The choice of the name Haïti, then, infused the declaration of independence with a broader historical significance. Haiti was to be the negation not only of French colonialism, but of the whole history of European empire in the Americas. The new nation was to channel the centuries of suffering of those pushed to the margins by the official activity of colonialism into a new political community meant to guarantee the eternal freedom of its scarred constituency.

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 438