Gonaïves

Gonaïves calls itself the city of independence because Jean-Jacques Dessalines stood on its Place d'Armes on the first of January 1804 and declared the colony of Saint-Domingue finished, making Haiti the first black republic in the world. A white obelisk with his figure at the foot of it marks the spot. Three of the country's most important vodou lakou stand just outside, Souvenance, Soukri Danache and Badjo, and thousands come out to them at Easter and again in August. The Artibonite rice plain begins south of the town and runs to the horizon. Hurricane Jeanne drowned much of the city in 2004 and Hanna did it again four years later.