How Property Passes — Opening of Successions

Articles 382–391 — General Provisions and the Opening of Successions

Title XV is the longest and most intricate section of the Loi Civile. It governs what happens to a person's property when they die — a question that in Henry Christophe's kingdom carried extraordinary weight. For the first generation of free Black Haitians, the ability to pass property to their children was perhaps the most tangible proof that freedom was real and permanent.

General Provisions (Articles 382–385)

Article 382: The ways of acquiring property are: inheritance, inter vivos donations (gifts during life), testamentary donations (wills), obligations, accessions, and incorporations. All confer the quality of true owner.

Article 383: Property without an owner belongs to the King.

Article 384: Some things belong to no one and their use is common to all. Police laws regulate their enjoyment. Particular laws determine fishing and hunting rights.

Article 385: Treasure found on one's own land belongs to the finder. If found on another's land, half goes to the finder and half to the landowner — after the government's rights are paid. Anything hidden or buried, discovered by chance, and claimed by no one is defined as treasure.

Chapter I: Opening of Successions (Articles 386–391)

Article 386: A succession opens upon natural death.

Articles 387–389: When several persons who would inherit from one another die in the same event and the order of death cannot be determined, presumptions of survivorship apply based on age and sex:

• If all were under fifteen, the eldest is presumed to have survived
• If all were over sixty, the youngest is presumed to have survived
• If some were under fifteen and others over sixty, those under fifteen are presumed to have survived
• Between ages fifteen and sixty, the male is always presumed to have survived when ages are equal or differ by less than a year
• If the same sex, the younger is presumed to have survived

Article 390: The order of succession among legitimate heirs is regulated by law. Failing legitimate heirs, property passes to legally recognized natural children, or to the surviving spouse. Failing all of these, it passes to the King.

Article 391: The rights and actions of the deceased pass to the heirs, who are seized by right of his property, subject to paying the debts of the succession. Natural children, the surviving spouse, and the Crown must obtain judicial possession.

Why This Matters

The survivorship rules (Articles 387–389) reveal the practical realities of life in early 19th-century Haiti — where natural disasters, warfare, and disease could kill multiple family members simultaneously. The law needed a default rule for who inherited when the actual order of death was unknown. And Article 390's hierarchy — legitimate heirs first, then natural children, then the spouse, then the King — shows the Code's clear preference for keeping property within blood families.