Dessalines tore the white from the tricolor, declaring black-red unity

Evidence

In March an article published in Port-au-Prince noted that the rebels were still fighting under the French tricolor and that this was a sign that they wished “to remain French” and had no intention of “making the country independent from the metropole.” Pétion forwarded the article to Dessalines, who decided it was time to disabuse their enemies of such notions. He and his officers tore the white out of their French tricolor and sewed the blue and the red back together again. In 1793 the tricolor had been a symbol of the unity among whites, people of color, and blacks, all joined in defense of the Republic. The message of the new flag was clear: through their brutality, the French whites had forfeited their right to be included in the new political community being forged in the colony. Black and colored residents were united in opposition to the whites. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 1035

Categorization

• SEED: The flag ceremony as a political act of secession—literally tearing out whiteness—is a striking symbolic moment worth an essay on how flags encode and reject political membership.
• ADDENDUM: The flag detail echoes the article on trees-as-infrastructure analogically, but more directly parallels ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ in showing a single symbolic act carrying a full political redefinition.