Reclaiming and Continuing Vertières to Awaken Our National Consciousness
By La Rédaction · Port-au-Prince
· 3 min read · Updated 24 April 2026
Translated from French — AI-assisted and reviewed by the editorial team. The French version is authoritative. Read the original · About our translation policy
There is a truth we refuse to admit: the Haitian nation is not a victim of cruel fate but of the abandonment of its own principles. Every year (not before 1930, of course), every November 18, we commemorate the Battle of Vertières, which is the culmination of a whole series of struggles, but we no longer embody it. We use it as a patriotic decoration when it should be a political, moral, and civic weapon. On this November 18, 2025, a date marking 222 years since the Battle of Vertières, it becomes necessary to revisit the legacy of this foundational event and question its relevance in Haiti today.
In 1803, our ancestors did what we no longer dare to do or no longer know how to reproduce: unite to survive.
Not unite for a photo.
Not unite for a position.
Not unite to share power.
Not unite to take dictation in an air-conditioned room.
Unite to liberate our Haiti, which is not dead, but is dying. Today, what do we see?
Ragged elites and a society divided into clans. Leaders and so-called political leaders trapped by their calculations. A population abandoned to rampant insecurity.
A sovereignty negotiated like a piece of mail. We speak of Vertières with reverence, but we live with resignation in a country largely destroyed by its internal alliances. Political fractures, widespread mistrust, rival interests, and fear largely paralyze the country. What would Capois-la-Mort say if he saw a country where one no longer charges against the enemy, but against one's own brother or sister, against one's neighbor?
What would Jean-Jacques Dessalines think of a nation that surrenders to foreign interests with the same docility that Napoleon Bonaparte sought or hoped from us? What would Henri Christophe, Alexandre Pétion, Augustin Clerveaux, Sanite, and Charles Belair have done in the face of leaders who confuse leadership with complicit silence? Let's be honest, dear compatriots. We have become the gravediggers of Vertières' message. We have transformed Vertières into an abstract symbol. This is our shame. A people who defeated Napoleon and overthrew the greatest army in Europe would today be incapable of restoring a minimum of order at home?
This is a historical absurdity. It is a collective lie. Vertières, this battle which lasted only 11 hours (from 6 AM to 6 PM), is not a poem. It is not just a memory, a past of glory and pride. It is a verdict. And this verdict says: Haiti has never been defeated by superior forces, but by its internal disagreements. Dessalines and Geffrard, at Camp-Gérard, succeeded in what we have refused to attempt for over two centuries: erasing resentments, suspending quarrels, and uniting the forces of good for a common goal.
They won. We hesitate.
They took their responsibility. We delegate it.
They built unity. We build pretexts. The truth is brutal:
Haiti lacks neither resources, nor potential, nor genius. Haiti lacks collective courage. And that is why we now accept collapse as an inevitability. And as long as we have not rediscovered this courage, the courage to say NO, and a categorical NO, to fragmentation, to dependence, to political effacement, to corruption, to betrayal, and to bad governance, no reform, no agreement will make sense. Vertières judges us every year, every November 18. How long will we look away instead of proving ourselves worthy of our history and the work our ancestors began? Pierre Josué Agénor Cadet
Not unite for a photo.
Not unite for a position.
Not unite to share power.
Not unite to take dictation in an air-conditioned room.
Unite to liberate our Haiti, which is not dead, but is dying. Today, what do we see?
Ragged elites and a society divided into clans. Leaders and so-called political leaders trapped by their calculations. A population abandoned to rampant insecurity.
A sovereignty negotiated like a piece of mail. We speak of Vertières with reverence, but we live with resignation in a country largely destroyed by its internal alliances. Political fractures, widespread mistrust, rival interests, and fear largely paralyze the country. What would Capois-la-Mort say if he saw a country where one no longer charges against the enemy, but against one's own brother or sister, against one's neighbor?
What would Jean-Jacques Dessalines think of a nation that surrenders to foreign interests with the same docility that Napoleon Bonaparte sought or hoped from us? What would Henri Christophe, Alexandre Pétion, Augustin Clerveaux, Sanite, and Charles Belair have done in the face of leaders who confuse leadership with complicit silence? Let's be honest, dear compatriots. We have become the gravediggers of Vertières' message. We have transformed Vertières into an abstract symbol. This is our shame. A people who defeated Napoleon and overthrew the greatest army in Europe would today be incapable of restoring a minimum of order at home?
This is a historical absurdity. It is a collective lie. Vertières, this battle which lasted only 11 hours (from 6 AM to 6 PM), is not a poem. It is not just a memory, a past of glory and pride. It is a verdict. And this verdict says: Haiti has never been defeated by superior forces, but by its internal disagreements. Dessalines and Geffrard, at Camp-Gérard, succeeded in what we have refused to attempt for over two centuries: erasing resentments, suspending quarrels, and uniting the forces of good for a common goal.
They won. We hesitate.
They took their responsibility. We delegate it.
They built unity. We build pretexts. The truth is brutal:
Haiti lacks neither resources, nor potential, nor genius. Haiti lacks collective courage. And that is why we now accept collapse as an inevitability. And as long as we have not rediscovered this courage, the courage to say NO, and a categorical NO, to fragmentation, to dependence, to political effacement, to corruption, to betrayal, and to bad governance, no reform, no agreement will make sense. Vertières judges us every year, every November 18. How long will we look away instead of proving ourselves worthy of our history and the work our ancestors began? Pierre Josué Agénor Cadet
