Haitian Revolution

The Haitian Revolution was a revolt from 1791 to 1804 that ended French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue and established independent Haiti.

Saint-Domingue: The French colony on Hispaniola that became independent Haiti in 1804. Its plantations, racial hierarchy, and wealth made it the revolution’s central battleground.
Atlantic slave trade: The forced transportation of millions of Africans across the Atlantic for enslavement in the Americas. It supplied Saint-Domingue’s plantation economy with a large, violently exploited enslaved population.
Declaration of Independence of Haiti: The 1804 proclamation that declared the former French colony independent as Haiti. It formally established a state founded by people who had overthrown slavery and colonial rule.
American Revolution: The rebellion that established the United States’ independence from Great Britain between 1775 and 1783. Unlike the American revolt, Haiti’s revolution destroyed slavery and colonial rule together.
Bois Caïman: A gathering in Saint-Domingue traditionally associated with the uprising that began in August 1791. The gathering marks the uprising’s remembered beginnings and its links to African spiritual practice.
Plantation economy: An economic system based on large estates producing cash crops through coerced labor. Sugar and coffee profits depended on extreme violence and labor exploitation in Saint-Domingue.
Haiti: A Caribbean country occupying the western portion of Hispaniola, independent since 1804. The revolution created the first independent Black republic and ended French rule on the island.
Latin American wars of independence: The nineteenth-century conflicts that ended Spanish and Portuguese rule across much of Latin America. Most independence movements did not overthrow slavery as completely or as early as Haiti’s revolution.
Toussaint Louverture: A formerly enslaved leader who became the most influential military and political figure in Saint-Domingue before 1802. His forces defeated rivals and secured emancipation before French troops captured him.
Code Noir: A 1685 French royal edict regulating slavery and the status of Black people in French colonies. Colonial law institutionalized slavery while also defining limited rights for some free people of color.

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