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On this day, August 14, 1791, the Bois Caïman ceremony took place. Cécile Fatiman performed a ritual which invoked the spirit of war. Boukman Dutty compelled the attendees to “Throw away the image of the god of the whites,” to “Conquer or die,” and asserted that “God commands us to vengeance.” What followed was a revolutionary struggle that would result in the defeat of the French, Spanish, and English and the establishment of Haiti as an independent republic on January 1, 1804.
