The Hatian Revolution
Part of the French Revolutionary Wars
Battle on Santo Domingo., a painting by January Suchodolski depicting a struggle between Polish troops in French service and the Haitian rebels
Date 14 August 1791 – 1 January 1804 Location Saint-Domingue Result Haitian victory Territorial changes Expulsion of the French colonial government. Establishment of the independent Republic of Haiti.
Belligerents
Haiti Great Britain (1793–1798) Spain (1793–1795) French royalists	French First Republic Polish Legions
Commanders and leaders
Toussaint L'Ouverture Jean-Jacques Dessalines	Napoleon Bonaparte Charles Leclerc Vicomte de Rochambeau
Strength
Regular army: <55,000, Volunteers: <100,000	Regular army: 60,000, 86 warships and frigates
Casualties and losses
Military deaths: unknown Civilian deaths: 100,000	Military deaths: 37,000 combat deaths 20,000 yellow fever deaths Civilian deaths: ~25,000

History of Haiti
This article is part of a series
Chronology
Early history
Saint-Domingue
Haitian Revolution
Imperial era
Republican era
U.S. occupation and Duvalier regime
Post-Duvalier era
Post-quake era
Topics
U.S. occupation
2004 coup d'état
2010 earthquake
Timeline
Military history
Haiti Portal v t e

Battle at "Snake Gully" in 1802.

Battle of Vertières in 1803.

The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) was a slave revolt in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian republic. The Haitian Revolution was the only slave revolt which led to the founding of a state. The revolution was one of the two successful attempts, along with the American Revolution, to achieve permanent independence from a European colonial power for an American state before the 19th century. Furthermore it is generally considered the most successful slave rebellion ever to have occurred in the Americas and as a defining moment in the history of Africans in the New World.

Although an independent government was created in Haiti, its society continued to be deeply affected by the patterns established under French colonial rule. The French established a system of minority rule over the illiterate poor by using violence and threats.^{[citation needed]} Because many planters had provided for their mixed-race children by African women by giving them education and (for men) training and entrée into the French military, the mulatto descendants became the elite in Haiti after the revolution. By the time of war, many had used their social capital to acquire wealth, and some already owned land. Some had identified more with the French colonists than the slaves, and associated within their own circles.^{[citation needed]}

Their domination of politics and economics after the revolution created another two-caste society, as most Haitians were rural subsistence farmers.^[1] In addition, the nascent state's future was practically "mortgaged" to French banks in the 1820s,^{[weasel words]} as it was forced to make massive reparations to French slaveholders in order to receive French recognition and end the nation's political and economic isolation.^[2] These payments may have permanently affected Haiti's economy and wealth.

The riches of the Caribbean depended on Europeans' taste for sugar, which plantation owners traded for provisions from North America and manufactured goods from European countries. The island also had extensive coffee, cocoa, indigo, and cotton plantations, but these were smaller and less profitable than the wealthy sugar plantations.^[3] Starting in the 1730s, French engineers constructed complex irrigation systems to increase sugarcane production. By the 1740s Saint-Domingue, together with Jamaica, had become the main supplier of the world's sugar. Sugar production depended on extensive manual labor provided by enslaved Africans in the harsh Saint-Domingue colonial plantation economy. The white planters who derived their wealth from the sale of sugar knew they were outnumbered by slaves by a factor of more than ten; they lived in fear of slave rebellion.^[4] White masters extensively used the threat of physical violence to maintain control and limit this possibility for slave rebellion. When slaves attempted to assert power through leaving the plantations or disobeying their masters, they were subjected to this violence in the form of whippings, which were a personal lesson and a warning for other slaves, and more extreme torture such as castration or burning. Louis XIV, the French King, passed the Code Noir in 1685 in an attempt to regulate such violence and the treatment of slaves in general in the colony, but masters openly and consistently broke the code, and local legislations reversed parts of it throughout the 18th century.^[5]

In 1758, the white landowners began passing legislation that set restrictions on the rights of other groups of people until a rigid caste system was defined. Most historians have classified the people of the era into three groups. One was the white colonists, or blancs. A second was the free blacks (usually mixed-race, known as mulattoes or gens de couleur libres, free people of color). These tended to be educated, literate and often served in the army or as administrators on plantations. Many were children of white planters and enslaved mothers. The males often received education or artisan training, sometimes received property from their fathers, and freedom. The third group, outnumbering the others by a ratio of ten to one, was made up of mostly African-born slaves. A high rate of mortality among them meant that planters continually had to import new slaves. This kept their culture more African and separate from other people on the island. Many plantations had large concentrations of slaves from a particular region of Africa, and it was therefore somewhat easier for these groups to maintain elements of their culture, religion, and language. This also separated new slaves from Africa from creoles (slaves born in the colony), who already had kin networks and often had more prestigious roles on plantations and more opportunities for emancipation.^[5] Most slaves spoke a patois of French and West African languages known as Creole, which was also used by native mulattoes and whites for communication with the workers.^[6]

White colonists and black slaves frequently had violent conflicts.^{[citation needed]} Much of these conflicts surrounded the slaves who were able to escape the plantations. Many of these runaway slaves, called maroons, lived on the margins of large plantations and lived off what they could steal from their previous masters. Others ran away to towns, where they could blend in with urban slaves and the freed slaves who often concentrated in those areas. If caught, these runaway slaves would be severely and violently punished. However, some masters tolerated "petit marronages", or short-term absences from plantations.^[5] Often, however, larger groups of runaway slaves lived in the woods away from control. They often conducted violent raids on the island's sugar and coffee plantations. Although the numbers in these bands grew large (sometimes into the thousands), they generally lacked the leadership and strategy to accomplish large-scale objectives. The first effective maroon leader to emerge was the charismatic François Mackandal, who succeeded in unifying the black resistance. A Vodou priest, Mackandal inspired his people by drawing on African traditions and religions. He united the maroon bands and also established a network of secret organizations among plantation slaves, leading a rebellion from 1751 through 1757. Although Mackandal was captured by the French and burned at the stake in 1758, large armed maroon bands persisted in raids and harassment after his death.^[4][7]

Situation in 1789[link]

In 1789 Saint-Domingue produced 60 percent of the world's coffee and 40 percent of the world's sugar imported by France and Britain. The colony was the most profitable possession of the French Empire. Saint-Domingue was also the wealthiest and most prosperous, for the plantation owners at least, of all of the colonies of any country in the Caribbean. In 1789, whites numbered 40,000; mulattoes and free blacks, 28,000; and black slaves, an estimated 452,000.^[8] The lowest class of society was enslaved blacks, who outnumbered whites and free people of color by ten to one.^[4] The slave population on the island totaled almost half of the one million slaves in the Caribbean by 1789.^[9] They were mostly African-born. The death rate in the Caribbean exceeded the birth rate, so imports of enslaved Africans were necessary in order to maintain the numbers required to work the plantations. The slave population declined at an annual rate of two to five percent, due to overwork; inadequate food, shelter, clothing and medical care; and an imbalance between the sexes, with more men than women.^[10] Some slaves were of a creole elite class of urban slaves and domestics, who worked as cooks, personal servants and artisans around the plantation house. This relatively privileged class was chiefly born in the Americas, while the under-class born in Africa labored hard, more often than not, under abusive and brutal conditions.

The Plaine du Nord on the northern shore of Saint-Domingue was the most fertile area with the largest sugar plantations. It was the area of most economic importance, especially as most of the colony's trade went through these ports. The largest and busiest port was Le Cap Français, the capital of French Saint-Domingue until 1751, when Port-au-Prince was made the capital.^[11] In this northern region, enslaved Africans lived in large groups of workers in relative isolation, separated from the rest of the colony by the high mountain range known as the Massif. These slaves would join with urban slaves from Le Cap to lead the 1791 rebellion, which began in this region. This area was the seat of power of the grands blancs, the rich white colonists who wanted greater autonomy for the colony, especially economically.^[12]

Among Saint-Domingue's 40,000 white colonials in 1789, European-born Frenchmen monopolized administrative posts. The sugar planters, the grands blancs, were chiefly minor aristocrats. Most returned to France as soon as possible, hoping to avoid the dreaded yellow fever, which regularly swept the colony.^[13] The lower-class whites, petits blancs, included artisans, shopkeepers, slave dealers, overseers, and day laborers. Saint-Domingue's free people of color, the gens de couleur, numbered more than 28,000 by 1789. Around that time, colonial legislations, concerned with this growing and strengthening population, passed discriminatory laws that visibly differentiated these freedman by dictating their clothing and where they could live. These laws also barred them from occupying many public offices.^[3] Many of these freedman were also artisans and overseers, or domestic servants in the big houses.^[14] Le Cap had a large population of freed slaves, and these men would later become important leaders in the 1791 slave rebellion and later revolution.^[11]

In addition to class and racial tension between whites, free people of color, and enslaved blacks, the country was polarized by regional rivalries between the North, South, and West.^{[citation needed]} The North was the center of shipping and trading, and therefore had the largest French elite population. The Western Province, however, grew significantly after the capital was relocated to Port-au-Prince in 1751, and the region became increasingly wealthy in the second half of the 18th century when irrigation projects allowed significant sugar plantation growth.^{[citation needed]} The Southern Province lagged in population and wealth because it was geographically separated from the rest of the colony. However, this isolation allowed freed slaves to find profit in trade with British Jamaica, and they gained power and wealth here.^[11] In addition to such regional tension, there were conflicts between proponents of independence, those loyal to France, allies of Spain, and allies of Great Britain – who coveted control of the valuable colony.

Impact of French Revolution[link]

In France, the majority of the Estates General, an advisory body to the King, constituted itself as the National Assembly, made radical changes in French laws, and on 26 August 1789, published the Declaration of the Rights of Man, declaring all men free and equal. The French Revolution shaped the course of the conflict in Saint-Domingue and was at first widely welcomed in the island. At first, wealthy whites saw it as an opportunity to gain independence from France, which would allow elite plantation-owners to take control of the island and create trade regulations that would further their own wealth and power.^[3] So many were the twists and turns in the leadership in France, and so complex were events in Saint-Domingue, that various classes and parties changed their alignments many times.^{[citation needed]} However, the Haitian Revolution quickly became a test of the ideology of the French Revolution, as it radicalized the slavery question and forced French leaders to recognize the full meaning of their revolution.^[15]

The African population on the island began to hear of the agitation for independence by the rich European planters, the grands blancs, who had resented France's limitations on the island's foreign trade. The Africans mostly allied with the royalists and the British, as they understood that if Saint-Domingue's independence were to be led by white slave masters, it would probably mean even harsher treatment and increased injustice for the African population. The plantation owners would be free to operate slavery as they pleased without minimal accountability to their French peers.^[12]

Saint-Domingue's free people of color, most notably Julien Raimond, had been actively appealing to France for full civil equality with whites since the 1780s. Raimond used the French Revolution to make this the major colonial issue before the National Assembly of France. In October 1790, Vincent Ogé, another wealthy free man of color from the colony, returned home from Paris, where he had been working with Raimond.^{[citation needed]} Convinced that a law passed by the French Constituent Assembly gave full civil rights to wealthy men of color, Ogé demanded the right to vote. When the colonial governor refused, Ogé led a brief insurgency in the area around Cap Français. He was captured in early 1791, and brutally executed by being "broken on the wheel" before being beheaded.^[7] Ogé was not fighting against slavery, but his treatment was cited by later slave rebels as one of the factors in their decision to rise up in August 1791 and resist treaties with the colonists. The conflict up to this point was between factions of whites, and between whites and free coloreds. Enslaved blacks watched from the sidelines.^[4]

Leading 18th-century French writer Count Mirabeau had once said the Saint-Domingue whites "slept at the foot of Vesuvius",^[17] an indication of the grave threat they faced should the majority of slaves launch a sustained major uprising.

1791 slave rebellion[link]

Part of a series of articles on...

c. 1570 Gaspar Yanga's Revolt (Veracruz, Victorious) 1712 New York Slave Revolt (New York City, Suppressed) 1733 St. John Slave Revolt (Saint John, Suppressed) 1739 Stono Rebellion (South Carolina, Suppressed) 1741 New York Conspiracy (New York City, Suppressed) 1760 Tacky's War (Jamaica, Suppressed) 1767 Battle of the Lord Ligonier (Atlantic Ocean, Suppressed) 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution (Saint-Domingue, Victorious) 1800 Gabriel Prosser (Virginia, Suppressed) 1805 Chatham Manor (Virginia, Suppressed) 1811 German Coast Uprising (Territory of Orleans, Suppressed) 1815 George Boxley (Virginia, Suppressed) 1822 Denmark Vesey (South Carolina, Suppressed) 1831 Nat Turner's rebellion (Virginia, Suppressed) 1831–1832 Baptist War (Jamaica, Suppressed) 1839 Amistad, ship rebellion (Off the Cuban coast, Victorious) 1841 Creole, ship rebellion (Off the Southern U.S. coast, Victorious) 1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation (Southern U.S., Suppressed) 1859 John Brown's Raid (Virginia, Suppressed) This box: view talk edit

Guillaume Raynal attacked slavery in the 1780 edition of his history of European colonization. He also predicted a general slave revolt in the colonies, saying that there were signs of "the impending storm".^[18] One such sign was the action of the French revolutionary government to grant citizenship to wealthy free people of color in May 1791. Because white plantation owners refused to comply with this decision, within two months isolated fighting broke out between the former slaves and the whites. This added to the tense climate between slaves and grands blancs.^[19]

Raynal's prediction came true on the night of 21 August 1791, when the slaves of Saint Domingue rose in revolt and plunged the colony into civil war. The signal to begin the revolt was given by Dutty Boukman, a high priest of vodou and leader of the Maroon slaves, during a religious ceremony at Bois Caïman on the night of 14 August.^[20] Within the next ten days, slaves had taken control of the entire Northern Province in an unprecedented slave revolt. Whites kept control of only a few isolated, fortified camps. The slaves sought revenge on their masters through "pillage, rape, torture, mutilation, and death".^[21] Because the plantation owners had long feared such a revolt, they were well armed and prepared to defend themselves. Nonetheless, within weeks, the number of slaves who joined the revolt reached some 100,000. Within the next two months, as the violence escalated, the slaves killed 4,000 whites and burned or destroyed 180 sugar plantations and hundreds of coffee and indigo plantations.^[21]

A slave rebellion of 1791

By 1792, slaves controlled a third of the island. The success of the slave rebellion caused the newly elected Legislative Assembly in France to realize it was facing an ominous situation. To protect France's economic interests, the Assembly granted civil and political rights to free men of color in the colonies^{[citation needed]} in March 1792.^[21] Countries throughout Europe as well as the United States were shocked by the decision, but the Assembly was determined to stop the revolt. Apart from granting rights to the free people of color, the Assembly dispatched 6,000 French soldiers to the island.^[22]

Meanwhile, in 1793, France declared war on Great Britain. The white planters in Saint Domingue made agreements with Great Britain to declare British sovereignty over the islands. Spain, who controlled the rest of the island of Hispaniola, would also join the conflict and fight with Great Britain against France. The Spanish forces invaded Saint Domingue and were joined by the slave forces. By August 1793, there were only 3,500 French soldiers on the island. To prevent military disaster, the French commissioner Sonthonax freed the slaves in his jurisdiction.

The decision was confirmed and extended by the National Convention, the first elected Assembly of the First Republic (1792–1804), on the 4th of February 1794, under the leadership of Maximilien Robespierre. It abolished slavery by law in France and all its colonies and granted civil and political rights to all black men in the colonies. Despite racial tensions in Saint Domingue, the French revolutionary government at the time welcomed abolition with a show of idealism and optimism. The emancipation of slaves was viewed as an example of liberty for other countries, much as the American Revolution was meant to serve as the first of many liberation movements. Danton, one of the Frenchmen present at the meeting of the National Convention, expressed this sentiment:

"representatives of the French people, until now our decrees of liberty have been selfish, and only for ourselves. But today we proclaim it to the universe, and generations to come will glory in this decree; we are proclaiming universal liberty...We are working for future generations; let us launch liberty into the colonies; the English are dead, today."^[23]

In nationalistic terms, the abolition of slavery also served as a moral triumph of France over England as seen in the latter half of the above quote. Yet the abolition of slavery did not allow for independence and did not prevent Toussaint L'Ouverture from joining the Spanish army working towards the greater goal of a sovereign Haitian state.

It has recently been estimated that the slave rebellion resulted in the death of 350,000 Haitians and 50,000 European troops.^[24] According to the Encyclopedia of African American Politics, "Between 1791 and independence in 1804 nearly 200,000 blacks died, as did thousands of mulattoes and as many as 100,000 French and British soldiers."^[25]

The author Thomas Carlyle described these events dramatically:

"[describes disorders and shortages in France] ... not so much as Sugar can be had; for good reasons ... With factions, suspicions, want of bread and sugar, it is verily what they call déchiré, torn asunder this poor country: France and all that is French. For, over seas too come bad news. In black Saint-Domingo, before that variegated Glitter in the Champs Elysées was lit for an Accepted Constitution, there had risen, and was burning contemporary with it, quite another variegated Glitter and nocturnal Fulgor, had we known it: of molasses and ardent-spirits; of sugar-boileries, plantations, furniture, cattle and men: skyhigh; the Plain of Cap Français one huge whirl of smoke and flame! What a change here, in these two years; since that first 'Box of Tricolor Cockades' got through the Custom-house, and atrabiliar Creoles too rejoiced that there was a levelling of Bastilles! Levelling is comfortable, as we often say: levelling, yet only down to oneself. Your pale-white Creoles, have their grievances: – and your yellow Quarteroons? And your dark-yellow Mulattoes? And your Slaves soot-black? Quarteroon Ogé, Friend of our Parisian Brissotin Friends of the Blacks, felt, for his share too, that Insurrection was the most sacred of duties. So the tricolor Cockades had fluttered and swashed only some three months on the Creole hat, when Ogé's signal-conflagrations went aloft; with the voice of rage and terror. Repressed, doomed to die, he took black powder or seedgrains in the hollow of his hand, this Ogé; sprinkled a film of white ones on the top, and said to his Judges, "Behold they are white;" – then shook his hand, and said "Where are the Whites, Ou sont les Blancs?" ... Before the fire was an insurrection by the oppressed mixed-race minority. So now, in the Autumn of 1791, looking from the sky-windows of Cap Français, thick clouds of smoke girdle our horizon, smoke in the day, in the night fire; preceded by fugitive shrieking white women, by Terror and Rumour. ..."^[26]

Leadership of L'Ouverture[link]

General Toussaint L'Ouverture.

One of the most successful black commanders was Toussaint L'Ouverture, a self-educated former domestic slave. Like Jean François and Biassou, he initially fought for the Spanish crown in this period. After the British had invaded Saint-Domingue, L'Ouverture decided to fight for the French if they would agree to free all the slaves. Sonthonax had proclaimed an end to slavery on 29 August 1793. L'Ouverture worked with a French general, Étienne Laveaux, to ensure that all slaves would be freed. He brought his forces over to the French side in May 1794 and began to fight for the French Republic. Many enslaved Africans were attracted to Toussaint's forces. He insisted on discipline and forbade wholesale slaughter.

Under the military leadership of Toussaint, the forces made up mostly of former slaves succeeded in winning concessions from the British and expelling the Spanish forces. In the end, Toussaint essentially restored control of Saint-Domingue to France. L'Ouverture was very intelligent, organized and well-spoken.^{[citation needed]} Having made himself master of the island, however, Toussaint did not wish to surrender too much power to France. He began to rule the country as an effectively autonomous entity. L'Ouverture overcame a succession of local rivals (including the Commissioner Sonthonaxa, a French white man who gained support from many Haitians, angering Toussaint; André Rigaud, a free man of color who fought to keep control of the South; and Comte d'Hédouville). Hédouville forced a fatal wedge between Rigaud and Toussaint before he escaped to France.^[27] Toussaint defeated a British expeditionary force in 1798. In addition, he led an invasion of neighboring Santo Domingo (December 1800), and freed the slaves there on January 3, 1801.

In 1801, L'Ouverture issued a constitution for Saint-Domingue which provided for autonomy and decreed that he would be governor-for-life, calling for black autonomy and a sovereign black state. In response, Napoleon Bonaparte dispatched a large expeditionary force of French soldiers and warships to the island, led by Bonaparte's brother-in-law Charles Leclerc, to restore French rule. They were under secret instructions to restore slavery, at least in the formerly Spanish-held part of the island.^[28] The numerous French soldiers were accompanied by mulatto troops led by Alexandre Pétion and André Rigaud, mulatto leaders who had been defeated by Toussaint three years earlier. During the struggles, some of Toussaint's closest allies, including Jean-Jacques Dessalines, defected to Leclerc.

L'Ouverture was promised his freedom if he agreed to integrate his remaining troops into the French army. L'Ouverture agreed to this in May 1802. He was later deceived, seized by the French and shipped to France. He died months later in prison at Fort-de-Joux in the Jura region.^[7]

Resistance to slavery[link]

Jean Jacques Dessalines

For a few months, the island was quiet under Napoleonic rule. But when it became apparent that the French intended to re-establish slavery (because they had nearly done so on Guadeloupe), black cultivators revolted in the summer of 1802. Dessalines and Pétion remained allied with France until they switched sides again, in October 1802, and fought against the French. In November Leclerc died of yellow fever, like much of his army.^[7][29]

His successor, the Vicomte de Rochambeau, fought an even more brutal campaign. His atrocities helped rally many former French loyalists to the rebel cause. The French were further weakened by a British naval blockade, and by Napoleon's inability to send the requested massive reinforcements after war with England resumed in the spring of 1803. Having sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States in April 1803, Napoleon began to lose interest in his failing ventures in the Western Hemisphere. Dessalines led the rebellion until its completion, when the French forces were finally defeated in 1803.^[7]

The last battle of the Haitian Revolution, the Battle of Vertières, occurred on 18 November 1803, near Cap-Haïtien. It was fought between Haitian rebels led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the French colonial army under the Viscount of Rochambeau. On January 1, 1804, from the city of Gonaïves, Dessalines officially declared the former colony's independence, renaming it "Haiti" after the indigenous Arawak name. Although he lasted from 1804–1806 several changes began taking place in Haiti. Transnationals became the backbone of Haitian identity as the territory's social structure changed becoming once again an agricultural society in a state of semi-serfdom. A tiny minority of state officials and civil servants were employed, who were exempt from manual labor, included many freed colored Haitians. This major loss was a decisive blow to France and its colonial empire.

Free republic[link]

On 1 January 1804, Dessalines, the new leader under the dictatorial 1801 constitution, declared Haiti a free republic in the name of the Haitian people,^[30] which was followed by the massacre of the remaining whites.^[31] Dessalines' secretary Boisrond-Tonnerre stated, "For our declaration of independence, we should have the skin of a white man for parchment, his skull for an inkwell, his blood for ink, and a bayonet for a pen!"^[32] Haiti was the first independent nation in Latin America, the first post-colonial independent black-led nation in the world, and the only nation whose independence was gained as part of a successful slave rebellion. The country was crippled by years of war, its agriculture devastated, its formal commerce nonexistent.^[33][1] The Army then became regiments of disciplined agricultural laborers, as the construction of military fortifications for defense purposes were built, like the Citadelle Laferrière. There was a sense of overmilitarization of the state as 10 % of the male population were subjected to conscription.