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The slaves on the island revolted. French troops eventually left, and they declared their independence.

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What was the Haitian Revolution?

Why did the Haitian Revolution start?

How is the Haitian Revolution related to the French Revolution?

Who did the Haitian Revolution involve?

Why is the Haitian Revolution important?

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Haitian Revolution, series of conflicts between 1791 and 1804 between Haitian slaves, colonists, the armies of the British and French colonizers, and a number of other parties. Through the struggle, the Haitian people ultimately won independence from France and thereby became the first country to be founded by former slaves.

Colonial rule and slavery

The Spanish began to enslave the native Taino and Ciboney people soon after December 1492, when Italian navigator Christopher Columbus sighted the island that he called La Isla Española ("The Spanish Island"; later Anglicized as Hispaniola.) The island's indigenous population, forced to mine for gold, was devastated by European diseases and brutal working conditions, and by the end of the 16th century the people had virtually vanished. Thousands of slaves imported from other Caribbean islands met the same fate.

After the main gold mines were exhausted, the Spanish were succeeded by the French, who established their own permanent settlements, including Port-de-Paix (1665) in the northwest, and the French West Indies Corporation took control of the area. Landowners in western Hispaniola imported increasing numbers of African slaves, who totaled about 5,000 in the late 17th century. By 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution, the estimated population of Saint-Domingue, as the French called their colony, was 556,000 and included roughly 500,000 African slaves, 32,000 European colonists, and 24,000 affranchis (free mulattoes [people of mixed African and European descent] or blacks).

Haitian society was deeply fragmented by skin colour, class, and gender. The affranchis, most of them mulattoes, were sometimes slave owners themselves and aspired to the economic and social levels of the Europeans. They feared and spurned the slave majority but were generally discriminated against by the white European colonists, who were merchants, landowners, overseers, craftsmen, and the like. The aspirations of the affranchis became a major factor in the colony's struggle for independence. A large part of the slave population was African-born, from a number of West African peoples. The vast majority worked in the fields; others were household servants, boilermen (at the sugar mills), and even slave drivers. Slaves endured long, backbreaking workdays and often died from injuries, infections, and tropical diseases. Malnutrition and starvation also were common. Some slaves managed to escape into the mountainous interior, where they became known as Maroons and fought guerrilla battles against colonial militia.

Factional conflict and the rise of Toussaint Louverture

Against this background arose a revolution, beginning as a series of conflicts from the early 1790s. Among the causes of the conflicts were the affranchis' frustrations with a racist society, turmoil created in the colony by the French Revolution, nationalistic rhetoric expressed during Vodou ceremonies, the continuing brutality of slave owners, and wars between European powers. Vincent Ogé, a mulatto who had lobbied the Parisian assembly for colonial reforms, led an uprising in late 1790 but was captured, tortured, and executed.

In May 1791 the French revolutionary government granted citizenship to the wealthier affranchis, but Haiti's European population disregarded the law. Within two months isolated fighting broke out between Europeans and affranchis, and in August thousands of slaves rose in rebellion. The Europeans attempted to appease the mulattoes in order to quell the slave revolt, and the French assembly granted citizenship to all affranchis in April 1792. The country was torn by rival factions, some of which were supported by Spanish colonists in Santo Domingo (on the eastern side of the island, which later became the Dominican Republic) or by British troops from Jamaica. In 1793 a commissioner, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, was sent from France to maintain order and offered freedom to slaves who joined his army; he soon abolished slavery altogether, a decision confirmed the following year by the French government.

In the late 1790s Toussaint Louverture, a military leader and former slave, gained control of several areas and earned the initial support of French agents. He gave nominal allegiance to France while pursuing his own political and military designs, which included negotiating with the British. In January 1801 Toussaint conquered Santo Domingo, and in May of that year, he had himself named "governor-general for life." He put the peasants back to work on the plantations under military rule and encouraged many of the French proprietors to return. In December 1801 Napoléon Bonaparte (later Napoleon I), wishing to maintain control of the island, attempted to restore the old regime (and European rule) by sending his brother-in-law, Gen. Charles Leclerc, with an experienced force from Saint-Domingue that included Alexandre Sabès Pétion and several other exiled mulatto officers. Toussaint struggled for several months against Leclerc's forces before agreeing to an armistice in May 1802; however, the French broke the agreement and imprisoned him in France. He died on April 7, 1803.

Independent Haiti

Some of Toussaint's lieutenants-most notably Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henry Christophe- resumed the war against the French in 1802. They were soon joined by Pétion and other mulatto leaders, who were infuriated by the restoration of the restrictions on their caste. Both the blacks and the mulattoes were enraged by reports that France had reestablished slavery in Guadeloupe and Martinique, and the struggle was carried on with great desperation. The French were weakened by an epidemic of yellow fever-Leclerc succumbed to the disease in November 1802-and the conclusion of the Louisiana Purchase in May 1803 signaled Napoleon's intention to withdraw from North America. Less than three weeks later, the French position in Haiti became truly hopeless with the renewal of hostilities between France and Britain on May 18, 1803.

On November 18 the Armée indigène (French: "Indigenous Army") under Dessalines defeated the French at the Battle of Vertières, and French Gen. Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, surrendered Cap-Français (now Cap-Haïtien), the last significant French stronghold. Under the terms of the surrender, the French were given 10 days to evacuate, but Rochambeau showed no haste in embarking his troops. Dessalines responded by threatening to turn his cannons on the French ships at anchor in Cap-Français harbour. Ironically, it would fall to the Royal Navy, which had been blockading Saint-Domingue since the resumption of the Napoleonic Wars, to carry out the evacuation. British Capt. John Bligh treated with both Rochambeau and Dessalines, and the French garrison finally departed Cap-Français as British prisoners. While this marked the end of French military action on Haiti, France continued to maintain a presence in the eastern part of the island until 1809.

On January 1, 1804, the entire island was declared independent under the Arawak-derived name of Haiti. Many European powers and their Caribbean surrogates ostracized Haiti, fearing the spread of slave revolts, whereas reaction in the United States was mixed; slave-owning states did all they could to suppress news of the rebellion, but merchants in the free states hoped to trade with Haiti rather than with European powers. More important, nearly the entire population was utterly destitute-a legacy of slavery that has continued to have a profound impact on Haitian history.

In October 1804 Dessalines assumed the title of Emperor Jacques I, but in October 1806 he was killed while trying to suppress a mulatto revolt, and Henry Christophe took control of the kingdom from his capital in the north. Civil war then broke out between Christophe and Sabès Pétion, who was based at Port-au-Prince in the south. Christophe, who declared himself King Henry I in 1811, managed to improve the country's economy but at the cost of forcing former slaves to return to work on the plantations. He built a spectacular palace (Sans Souci) as well as an imposing fortress (La Citadelle Laferrière) in the hills to the south of the city of Cap-Haïtien, where, with mutinous soldiers almost at his door, he committed suicide in 1820. It was not until 1825 that France recognized Haiti's independence, and then only in exchange for a large indemnity of 100 million francs, with a repayment period until 1887.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Michael Ray.

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Haitian Revolution | Causes, Summary, & Facts

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Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), series of conflicts between Haitian slaves, colonists, the armies of the British and French colonizers, and a number of other parties. Through the struggle, the Haitian people ultimately won independence from France and thereby became the first country to be founded by former slaves.

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Haiti was originally a slave colony. The slaves revolted, and gradually gained independence.

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22nd August 1791: Start of the Haitian Revolution in the French colony of Saint-Domingue

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After many years of being ruled, the Brazilians were growing sick of it. The King's son lead the people, and they peacefully separated.

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Royals moved from Portugal to their colony, Brazil, to avoid Napoleon. They went to leave, and the King's son wished to make Brazil a separate country.

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Otto von Bismarck unified Germany. With Germany unified, balance in Europe was thrown away.

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Summary

Whereas Camillo di Cavour directed Italian unification, a Junker (the Prussian name for an aristocratic landowner from old Prussia in the east) named Otto von Bismarck pushed German unification through "blood and iron" and skillful understanding of realpolitik. As the map of central Europe stood in 1850, Prussia competed with Austria for dominance over a series of small principalities fiercely keen on maintaining their independence and distinctive characteristics. Prussia proper stretched from modern-day Lithuania to central Germany. Prussia also controlled the German lands around the Rhine River in the west. In between, from Denmark to Switzerland, lay small provinces that Bismarck needed to incorporate under the Prussian crown to create a viable German Empire.

In 1862, Bismarck reorganized the Prussian army and improved training in preparation for war. In 1864, he constructed an alliance with Austria to fight Denmark over Denmark's southern provinces of Schleiswig and Holstein. Prussia received Schleiswig while Austria administered Holstein. That situation, however, could not stand for long, as Austrian Holstein was now surrounded by Prussian lands. Bismarck provoked a conflict with Austria over an unrelated border dispute and in the subsequent Seven Weeks' War--named for its brevity--Prussia crushed the collapsing Austrian army. The peace settlement transferred Holstein to Prussia and forced Austria to officially remove itself from all German affairs.

With Austria out of Bismarck's way, his next obstacle was the skepticism of the southern provinces. Overwhelmingly Catholic and anti-militaristic, the southern provinces doubted Prussia's commitment to a united Germany of all provinces. Prussia's Protestantism and historic militarism made the gulf between north and south quite serious. Therefore, Bismarck turned to realpolitik to unite the Germanic provinces by constructing a war against a common enemy. In 1870, Bismarck forged a note from the French ambassador, implying that the ambassador had insulted the Prussian king. After he leaked this letter to both populations, the people of France and Prussia, roused by nationalist sentiment, rose up in favor of war. As Bismarck hoped, the southern provinces rallied to Prussia's side without any hesitation. In July 1870, France declared war on Prussia. Within a matter of weeks of fighting in Alsace-Lorraine, France lost this Franco-Prussian War. Alsace-Lorraine was transferred to Germany in the peace settlement, allowing Prussia to declare the German Empire, or Second Reich, on January 21, 1871.

Like Italy, Germany had quite a few serious issues to resolve once unification took place. Regional differences, developing since the first settlement of the Germanic tribes during the Roman Empire, were distinct, and local princes refused to give up substantial power to the central government. The Berlin assembly, therefore, was kept weak. Germany, like the United States under the Articles of the Confederation, seemed merely a loose of confederation of autonomous states. In Germany's case, one state, Prussia, was absolutely dominant due to its size, power, and military strength. This, combined with Bismarck's skillful conduct in international and national affairs as chancellor, kept the empire together until 1914.

However, the creation of a unified Germany in central Europe marked one of the greatest revolutions in the history of international relations. Since the establishment of nation-states in Europe, France, under the Valois-Bourbon royal line, dedicated its foreign policy to the weakening of Habsburg (Austrian and Spanish royal families) and the continued disunity of the Germanic provinces. Now that central Europe was united into two major powers--Germany and Italy--Europe was quite a different place. What would now become of the traditional balance of power in place since the defeat of Napoleon? The whole point had been that no one nation should gain excessive power and strength on the Continent. With the unification of Germany in central Europe--an essential economic and strategic region--was the balance of power doomed?

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Europe (1848-1871) quizzes about important details and events in every section of the book.

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Otto von Bismarck became Prime Minister, and united all german speaking areas. He did this through various wars.