ABSTRACT
The construction of national memory centred around the annual commemoration of the declaration of Haitian Independence on 1 January 1804 is the subject of this chapter, which considers the central role played in Haitian political life and public memory of the Fête Nationale. From the early years of Haitian political life, which saw five-day Independence festivities held in January 1806, to the present-day relevance of the 1 January Fête Nationale, the chapter examines the place of this recurrent event in the nation’s collective consciousness and the emergent vision of the key significance of the Haitian revolution (1791–1804) that it has conveyed and helped shape. I focus particularly on the key decade of the 1840s, which saw both a new political revolutionary movement emerge and major changes transform the ways in which the original revolution was remembered in Haiti.
