Ordinance on Labor and Migration Restrictions (20 January 1804)

Issued twenty days after Haitian independence, this ordinance by Dessalines as Governor-General required plantation laborers — especially young Creole women who had fled to cities to work as market vendors — to obtain certificates of means before leaving agriculture. Discovered by Julia Gaffield in the same British archival collection as the Declaration broadside, it was accompanied by a companion ordinance cancelling all plantation leases on January 2. Together these two documents reveal Dessalines's twin priorities at independence: seize the land, then ensure the labor to work it.