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The treaty of Ryswick is signed, which officially allows France to get ahold of their new piece of land, which they call Saint-Domingue. By the turn of that century, they have a very successful slave trade there, with them importing 2,000 slaves each year for the colonists inhabiting the land.

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It's around this time that the French Revolution really kicks off, with the Third Estate assembling at Versailles to create a new constitution outlining the rights of all the people within the nation. The French advocate for equal rights among everyone, a very radical concept at the time, but do not try to uphold that same idea for the enslaved of Saint-Domingue. This sparks the notion of revolution.

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Starting in the north, a large portion of enslaved-- which gradually reaches roughly 15,000 people-- begins their violent revolt against the French colonists of Saint-Domingue. They capture and burn plantations and set up military camps along the way. Despite the massive destruction they cause, white colonists do not back down. Their entire way of life is at stake, after all.

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We finally get to hear about how Toussaint Louverture is doing-- around now he gets his start as a promising leader of this revolution. Because of his access to education that many black people in Saint-Domingue did not have, as well as his status as a freedman, he is one of the most qualified to take charge of leading this revolution.

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Rebel leaders such as Toussaint Louverture, upon learning the conflict between Spain and France, temporarily ally with the Spanish forces to drive the French out of Saint-Domingue. They manage to do so by the end of 1793. We are able to see here that the leaders were definitely holding out for a helping hand here, even if their allies could not be considered friends.

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Louverture then abandons the Spanish in favor of regaining a temporary alliance with the French. He intends to drive the Spanish out of Saint-Domingue after they refuse to take any steps to abolish slavery on the island. Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe are two of his chief officers here. At the end of the day, these alliances existed simply to further the goals of the revolutionaries-- to take Saint-Domingue one step closer to freedom.

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Toussaint Louverture declares himself emperor for life. However, his demands for mandatory labor on Saint-Domingue, as well as his choice to outlaw Voodoo and establish Catholicism as the national religion, isolates him from the very people he originally lead. Still, he creates a constitution outlawing slavery and attempts to establish Saint-Domingue as an equal to France rather than a seperate and more powerful nation. Napoleon Bonaparte, who leads france at the time, rejects this and perceives it as a threat.

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Napoleon sends a massive fleet of over 50 French ships and roughly 30,000 French soldiers to re-establish French control over Saint-Domingue. He is successful, and in the process of trying to reinstate slavery on the island, also sends Louverture to France, to be held in prison and die almost a year later.

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Having taken over after Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines helps get the revolution up and running. On November 18, 1803, at the battle of Vertieres, Dessaline leads his army to success. Shortly after, any remaining French forces in Saint-Domingue finally withdraw from the country.

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Dessalines is the one to officially declare Saint-Domingue's independence once and for all, creating the first official black republic. He and Cristophe sign a formal declaration as well and change the country's name back to its original name, Haiti. He crowns himself emperor for life soon after, much like Louverture had before.