An outline, era by era

Haitian Revolution begins (1791)

Early Modern Era · ~1500 – ~1800

The Haitian Revolution began in August 1791 in Saint-Domingue, the French colony that occupies the western third of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. It was then the richest colony in the world, built on sugar and coffee grown by roughly half a million enslaved people. In the night of 22 to 23 August 1791, enslaved people in the northern plain rose in revolt, burning plantations and fighting colonial forces.

The uprising grew into a thirteen-year war involving enslaved people, free people of colour, white colonists, and the armies of France, Spain and Britain. It ended slavery in the colony, and on 1 January 1804 the leaders declared the independent state of Haiti. It was the only successful slave revolt in history to found a lasting nation. Its effects were felt across the Atlantic world, in debates over slavery, race, empire and the meaning of the rights proclaimed in the French Revolution.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. The slave economy of Saint-Domingue

    Event

    What happened

    Through the eighteenth century, French planters turn Saint-Domingue into the largest sugar and coffee producer in the world. By 1789 the colony holds several hundred thousand enslaved people, most of them born in Africa and brought in by the slave trade, alongside tens of thousands of white colonists and free people of colour. Mortality on the plantations is so high that the planters keep buying new captives.

    The rest is history

    The numbers made the colony both rich and fragile. The enslaved majority greatly outnumbered the free population, and many had been soldiers or leaders in Africa. Historians widely see this demographic and economic structure as a key condition for the revolt of 1791, though not its only cause. By the late 1780s the colony was importing tens of thousands of captives a year.

    Sources

    1. BookDubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
    2. BookJames, C. L. R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. London: Secker and Warburg, 1938.

  2. The Code Noir

    Event

    What happened

    In 1685 Louis XIV issues the Code Noir, a royal edict governing slavery in the French colonies. It sets out the legal status of enslaved people, requires their baptism as Catholics, and permits harsh punishments. It also allows masters to free enslaved people, which over time helps create a class of free people of colour.

    The rest is history

    The code gave slavery a legal framework that lasted until the Revolution. In practice its few protections were widely ignored by planters. The free people of colour who grew from this system later became a political force, and their demands for equal rights helped open the crisis in the 1790s. The Code Noir stayed formally in force until the abolition of slavery in 1794.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryEdit du Roi touchant la police des esclaves negres des isles de l'Amerique (Code Noir). French royal edict, March 1685.
    2. BookGarrigus, John D. Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

  3. The French Revolution reaches the colony

    Event

    What happened

    In August 1789 the French National Assembly issues the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Colonial planters and free people of colour both press for representation, and the question of who counts as a citizen splits the colony. In October 1790 Vincent Ogé, a wealthy free man of colour, leads a small armed rising for equal rights and is captured and executed in early 1791.

    The rest is history

    The quarrels among white colonists, royalists and free people of colour weakened the colonial order and gave the enslaved an opening. Ogé's execution deepened the anger of the free people of colour. Historians generally agree that this political split shaped the timing of the great revolt in August 1791.

    Sources

    1. BookGarrigus, John D. Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
    2. BookPopkin, Jeremy D. A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

  4. The uprising of August 1791

    Event

    What happened

    On the night of 22 to 23 August 1791, enslaved people on plantations in the northern plain rise in revolt, setting cane fields and buildings alight. Within days thousands have joined, and the rebels control much of the plain around Le Cap. Leaders such as Boukman Dutty and Jeannot are named in early colonial accounts, and a planned meeting of leaders on 14 August is reported by contemporaries.

    The rest is history

    The revolt was not crushed, as earlier ones had been. Over the following months the rebels held large parts of the north, and the colonists could not retake them. Boukman was killed in November 1791. The uprising is marked as the start of the Haitian Revolution, and from it came the long war that ended slavery in the colony.

    Sources

    1. BookDubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
    2. BookFick, Carolyn E. The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990.

  5. The commissioners and the abolition of slavery

    Event

    What happened

    In 1793 France is at war with Spain and Britain, and the colony is divided and under attack. The French commissioner Léger-Félicité Sonthonax proclaims freedom for the enslaved in the north in August 1793, and the commissioner Étienne Polverel does the same in other provinces. On 4 February 1794 the National Convention in Paris abolishes slavery in all French territories.

    The rest is history

    Many rebel leaders, including Toussaint Louverture, who had earlier fought for Spain, then joined the French side. Abolition turned a revolt into a war to defend freedom inside the French republic. Toussaint rose to command the colony's forces and drove back the British and Spanish by the late 1790s.

    Sources

    1. BookPopkin, Jeremy D. A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
    2. BookGeggus, David Patrick. Haitian Revolutionary Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.

  6. Napoleon's expedition and independence

    Event

    What happened

    In 1802 Napoleon Bonaparte sends a large army under General Leclerc to reassert French control and, as many historians conclude, to restore slavery. Toussaint Louverture is seized and shipped to France, where he dies in the Fort de Joux in April 1803. Resistance continues under Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and yellow fever ravages the French troops.

    The rest is history

    The French were defeated at the battle of Vertières in November 1803 and left the island. On 1 January 1804 Dessalines declared independence and restored the indigenous name Haiti. The new state was not recognised by France until 1825, when it agreed to pay an indemnity, and the United States withheld recognition until 1862.

    Sources

    1. BookDubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
    2. BookGirard, Philippe R. The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian War of Independence, 1801-1804. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2011.

  7. The Bois Caïman ceremony

    Popular belief

    The legend

    On the night of 14 August 1791, in the woods at Bois Caïman, a Vodou priest named Boukman leads a ceremony. A priestess sacrifices a pig, and the gathered enslaved people swear an oath to rise against their masters. A voice is said to call on them to throw away the god of the whites and listen to liberty.

    The rest is history

    The idea that a Vodou ceremony launched the revolt is widely repeated in Haiti and beyond, and it has become a national symbol. The earliest detailed accounts, however, were written decades later, and the famous prayer appears in nineteenth-century versions. Contemporary sources do show that leaders met in August 1791 to plan the rising, and Boukman was one of them. Historians debate how much of the ceremony as told is documented and how much was added later.

    Sources

    1. BookGeggus, David Patrick. Haitian Revolutionary Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.Includes a study of the evidence for Bois Caïman.
    2. BookDubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.

  8. The pact with the devil

    Popular belief

    The legend

    It is often said that the Haitian revolutionaries made a pact with the devil at Bois Caïman, and that Haiti's later poverty is a result. This claim was repeated by some commentators, including a well-known American broadcaster in 2010 after the Haiti earthquake.

    The rest is history

    The claim has no historical basis. It grew out of European and American hostility to Vodou and to the Revolution, and was used in the nineteenth century to disparage Haiti. Haiti's economic troubles have well-documented causes. They include the 1825 indemnity of 150 million francs demanded by France, later reduced to 90 million, which took Haiti decades to pay and left it indebted to French banks, and the diplomatic isolation imposed by slaveholding powers.

    Sources

    1. BookDubois, Laurent. Haiti: The Aftershocks of History. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2012.
    2. BookTrouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995.

  9. Toussaint Louverture, the self-taught general

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    Toussaint Louverture is told of as a former coachman who rose from slavery to command armies and outwit European generals. He is said to have taken the name Louverture, 'the opening', because he could always find a gap in the enemy's lines.

    The rest is history

    Toussaint was born enslaved around 1743 and was freed before the revolt, working on the Bréda plantation. He was literate and a skilled organiser, and he rose to be governor of the colony. The origin of the name Louverture is not certain, and the explanation given is one of several. In 1801 he issued a constitution for the colony, and he died in a French prison in April 1803, months before the final French defeat.

    Sources

    1. BookBell, Madison Smartt. Toussaint Louverture: A Biography. New York: Pantheon Books, 2007.
    2. BookJames, C. L. R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. London: Secker and Warburg, 1938.

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