The Haitian flag was born by tearing white from the French tricolor

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

• XREF: A striking symbolic moment in the narrative arc — the founding national symbol as an act of excision — relevant to the reader’s understanding of how the revolution declared its independence of French identity.
• CANDY: The vivid image of Dessalines tearing the white stripe out of the tricolor is an instantly shareable origin story for Haiti’s flag.