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Haiti, previously known as St. Dominique, was once colonized under the French's control after the occurrence of the French Revolution. It became a very wealthy colony due to it's massive slave-based industries, along with it's large title of using slaves for everything.

A long battle was fought between 1791 and 1804 as the slaves began to revolt and rise against the people that had used them for so long.

Together, Spain, Britain, and France attempted to stop this uprising and hold onto the land that they believed they deserved.

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As the French began to place more and more taxes the lower classes got buried under and endless pile of debt and hardship.

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The colonial social and racial hierarchy was a very large problem when in Haiti. Many were hard slave workers who were treated poorly under the French's new control.

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Toussaint Louverture was a man who was keen on leading a slave revolt. Once a former military officer, now ready to lead people to freedom.

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Conflict arose in the St. Dominique colony as the slaves began to grow aggravated with the way they were being treated by the ones higher in the social hierarchy.

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The French began to colonize the Western Indies, upsetting those that lived among St. Dominique/Haiti.

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Haitians began to spread they idea of an uprising taking inspiration from the French revolution. Some slaves went on to gain citizenship letting them have more freedoms.

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The Haitian revolution

by Jennifer N. Heuer

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/portchester-castle/history-and-stories/the-haitian-revolution/

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The Haitian Revolution (c.1791-1804) was the first successful large-scale revolt by enslaved people in modern history, and it sent shockwaves through the Western colonial world. One of the places to feel the ripple effects of the uprising was Portchester Castle in Hampshire, England. Many of the prisoners of war who were sent there from the Caribbean in the late 18th and early 19th centuries may have been inspired by the events of Haiti, while others fought against the spirit of revolution.

In the autumn of 2021 a new play, The Ancestors, explored how the revolutionary events in Haiti and other Caribbean islands form part of Portchester's living history. To accompany the production, we examine the connections between Haiti and Portchester and a few of the key events and characters of the revolution.

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The Haitian Revolution | English Heritage

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In autumn 2021 a new play was performed at Porchester Castle that drew on the events of the Haitian Revolution. To accompany the production of 'The Ancestors', we examine the connections between Haiti and Portchester and a few of the key events and characters of the revolution.

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As the slaves of St. Dominique began to grow upset with their treatment, they began to revolt, which hurt the economy. As St. Dominique was so wealthy due to it's slave-based sugar and coffee industries

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The slaves of St. Dominique began to revolt, creating chaos and conflict in the colony. Many other colonies and countries began to join forces to stop the slaves.

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Former slave Toussaint Louverture lead became the leader of the revolt. He later went on to be their ruler.

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William Pitt and his "great push" brought 218 ships from Britain to help stop the slaves, even though his colony was suffering heavily from yellow fever.

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The Spanish, French, and British all came together to combat against the slavery revolt.

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Causes of the Haitian Revolution Video. “Causes of the Haitian Revolution | Study.com.” Study.com, 2020, study.com/academy/lesson/causes-of-the-haitian-revolution.html.

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After the slaves successful fight against the way they were treated, things began to slow down. The slaves began to gain control of St. Dominique.

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Haiti was split into northern and southern halves, and new rules were set into place to keep the independence of the colony.

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Toussaint Louverture lead on of the most successful slave uprisings is history. He gathered a groups of revolution slaves as planing many small revolts until they where eventually formed ally ship with Frances enemy's leading to war.

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How did Toussaint L'ouverture, born into bondage in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) and enslaved for more than half his life, come to lead the most successful slave revolt in history-and help precipitate the downfall of European colonialism in the western hemisphere?

Saint-Domingue in the late 18 th century thrived as the wealthiest colony in the Americas. Its sugar, coffee, indigo and cotton plantations minted money, fueled by a vast enslaved labor force. A French colony since 1697, it occupied the western third of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, while the Spanish had colonized the eastern side, called Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic).

In 1791, revolution brewed among the island's brutally enslaved majority-inspired in part by the egalitarian ideals driving France's own recent revolution. As the island's enslaved workers organized to burn plantations and kill many owners, Toussaint initially laid low. Having been free for some 15 years, he farmed his own plot of land in the north of the island, while continuing to oversee his former owner's plantation. Eventually, wielding knowledge of African and Creole medicinal techniques, he entered the war as a physician. But he quickly distinguished himself as a canny tactician and a strategic, charismatic leader.

As a general, Toussaint led his forces to victory over the planter class-and thousands of invading French troops. But that was only the start. Navigating the complex, ever-shifting politics of dueling colonial powers, he successfully repelled the aggressions of Europe's mightiest nations (France, Spain and England), using his diplomatic guile to cannily play them off one other. He conquered the Spanish side of Hispaniola, uniting the island and establishing himself as governor. In that role, he worked to quell widespread domestic unrest and restore the island's war-battered economy. And with an education steeped in Enlightenment philosophy, he built on those humanistic ideals to create a constitution that would forever abolish slavery.

Although Toussaint died in a French jail a year before Saint-Domingue gained full independence (and rechristened itself as Haiti) in 1804, his myriad efforts set the stage for the establishment of the second sovereign nation in the western hemisphere after America-and the world's first sovereign Black state. Here's how he did it.

He Played Empire Against Empire

In 1792, France was in a dicey situation. It had recently become a republic, stoking the ire of European monarchies. Furthermore, Saint-Domingue's sustained slave rebellion had put France's wealthiest colony in the Americas at risk of falling under the control of its enemies, England and Spain. So that same year, French commissioners arrived in Saint-Domingue in the apparent spirit of compromise. Rebel leaders, including Toussaint, refused the overture, choosing to do battle instead with the 6,000-man fleet France had also sent.

Toussaint was aware of his regiment's lack of training, but he was also aware of France's desperate position in the face of Spanish and British hostility. So when it suited his needs, he joined forces with France's enemies.

Feigning outrage at the execution of King Louis XVI in 1793, he made an alliance with neighboring Santo Domingo, taking command of a Spanish auxiliary force to reclaim a swath of Saint-Domingue territory. He refused to negotiate with French commissioners until 1794, when France formally abolished slavery in its territories. Toussaint then rejoined the French forces, beat back the Spanish and began his sustained campaign against the British, who had their own designs on Saint-Domingue.

His army ousted British forces in 1798, causing them to lose more than 15,000 men and 10 million pounds in the process. Nonetheless, Toussaint continued to dangle the prospect of British influence in Saint-Domingue as a check against French complacency and to spur trade with Britain's neighboring colony of Jamaica. Toussaint entered into a secret agreement with the British army that eased their naval blockade of imported goods.

He went a step further in 1799, opening diplomatic talks with the Americans to renew commercial ties that would benefit both economies-a major coup for Toussaint. In just two years, American exports to the colony rose more than 260 percent, to $7.1 million. The alliance with the Americans also afforded naval protection on trading vessels destined for Saint-Domingue, an important buffer against British aggressions.

He Played to Multiple Bases

To revitalize a local economy torn by conflict, Toussaint had to leverage his considerable political skills to reconcile the conflicting interests of Saint-Domingue's racial, class, religious and cultural orders. Judging the resources of the merchant and planter classes as integral to rebuilding Saint-Domingue, Toussaint extended generous restitution policies in the name of republican fraternity, going so far as to punish any acts of retribution against former slaveholders. This ensured him a loyal base of allies who did his bidding at regional and international levels. Under his stewardship, Saint-Domingue initiated a robust civic overhaul and public-works projects that created roads, widened canals and improved public sanitation.

That extensive leniency to white citizens, alongside his increasingly autocratic measures to compel Black citizens to work on plantations, corroded his standing among the Black majority. Still, through much of his tenure as governor, he worked vigorously to safeguard their interests and ensure they were now paid for their labor. He traveled extensively to quell internal unrest, relying on his deep cultural ties and Afro-spiritualist cues to reinforce his image as their defender. Under his stewardship, thanks in large part to the efforts of the black masses, the island's agricultural cultivation was restored up to two-thirds to what it had been prior to the 1791 uprisings, according to Toussaint's biographer C.L.R. James.

He Cultivated His Legend

The secret to Toussaint's impact lay also in the trait common to history's greatest heroes-the forging of a persona that verged on the superhuman. James writes that Toussaint saw himself in the avenger role described by Enlightenment thinker Abbé Raynal: as a figure who rises up to eradicate human bondage. Toussaint led charges into battle, and survived numerous brushes with death, lending him a supernatural aura that he cultivated to enrapture followers and enemies alike.

His legend grew. One French official in Saint Domingue credited Toussaint's ability to be in several places at once to his vitality and unmatched understanding of the terrain. And after Napoleon sent 20,000 French troops in 1802 to regain control of Saint-Domingue, a secretary in the expedition described Toussaint as like a tiger: visible where he wasn't and invisible where he was. In time, for his unprecedented achievements, he would be hailed as the Black George Washington and the Napoleon Bonaparte of the Caribbean.

But these honorifics fail to capture the measure of Toussaint Louverture and his far-reaching impact. He was a singular leader who helped charter a revolution extraordinary in its insistence that any declaration of "inalienable liberties" rings hollow when constrained by notions of color or creed. His was a revolution that carried far wider geopolitical implications: Historians credit it with spooking France from further colonial endeavors in the hemisphere and inspiring Napoleon to offload the Louisiana territory to the United States, effectively doubling the young republic in size.

Toussaint would not live to see his country's eventual independence. Captured during Napoleon's 1802 expedition to subdue the colony, he was transported to a French jail, where he died a year later. While it was his radical deputy, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who would outlast the French assault and declare Haiti's independence in 1804, it is Toussaint's leadership that laid the groundwork for that extraordinary achievement.

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How Toussaint L'ouverture Rose from Slavery to Lead the Haitian Revolution | HISTORY

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Pushing back aggressions by Europe's greatest powers, Haiti's 'founding father' set the stage for the world's first sovereign Black state.

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The northern half of St. Dominique was now led by former black slaves, and the southern half led by elite free people of color. Now known as Haiti, it became the first colony to be independently led by former slaves.

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The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Haitian Revolution | Causes, Summary, & Facts.” Encyclopedia Britannica, Britannica, 9 Mar. 2020, www.britannica.com/topic/Haitian-Revolution.

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“Remember Haiti | ECONOMY.” Brown.edu, 2019, www.brown.edu/Facilities/John_Carter_Brown_Library/exhibitions/remember_haiti/economy.php.

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Office of the Historian. “The United States and the Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804.” State.gov, 2019, history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/haitian-rev.

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