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Haiti had originally began as a pirate outpost. Eventually many of the pirates had settled on the island and decided to use there treasure for sugar plantations. This island becomes the most valuable colony in the West indies and it produced 40% of Europe's sugar. The French revolution encouraged the people of Haiti which was 90% slaves to revolt.

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Haitian Revolutions: Crash Course World History #30

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The Haitian revolution began on the day August 14 1791. On January 1, 1804 The Declaration of Independence was written by Jean-Jacques Dessalines. The colors of the Haitian flag represent the alliance of the black, white and mixed races in this country. There independence inspired many salves and people of different races.

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The Haitian Revolution was the only successful revolt by enslaved Black people in history, and it led to the creation of the second independent nation in the Western Hemisphere, after the United States. Inspired in large part by the French Revolution, diverse groups in the colony of Saint-Domingue began fighting against French colonial power in 1791. Independence was not fully achieved until 1804, at which point a complete social revolution had taken place where formerly enslaved people had become leaders of a nation.

Fast Facts: The Haitian Revolution

Background and Causes

The French Revolution of 1789 was a significant event for the imminent rebellion in Haiti. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was adopted in 1791, declaring "liberty, equality, and fraternity." Historian Franklin Knight calls the Haitian Revolution the "inadvertent stepchild of the French Revolution."

In 1789, the French colony of Saint-Domingue was the most successful plantation colony in the Americas: it supplied France with 66% of its tropical produce and accounted for 33% of French foreign trade. It had a population of 500,000, 80% of whom were enslaved people. Between 1680 and 1776, roughly 800,000 Africans were imported to the island, one-third of whom died within the first few years. In contrast, the colony was home to only around 30,000 White people, and a roughly similar number of affranchis, a group of free individuals composed mainly of mixed-race people.

Society in Saint Domingue was divided along both class and color lines, with affranchis and White people often at odds in terms of how to interpret the egalitarian language of the French Revolution. White elites sought greater economic autonomy from the metropolis (France). Working-class/poor White people argued for the equality of all White people, not just for landed White people. Affranchis aspired to the power of White people and begun to amass wealth as landowners (often being enslavers themselves). Beginning in the 1860s, White colonists began to restrict the rights of affranchis. Also inspired by the French Revolution, enslaved Black people increasingly engaged in maroonage, running away from plantations to the mountainous interior.

France granted almost complete autonomy to Saint-Domingue in 1790. However, it left open the issue of rights for affranchis, and White planters refused to recognize them as equals, creating a more volatile situation. In October 1790, affranchis led their first armed revolt against White colonial authorities. In April 1791, revolts by enslaved Black people begin to break out. In the meantime, France extended some rights to affranchis, which angered White colonists.

Beginning of the Haitian Revolution

By 1791, enslaved people and mulattoes were fighting separately for their own agendas, and White colonists were too preoccupied with maintaining their hegemony to notice the growing unrest. Throughout 1791, such revolts grew in numbers and frequency, with enslaved people torching the most prosperous plantations and killing fellow enslaved people who refused to join their revolt.

The Haitian Revolution is considered to have begun officially on Aug. 14, 1791, with the Bois Caïman ceremony, a Vodou ritual presided over by Boukman, a maroon leader and Vodou priest from Jamaica. This meeting was the result of months of strategizing and planning by enslaved people in the northern area of the colony who were recognized as leaders of their respective plantations.

Due to the fighting, the French National Assembly revoked the decree granting limited rights to affranchis in September 1791, which only spurred on their rebellion. That same month, enslaved people burned one of the colony's most important cities, Le Cap, to the ground. The following month, Port-au-Prince was burned to the ground in fighting between White people and affranchis.

The Haitian Revolution was chaotic. At one time there were seven different parties warring simultaneously: enslaved people, affranchis, working-class White people, elite White people, invading Spanish, English troops battling for control of the colony, and the French military. Alliances were struck and quickly dissolved. For example, in 1792 Black people and affranchis became allies with the British fighting against the French, and in 1793 they allied with the Spanish. Furthermore, the French often tried to get enslaved people to join their forces by offering them freedom to help put down the rebellion. In September 1793, a number of reforms took place in France, including the abolition of colonial enslavement. While colonists began negotiating with enslaved people for increased rights, the rebels, led by Touissant Louverture, understood that without land ownership, they could not stop fighting.

Throughout 1794, the three European forces took control of different parts of the island. Louverture aligned with different colonial powers at different moments. In 1795, Britain and Spain signed a peace treaty and ceded Saint-Domingue to the French. By 1796, Louverture had established dominance in the colony, though his hold on power was tenuous. In 1799, a civil war broke out between Louverture and the affranchis. In 1800, Louverture invaded Santo Domingo (the eastern half of the island, modern-day Dominican Republic) to bring it under his control.

Between 1800 and 1802, Louverture tried to rebuild the destroyed economy of Saint-Domingue. He reopened commercial relations with the U.S. and Britain, restored destroyed sugar and coffee estates to operating condition, and halted the wide-scale killing of White people. He even discussed importing new Africans to jump-start the plantation economy. In addition, he outlawed the very popular Vodou religion and established Catholicism as the colony's main religion, which angered many enslaved people. He established a constitution in 1801 that asserted the colony's autonomy with respect to France and became a de facto dictator, naming himself governor-general for life.

The Final Years of the Revolution

Napoleon Bonaparte, who had assumed power in France in 1799, had dreams of restoring the system of enslavement in Saint-Domingue, and he saw Louverture (and Africans in general) as uncivilized. He sent his brother-in-law Charles Leclerc to invade the colony in 1801. Many White planters supported Bonaparte's invasion. Furthermore, Louverture faced opposition from enslaved Black people, who felt he was continuing to exploit them and who was not instituting land reform. In early 1802 many of his top generals had defected to the French side and Louverture was eventually forced to sign an armistice in May 1802. However, Leclerc betrayed the terms of the treaty and tricked Louverture into getting arrested. He was exiled to France, where he died in prison in 1803.

Believing that France's intention was to restore the system of enslavement in the colony, Black people and affranchis, led by two of Louverture's former generals, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe, reignited the rebellion against the French in late 1802. Many French soldiers died from yellow fever, contributing to the victories by Dessalines and Christophe.

Haiti Independence

Dessalines created the Haitian flag in 1803, whose colors represent the alliance of Black and mixed-race people against White people. The French began to withdraw troops in August 1803. On January 1, 1804, Dessalines published the Declaration of Independence and abolished the colony of Saint-Domingue. The original indigenous Taino name of the island, Hayti, was restored.

Effects of the Revolution

The outcome of the Haitian Revolution loomed large across societies that allowed enslavement in the Americas. The success of the revolt inspired similar uprisings in Jamaica, Grenada, Colombia, and Venezuela. Plantation owners lived in fear that their societies would become "another Haiti." In Cuba, for example, during the Wars of Independence, the Spanish were able to use the specter of the Haitian Revolution as a threat to White enslavers: if landowners supported Cuban independence fighters, their enslaved people would rise up and kill their White enslavers and Cuba would become a Black republic like Haiti.

There was also a mass exodus from Haiti during and after the revolution, with many planters fleeing with their enslaved people to Cuba, Jamaica, or Louisiana. It's possible that up to 60% of the population that lived in Saint-Domingue in 1789 died between 1790 and 1796.

The newly independent Haiti was isolated by all the western powers. France would not recognize Haiti's independence until 1825, and the U.S. did not establish diplomatic relations with the island until 1862. What had been the wealthiest colony in the Americas became one of the poorest and least developed. The sugar economy was transferred to colonies where enslavement was still legal, like Cuba, which quickly replaced Saint-Domingue as the world's leading sugar producer in the early 19th century.

According to historian Franklin Knight, "The Haitians were forced to destroy the entire colonial socioeconomic structure that was the raison d'etre for their imperial importance; and in destroying the institution of slavery, they unwittingly agreed to terminate their connection to the entire international superstructure that perpetuated the practice and the plantation economy. That was an incalculable price for freedom and independence."

Knight continues, "The Haitian case represented the first complete social revolution in modern history...no greater change could be manifest than the slaves becoming masters of their destinies within a free state." In contrast, the revolutions in the U.S., France, and (a few decades later) Latin America were largely "reshufflings of the political elites-the ruling classes before remained essentially the ruling classes afterward."

"History of Haiti: 1492-1805." https://library.brown.edu/haitihistory/index.html

Knight, Franklin. The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism, 2nd edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

MacLeod, Murdo J., Lawless, Robert, Girault, Christian Antoine, & Ferguson, James A. "Haiti." https://www.britannica.com/place/Haiti/Early-period#ref726835

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The Haitian Revolution: Successful Revolt by an Enslaved People

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The Haitian Revolution was the only successful revolt by enslaved Black people. It led to only the second independent nation in the Western Hemisphere.

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The Social Democrat party gained majority in the year of 1912. In 1914 many people were encouraged in this party to support Germany in world war one however some people still opposed the war. A rebellion quickly spread of the workers attacking military. In the end there was an agreement from these people to end the rebelling in exchange for some reforms.

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The German states were bound together loosely in something called The Holy Roman Empire. In 1814-15 the Congress of Vienna got together to decide what to do with central Europe and ultimately decided to create a German Confederation from the states. The first effort in unifying the German states was in the year 1848. Finally in the year 1870-71 the last war had happened and the country was fully unified.

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Summary

When the United States announced its independence from Great Britain in 1776, Central Europe was a fragmented area of roughly 300 sovereign, independent states (kingdoms, duchies, principalities, free cities, etc.). The German states were bound together in a loose political entity known as the Holy Roman Empire, which dated to the era of Charlemagne in the 800s. By the late eighteenth century, the Holy Roman Empire was, as Voltaire remarked, "Neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire."

During the mid-eighteenth century, a rivalry developed between the Holy Roman Empire's two largest (and strongest) states: the Kingdom of Austria, ruled by the Habsburgs, and the Kingdom of Prussia, ruled by the Hohenzollerns. Traditionally Austria was the dominant German state, and as such the Habsburg king was elected as the Holy Roman Emperor. This influence started to change in the 1740s when Prussia, strengthened by newly acquired lands and an enlarged military, began to challenge Austria's hegemony. The Kingdom of Prussia was the first German state to officially recognize the United States in 1785 when it signed a Treaty of Amity and Commerce; Austria did not recognize the United States until 1797, when it accepted Conrad Frederick Wagner as U.S. Consul at Trieste, a city then under the jurisdiction of the Habsburg Empire.

During the early nineteenth century, Napoleon's armies occupied, moved through, or were allied with the German states. In 1806 the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved, and when the Congress of Vienna met in 1814-15, a major question was what to do with Central Europe. The solution was to consolidate the German states and to create the German Confederation, a conglomeration of 39 states, including Austria and Prussia. The members of the German Confederation pledged to come to the aid of any member who was attacked by a foreign power; however, the confederation fell short of any economic or national unity. The first effort at striking some form of economic unification between the members of the German Confederation came with the 1834 establishment of the Zollverein customs union.

In the meantime, the effects of the First Industrial Revolution (1750-1850) began to take hold in Central Europe and North America. During this time there was increased emigration by Germans to the United States in search of greater economic opportunities as well as political, religious, and personal freedom. The combination of these two events propelled the first official acts of recognition between the United States and various smaller German states as they negotiated and signed treaties, conventions, and agreements to regulate trade, commerce, navigation, naturalization, and inheritance rights. In a few cases, the United States established diplomatic relations, such as with the Hanseatic League (the Free Cities of Lübeck, Bremen, and Hamburg) and the Kingdom of Baden.

The main issue that confronted the idea of German unification by the mid-nineteenth century was the idea of a "greater" Germany versus a "smaller" Germany. The concept of a "smaller" Germany was that a unified German entity should exclude Austria, while the idea of "greater" Germany was that Germany should include the Kingdom of Austria. Proponents of "smaller" Germany argued that Austria's inclusion would only cause difficulties for German policy, as the Kingdom of Austria was part of the greater Austrian Empire, which included large swaths of land in Central and Southeastern Europe that was composed of nearly 15 different minorities. Those who favored "greater" Germany pointed to the traditional role played by Austria, which was mostly composed of Germans, and the Habsburg rulers in German affairs.

The first effort at unifying the German states came in the revolutionary year 1848. Once news of the February 1848 revolution in Paris spread, many felt that the time was finally at hand for German unification. Rural riots broke out in the weeks after February 1848 and spread to the urban areas. Throughout the German states revolutionaries advocated for freedom of the press, a national militia, a national German parliament, and trial by jury. Other ideas that were championed during the heady days of 1848 were the abolition of privilege of the aristocracy, the creation of constitutions in several of the German states, a more fair system of taxation, and freedom of religion.

On May 18, 1848, the German National Assembly met at Frankfurt am Main, representing the first assembly to be freely elected by the German people. Yet, despite the election of an imperial vice regent (Reichsverweser), the government was flawed from the beginning by its lack of a strong executive power. By the autumn of 1849 the revolution disintegrated and hope of fully unifying the German states was extinguished for the time being.

The next attempt at German unification, a successful one, was undertaken by Otto von Bismarck, the Prime Minister of Prussia. Bismarck was a proponent of "smaller" Germany, not to mention a master at the game of real-politik. German unification was achieved by the force of Prussia, and enforced from the top-down, meaning that it was not an organic movement that was fully supported and spread by the popular classes but instead was a product of Prussian royal policies.

The first war of German unification was the 1862 Danish War, begun over the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Bismarck allied with Austria to fight the Danes in a war to protect the interests of Holstein, a member of the German Confederation.

The second war of German unification was the 1866 Austro-Prussian War, which settled the question of "smaller" versus "greater" Germany. This brief war (fought over the course of mere weeks) pitted Prussia and her allies against Austria and other German states. Prussia won and directly annexed some of the German states that had sided with Austria (such as Hanover and Nassau). In an act of leniency, Prussia allowed some of the larger Austrian allies to maintain their independence, such as Baden and Bavaria. In 1867 Bismarck created the North German Confederation, a union of the northern German states under the hegemony of Prussia. Several other German states joined, and the North German Confederation served as a model for the future German Empire.

The third and final act of German unification was the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, orchestrated by Bismarck to draw the western German states into alliance with the North German Confederation. With the French defeat, the German Empire was proclaimed in January 1871 in the Palace at Versailles, France. From this point forward, foreign policy of the German Empire was made in Berlin, with the German Kaiser (who was also the King of Prussia) accrediting ambassadors of foreign nations. Relations were severed when the U.S. declared war upon Imperial Germany in 1917.

Major Events

United States' Recognition of the Federal German Republic, .

On July 8, 1848, Secretary of State John M. Middleton informed U.S. Minister to Prussia Andrew J. Donelson, that the United States was prepared to recognize any unified, de facto German Government that "appeared capable of maintaining its power." On August 9, 1848, Donelson was appointed as U.S. Minister to the German Federal Parliament at Frankfurt, and presented his credentials on September 13, 1848. However, the failure of this first experiment of German unification led to the U.S. recalling Donelson from service to the Federal German Republic on November 2, 1849. Donelson resumed his previous appointment as U.S. Minister to Prussia.

United States' Recognition of the North German Union, .

Following the establishment of the North German Confederation on July 1, 1867, on November 20, 1867, the U.S. Minister to Prussia, George Bancroft, informed Secretary of State William H. Seward that he had attended the opening of the North German Parliament. He requested, however, that the Secretary formally notify him of the intentions of the U.S. Government concerning the question of the recognition of the North German Confederation. On December 9, 1867, Secretary Seward approved of Bancroft's decision to attend the opening of the North German Parliament since he was the officially-accredited U.S. Minister to the Prussian King Wilhelm I, who was also the hereditary President of the North German Confederation. Furthermore, Seward informed Bancroft that he would disseminate a description of the Confederation's flag so that its ships would be welcomed in American waters. This exchange between Seward and Bancroft implicitly signified a formal recognition of the North German Confederation by the United States.

United States' Recognition of the German Empire and Establishment of Diplomatic Relations, .

Following the establishment of the German Empire on January 18, 1871, the United States recognized the new German Empire by changing the accreditation of its Minister to Prussia to become Minister to the German Empire. On April 8, 1871, U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Prussia George Bancroft presented the new German Emperor Wilhelm I (who was concurrently King of Prussia) with a letter from U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant dated March 16, 1871. The letter from the President congratulated the Emperor on his assumption of the German throne and recognized him as the head-of-state of a federal Germany.

Termination of Relations During the First World War, .

Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 led to the termination of diplomatic relations between Imperial Germany and the United States. On February 3, 1917, U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing informed the German Ambassador in Washington, D.C., Count Johann von Bernstorff, that U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had severed diplomatic relations with Germany, that the U.S. Ambassador in Berlin (James W. Gerrard) had been withdrawn, and that the U.S. Government would be returning von Bernstorff's passports.

U.S. Declaration of War Against Imperial Germany, .

Following a series of attacks against American merchant ships on the high seas by German U-boats, on February, 24, 1917, the U.S. Ambassador in London, Walter Hines Pages, received the infamous "Zimmerman telegram" from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour. This led to the decision to abandon the plan to adopt "armed neutrality" by placing U.S. naval personnel on civilian ships to guard them against German attacks. On April 2, U.S. President Wilson went before Congress to ask for a declaration of war against Germany in order to make the world "safe for democracy." Following the passage of a Joint Resolution by Congress on April 6, President Wilson issued on the same day a proclamation to the effect that a state of war existed between Germany and the United States.

Overall Impact upon U.S. Foreign Policy

The history of the establishment of recognitions (and relations, where applicable) between the United States and the German states impacted several different areas of policy, including:

Trade and Commerce. Although the Napoleonic period stunted the growth of industrialization in the German states during the early nineteenth century, by the 1820s and 1830s the industrialization process was underway, especially in areas such as Westphalia, the Rhineland, and Upper Silesia. It was also during this time that the first railways were built in the German lands, thus facilitating the transportation of goods to and from the main ports of Hamburg and Bremen. As a result, the German states (and after 1871, the German Empire) and the United States both sought to cultivate trade and commercial ties for mutual benefit.

Emigration, Citizenship, and Naturalization. In the nineteenth century, most German states (and later, the German Empire) had mandatory military service for all male subjects/citizens, whereas the United States did not have any such policy. One point of contention between the U.S. and some of the German states was whether German citizens were emigrating to the U.S. to obtain citizenship and then return to Central Europe and thus eschew military service. In 1868 U.S. Minister to Prussia and the North German Union George Bancroft negotiated a series of naturalization treaties that sought to close this loophole. See Bancroft Treaties for further information.

After the creation of the Second Reich in 1871 there were questions as to whether U.S. officials should abide by treaties concluded with individual states or with Prussia (the German Empire was considered the successor state to Prussia) in dealing with issues of trade, citizenship, or extradition. Two major principles guided U.S. foreign policy towards the German states. First, "where a State has lost its separate existence, as in the case of Hanover and Nassau, no questions can arise." Second, "where no treaty has been negotiated with the Empire, the treaties with the various States which have preserved a separate existence have been resorted to."

Although the Constitution of the German Empire of 1871 stipulated that the Empire was responsible for treaties, alliances, and representing the Empire, the smaller states still retained the right of legation. This included the right to legislate, to grant exequators to foreign consuls in their territories (though not to send German consuls abroad), and to enter into conventions with foreign nations as long as they did not concern matters already within the jurisdiction of the Empire or the Emperor.

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Unification of German States - Countries - Office of the Historian

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Italy was split up into many Italian states just like Germany. Dante Alighieri, Niccolò Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia were considered the forefathers of united Italy. The fall of Napoleon inspired many of the Italian people. And on March 17 1861 Italy was finally unified under one king.

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How did Italy Become a Country? | Animated History

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The Austro-Italian war was a war for liberation for Italy from Austria. This war took place from 1848 to 1849 and on July 5 1848 the Austrians defeated the Italian army at Custozza. In the year 1849 on March 26 Victor Emmanuel II had concluded a truce with Field Marshal Radetzky. And on August 6 1849 peace was signed in Milan.

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(in Russian, Austro-Italian War of 1848-49), war for the liberation of Italy from Austrian rule, closely connected with the spread of the bourgeois revolution in 1848-49 in the Italian states. In March 1848, as a result of the victorious popular uprising in Lombardy and Venetia, which had been under Austrian rule since 1815, the Austrian troops were driven out. The same month the Sardinian (Piedmont) king Charles Albert started war against Austria, which he hoped would benefit the interests of the Savoy dynasty. In April 1848, the Piedmont army (about 60,000 men) launched an offensive in the direction of Verona. Especially successful were the operations of the volunteer detachments of Garibaldi. However, the treacherous conduct of the ruling circles of the Italian states and of Charles Albert himself, who feared the spread of the revolutionary movement, resulted in victory for Austria. On July 25, 1848, the Austrians defeated the Italian army at Custozza; on August 6, the Austrian forces of Field Marshal Radetzky entered Milan, and three days later Charles Albert concluded a truce that aroused the indignation of the broad masses since Lombardy was again annexed to Austria.

In the light of the revolutionary fervor of the Italian states and of the demands for the resumption of war against Austria, Charles Albert was forced on Mar. 20, 1849, to break the truce and start military operations. However, the poorly trained Piedmont army (about 88,000 men under the command of General Chrzanowski) that was strung out from Novara to the River Po suffered defeat as early as March 21 at Mortara and on March 23 was utterly beaten by the Austrian army (about 70,000 men) in the decisive Battle of Novara. This defeat was due in part to the irreso-luteness and mediocrity of the Piedmont generals. Charles Albert fled from Italy. On March 26 his son Victor Emmanuel II concluded a truce with Radetzky. Austrian troops again occupied the Lombardy-Venetia territory. On August 6 a peace was signed in Milan, according to which the Kingdom of Sardinia paid Austria an indemnity of 65 million francs.

REFERENCES

Marx, K., and F. Engels. Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 5, p. 4.
Ergels, F. "Porazhenie p'emonttsev," Soch., vol. 6.
Nevler (Vilin), V. K istorii vossoedineniia Italii. Moscow, 1936.
Trevisani, G. Dal primo al secondo Risorgimento (1796-1945). Milan, 1954.

V. E. N EVLER and A. A. M ALINOVSKII

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definition of war of italian independence

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Looking for War of Italian Independence, 1848-49? Find out information about War of Italian Independence, 1848-49. war for the liberation of Italy from Austrian rule, closely connected with the spread of the bourgeois revolution in 1848-49 in the Italian states. Explanation of War of Italian Independence, 1848-49