CULTURETECHLENSImperial Constitution of Haiti — Dessalines, 1805
The constitution of the first Haitian empire, issued by Jean-Jacques Dessalines as Jacques I, Emperor of Haiti, 20 May 1805.
Date: 20 May 1805, Imperial Palace of Dessalines, year II of independence
Issuer: Jean-Jacques Dessalines (Jacques I), Emperor of Haiti
Verified contents: Article 20 recognizes Dessalines as Emperor and supreme chief; Articles 12–13 carry the celebrated naturalization exceptions — Germans and Poles who had rallied to the Haitian cause excepted from the bar on white landownership
Text: Complete French text read at the source (this page carries the record)
Source: Louis-Joseph Janvier (ed.), Les constitutions d’Haïti (1801–1885) (Paris, 1886), section “Constitution de 1805”: archive.org/details/lesconstitutions00hait
Rights: 1805 document; 1886 edition — public domain
Janvier’s volume prints the full run of Haitian constitutions from 1801 to 1885 and remains the single best one-volume source for them. As with Haiti-004, a checked CultureTechLens transcription is a named follow-up; the complete text is read at the source until then.
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