè nou

Se san Zansèt nou yo ki te koule

Pou nou kenbe drapo nou wo

Se pou n travay met tèt ansanm.

Pou lòt peyi ka respekte l

Drapo sila a se nanm tout Ayisyen.

And lastly in the English of that:

For Haiti, the Country of the Ancestors

we must walk hand in hand

There must not be traitors among us--

We alone must be our master

Let's walk hand in hand

that Haiti may be more beautiful

Let us put our heads together

for Haiti on behalf of all the ancestors

For Haiti on the behalf of the Ancestors

Let us mow, let us sow.

All our strength rests in the soul--

It is what feeds us.

Let us mound up earth, let us send water

With joy, the earth must be fertile

Mow, water, women and men

that we may live by our own arms' strength alone.

For Haiti and for the Ancestors

We must be courageous, capable men.

People are not born to serve others

That is why all mothers and fathers

Need to send children to school,

to learn, to know

what Toussaint, Dessalines, Christophe, Pétion

did to take Haitians from under the whites' rope.

For Haiti on the behalf of the Ancestors

Let us raise our head and look above.

Let everyone to ask the Lord

to grant us protection

that the evil angels may not divert us,

that we may walk in the right path.

For liberty to be able to liberate,

justice must spread over the country!

We have a flag like all peoples.

Let us love it, die for it.

It was not a gift from the whites--

It was our Ancestors' blood that was shed.

Let us hold our flag high.

Let us work together and focus

that other countries may respect it

This flag is the soul of every Haitian.

I mostly stick to the script here because it's easier to record that way but there is always going to be some deviation in what I record and what I've written. I also have not yet finalized the footnoting method I like for writing a script, again, this is new to me. As such there are a bunch of words with numbers written after them. Those are my ref numbers and are used for writing purposes. The reference list I used appears at the very end in no particular order:

   *Opens with intro music*

Hello everyone and welcome to The Anthems Podcast. I’m Patrick and today I’m going to try and tell you the story of a song that helps tell the story of a nation. If I’m doing this correctly you’ll want to hear the next one. I assume podcasting works like that, Right?  Anyway, this is episode 01: Haiti

Today’s anthem of choice is La Dessalinienne. Haiti gets to first because I asked my wife for a number between one and one hundred, she picked 73, and Haiti is the 73rd entry on the alphabetical list of national anthems on the Wikipedia that lists them. I had to start somewhere and wanted to avoid themes and topical influences, at least to get started, so an essentially random process it was.

It’s a fine choice though, because the story of the national anthem of Haiti contains as it’s opening act the story of the Haitian revolution. It’s a favorite revolution of mine and it’s pretty fun that I got to talk about it right out of the gate and in a random way. Of course, I’m going to be giving a seriously shorthand version of it and it’s just a section of the narrative but we’re talking about national anthems and they’re a very patriotic thing. It should not be a surprise that revolution is going to be at least mentioned and often plays a central role in an anthem’s story. In the case of Haiti’s national anthem the story starts about 33 years before the revolution.

First though we need to hear the song itself! This is the national anthems podcast afterall. We’ll be going in blind each time so have a listen to 3 minutes and 30 seconds of La Dessalinienne.

*Plays Audio of the anthem*

My first thought is that it definitely has the fanfare and bombastic composition I kind of expect in certain kinds of anthems national anthem. Of course I say this as a guy that is doing a podcast on national anthems so I’ve been giving a critical listen to A LOT of these types of songs lately and reading A LOT about them. Feels like a military parade song. I won’t read the entire five verses yet (and it will be a rare occasion indeed if you here me sing here) but the first makes the initial point well. It reads thus:

For the Country, for the Ancestors,

Let us march united, let us march united.

Let there be no traitors in our ranks!

Let us be the only masters of the soil.

Let us march united, let us march united

For the Country, for the Ancestors,

Let us march, let us march, let us march united,

For the Country, for the Ancestors…

This is classic national anthem stuff. For the nation, for the people, tradition, and etc…, checks many boxes in that respect. I mean, the first time it was performed for the public it was at a military style celebration to celebrate a historic victory to mark a century of independence, martial seems the appropriate descriptor of the tune. Put a pin in all that though, I’m getting ahead of things by like 165 years. The story of La Dessalinienne starts with the story of the guy the anthem is named to honor: Jean-Jacques Dessalines. I’ll put the full lyrics of the French and Haitian Creole in the show notes and I’ll discuss them a little more later on. The story needs to be told before we can really talk about the song.

Haiti is a nation of about 11.3 million people located in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The country shares the island of Hispanolia with The Dominican Republic and occupies a bit more than three eighths of the western half of the island. That’s like 10,700 square miles versus Dominican Republics 18,700 square miles. Haiti is the third largest country in the Caribbean by land are and the largest one by population. It is also the site of Navidad, the first Western settlement in the Americas established in 1492 by Christopher Columbus himself. This began the colonial period that served as the staging point for many things. The start of story involves another terrible thing that’s not rare: slavery. So we fast forward from 

Jean-Jacques was a man born into slavery in the French colony of St. Domingue with the surname Duclos. It’s known that his father took this name from the guy that owned him, Henri Duclos. Sadly not much else is known about his parents though because slavers weren’t big on getting people’s lineal information when they were kidnapping them from their homelands. It is 1758 and it was about 133 years into the French portion of the colonial occupation that began as a bunch of pirates participating in harassing the Spanish that were settled there. No kidding, they were even not so quietly funded by the crown in France.

Jean worked as a laborer for the same plantation he was born in until he was 30 years old. In that time he rose as a high as one was allowed and became a commandeur, what we’d call a foreman in English. A tough life that broke so many people. In 1788 Jean-Jacques was purchased by a free man of color (one of the MANY complicated layers of 18th century Haitian society I’m going to have to skip almost completely) called Henri Dessalines.Considering the complete of mention of him it appears giving his surname to a revolutionary was Henri’s single contribution to historical record.

Interestingly enough 1889 also happened to be the year the French took a census and I’ll quote a few broad strokes. Different sources cite different numbers with the slave population varying from 500,000 to 700,000 people. They do however consistently say that the Europens were soundly outnumbered ten to one by the people that they thought it was ok to own.

It was in this environment Toussaint Louverture began gathering the first slave armies and began the Haitian revolution. We’re going to skip basically all of that though because it isn’t critical for the story of the anthem this is supposed to be about. Remember the song I said I was talking about? Besides, it’s been done by Mike Duncan on The Revolutions Podcast and if you like history explained by someone who‘s better at podcasting than me you should give his stuff a listen. At the beginning of the revolution Jean-Jacques decided to keep the surname Dessalines and had been taken under the wing of Louverture. At the culmination of the revolution in 1803, Louverture had been captured, and Dessalines was one of the three generals that lead the decisive victory blow to Napoleon's forces (yes, THAT Napoleon) and went on to promulgate a declaration of independence in 1804 and declare himself the emperor.

Quite the ride. To top it off at the end of it he made Haiti the first country in the Americas to abolish slavery and establish the west’s first free Black republic. That fully justifies the honor of having the national anthem named after him because it’s one of the best things people have done. Unfortunately the second act for Dessalines is not very attractive, as happens an awful lot with great men. Dessalines initially offered amnesty and protection to the former slave owners and others that might have been considered enemies of the regime. But Jean-Jacque had lead a hard life full of abuse for him and everyone he cared for. It seems it made him hard too and he had between 3,000 and 5,000 white people of all ages killed, including people that were not enemies of the revolution. I obviously can’t condone all the killing but they were people that thought owning other people was just fine and he was a literal slave for 33 years. I’ll never understand what that felt like. However, Dessalines took it further and instituted an autocratic regime that was essentially slavery with wages. This splintered the movement’s power base and got the first Haitian Emperor assassinated in 1806 after barely 2 years in power. Regardless, if there was a guy to write a national anthem about Jean-Jacque Dessaline certainly fits the bill. Alright buckle up, we’re taking another time leap.

On to the end of the 19th century where in the 1870’s the men that wrote the lyrics and music for La Dessalinienne. In the ensuing 60 something years since the death of the Jean-Jacques Dessalines Haiti had been in a time period characterized more by it’s instability than anything else. It’s a fascinating section of history that we’re going to discuss absolutely none of actually, it’s not germane to the story. Following a brief period where there were two coups and four presidents in less than a decade Haiti ended the 1870s by finally signing a treaty with the Dominican Republic. They share the island of Hispaniola with them and part of the history we skipped is a bunch of war to try and take the entire thing over. The remaining two decades of the 1800’s saw a good deal of modernization of the infrastructure and the economy. The beginning saw a president resigning and the United States providing Pierre Alexis a naval blockade so he can take power in 1902

The folks that wrote the national anthem were, and mostly still are, not well known at all outside of Haiti. In my reading about anthems (of which there is MUCH) this is developing as a trend. Almost none of these guys, and the creators I’ve read about so far all men, are world famous. I was surprised by this at first. In their home country though? Not household names but notable enough that they’re in history books and the average citizen probably at least knows their name. As a note it seems that it’s pretty typical for the music and lyrics to have separate authors. This is probably only a surprise to me because I’m more of an enthusiastic amateur about music than anything approaching an expert.

The man that wrote the poem La Dessalinienne is a more prominent figure in Haitian history than the composer at least as far as I can tell. He is Justin Lhérisson, and he was actually quite an ambitious man, if he hadn’t died way too young he might have become world famous. Justin was born in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, 1873. He went to law school but was a much better writer than lawyer just going on my inability to find anything about his legal career  of any significance. By 16 Justin was a reporter and by 1899, when he was 26 he’d progressed up to press boss. He also started his own newspaper that promoted social justice for the peasant class and translated the oral storytelling tradition of Iodyans into an entirely new and entirely Haitian literary form. Then in 1903 he wrote a poetic hymn of national...