18 NOVEMBRE 1803  -  VERTIERES

HAITI ARMED FORCES - LES FORCES ARMEES D'HAITI:

Click: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fuwlSHG9rE&feature=player_embedded#!  

    Click:  http://www.navyband.navy.mil/anthems/ANTHEMS/Haiti.mp3     

                                                                                  THE CRIES OF A NEGRO

                                                  

                                                          The sound of the conch shell resounds far away

                                                          from the lofty mountains of St.Domingue.

                                                          It is the time for me slave-beast to wake up in the morning.

                                    The French colon with his slashes in my back begins his shameful day.

 

                                                        Mother Africa won't never hear again about  me.

                                                        From Prince, son of Gaou-Guinou king of the Aradas

                                                        now I become nothing in this life in which the bwanas

                                                         my masters hold me prisoner in this land of misery.

                

                                                          I have no rights to complain even to look at them.

                                                         Their fiery eyes full with hatred and racism

                                                         don't give me the chance to cry of my pains and my sufferings.

                                                         Their cruelty , their thirst of my blood  are more than raging.


                                                         They don't care about my tears, my weaning.

                                                          They want me to produce and satisfy their bestial appetite 

                                                         because of  my ebony skin color of the night

                                                          that makes them blind against me in their  beatings.  


                                                         They become enraged  and always called me " Nigger ".

                                                         I am their thing, slave at their plantation.

                                                         I have no right to look at them as my masters.

                                                         They consider me an animal in their fields of tobaccos and cotton.

    

                                                         The sugar cane trails lays before me as my dwelling.

                                                         My black sweat under the harsh tropical sun

                                                          becomes my daily shower and my only consolation.

                                                         I  am considered as an animal being, as... nothing.

                                                          

                                                         The field is my bed and the stones are my pillows.

                                                         My hoe cries over the hard land like a cock that crows.

                                                         While almost suffocated from the odor of the tobacco plants

                                                         I can not stand anymore, I become like crazy of the scents.


                                                            I am drugged and ready to die.

                                                            I feel no sense of life in myself,

                                                           I feel disgusted  and  upset to death.

                                                          I am looking for a moment to take my revenge, try, try, try.

 

                                                         I witness the pains caused to my sisters, my brothers.

                                                        I can not look at their miserable living condition.

                                                         I want them to be like any human beings, like any others.

                                                        Nobody seems to listen to me and to my plea pays no attention.

                                                       

                                                       Poor slave as I am, I  can not shut up my big mouth.

                                                        I feel ready, yes ready without any doubt

                                                        to flee up to the mountains towards the woods

                                                        This time it will be for good.


                                                         My African blood heats up in my veins.

                                                          I become crazy.  The tam-tams noise resound in my ears.

                                                         My ancestors voices wake me up from my pains.

                                                          I flee up to the mountains of St.Domingue without fears. 

 

                                                        During the nights I come down from my hideout.

                                                        I face the dogs that are ready to eat my flesh.

                                                       I run all over my master's domain without any doubt, 

                                                       ready to steal machetes, guns and gain my liberty afresh.

                                   

                                                          I am waiting for a day to vomit my rancor.

                                                        I want to be slave of person.                                                

                                                       I want to organize the Revolution

                                                       I am praying and impatiently waiting for that hour.

 

                                                        One night I flee and  I become a Negro Maroon

                                                         hidden there under the water of the blue lagoon

                                                          having only for friends snakes and scorpions.

                                                          I am ready with my ancestors spirits as my companions.                                                                                                                                  

                                                       Ready to fight, ready to die in hands with the arrows

                                                        to pierce hearts, time of tears, time of sorrows,

                                                       as never seen in that ingrate America...

                                                      The wake up call for Ibo, Nago, Fang, Moundong, Caplaou's sons of Africa.

 

                                                       Three hundred years of beatings and martyrdom come to an end.

                                                       It is over for the rocking-chairs of  the masters to break up from their place.

                                                      In the heights of La Crete a Pierrot, of the Butte Charrier's in bands

                                                      up to the Mountains of VERTIERES  we will rise up in grace.

 

                                                     We will forge a Nation, a Nation for all enslaved Negroes.

                                                    St.Domingue will now become the Land of Freedom for all.

                                                    The slashes of our backs will hit the eardrums of  our foes.

                                                   La France will regret it, we will stand tall.

 

                                                  So are the oracles for the future HAITI

                                                  having its sons tortured for 300 years without mercy.

                                                  They have come into the New World in chains braving sea waves

                                                   under the worst unimaginable treatments as slaves.

                                                  

                                                 And the day will come,  the sea will vomit the bones of our dead.

                                                  Our voice will tenor up towards the four corners of the world

                                                   with Alleluias  of hope sang everywhere, all around, all abroad.

                                                  Our hearts will be at last relieved with no more crying high head.

                                                    

                                                  We will break up the gates of all hell to enter Heaven.

                                                  We will present ourselves before the  Almighty for a summit.

                                                 Humbly we will present to HIM our hidden plan

                                                 for eradicating the cancer of SLAVERY for ever until death.


                                                  The bell of deliverance will toll the last day of the Marseillaise.

                                                   Mulattoes, Indigenous, Blacks, all of us together

                                                   will rise up and we will be together at the rendez-vous without fears.

                                                  The fight will begin in pride and grandeur.                                                                                               

                                                                                        

                                               At that chosen day, November 18, 1803,

                                                the whole Saint Domingue will wake up and rejoice in victory.

                                                  The glares of the canons will resound  with their trails of lights

                                                   over the mountains and plains of  this Island in full fight.

 

                                                 Under the beams of the tropical sun and the moon,                                                        

                                                chests open holding high the Red and Blue Flag very soon

                                                challenging bullets and machine guns of the French.

                                                Like lions we will burst out from our holes and our trenches.

                                             

                                                We will make the whole West Indies trembled, shaken.

                                                We will shout "LIBERTY or DEATH" with no ranks broken.

                                               We will win the War of the Independence of  this country. 

                                               The whole universe will hail our epic  grandeur as MEN.


                                                Toussaint, Dessalines, Christophe, Petion, Capois will stand tall

                                                 opening the eternal breach of deliverance for us all.

                                                And their glory  will sound as a mighty thunder

                                               for all enslaved human beings for ever, for ever... 

                                               

                                             And,  it was so on that day January 1, 1804,

                                             They created for us a Black Republic in the realm of the Caribbean Sea

                                              in the heart of Americas with full grace and honor.

                                             They  gave it the former full Indian Name of HAITI.

                                                

                                             Goliath and all evil forces bowed down before them and surrendered.

                                             The great French Armada ran and fled for their life, humiliated.

                                            Napoleon Bonaparte was crushed and was no more the universe's Master.

                                            The world new map was changed by those  sublime fighters.


                                             They  have reversed the course of history on that year 1804.

                                             They won't be anymore tears in my eyes and of those Maroons.

                                              Heavens, earth will shine upon our heads with a new sun.

                                            We have created the first BLACK REPUBLIC of the world never seen before . 

                                                                                                                    Jean-Renaud Guillaume, JD, D.TH

Written for the children of Haiti and for all of human beings in thirst of Liberty and Freedom.

 

 

 

 

Listen to the voice at the bottom page for 1 minute 37 seconds and write at the top white space: "Haiti the first black independent nation". You'll be surprised.