AOR: Lesson - Revolutions: The Haitian Revolution

The Haitian Revolution

Kongolese and French Causes

The roots of the Haitian Revolution stretch back to Africa. From the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century, the Kingdom of Kongo underwent a series of civil wars over monarchical authority, which resulted in lots of prisoners of war being sold into transatlantic slavery.

By the late 1700s, a large portion of the French colony of St. Domingue’s enslaved population was Kongolese who therefore may have already had experience fighting and questioning political authority. More immediately, the French Revolution sparked the Haitian Revolution. The educated children of mixed race (black and white) were frustrated with their lack of equality with their white parents.

The French plantation owners spoke worriedly in late 1790 and early 1791 about the French Revolution and the desire for “fraternity, equality, and liberty”. That equality was about to be tested by Toussaint L’Ouverture, the Haitian revolutionary.

The Haitian Revolution Begins

St. Domingue was France’s most lucrative colony because slaves produced coffee, cocoa, cotton, and sugar. The colony was the source of about half of Europe’s sugar and coffee and was worth upwards of 25% of France’s national income. In a surprise attack in August 1791, 100,000 slaves revolted against the plantation owners. This was the start of the Haitian Revolution.

François-Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture (also spelled as Louverture) led the fight, and within a year had taken over most of St. Domingue. Britain and Spain, enemies of France, nonetheless were terrified of the slave revolts spreading to their colonies. Britain threatened to invade, and the Spanish fought from their side of the island.

Image note: General Toussaint L’Ouverture commanded the Haitian troops. His picture is a little reminiscent of the painting Napoleon on Horseback. Title of the engraving: Toussaint Louverture Chef des Noirs Insurgés de Saint Domingue. The artist and date are unknown, but it was published around the year 1800.

In an attempt to stop the violence, the National Assembly of France declared slavery illegal in 1793. It was too late. The St. Domingue revolutionaries continued to fight off the French, Spanish, and British. In 1801, Toussaint L’Ouverture took over the whole island, made himself the Governor-General for life, and declared the abolition of slavery.

But this is also the point at which Napoleon Bonaparte took power in France. He re-established slavery in the French colonies. Then Napoleon quickly sold the port of Louisiana and the massive French holdings in North America to the United States for $15 million dollars. He used the money to keep fighting Haiti, but it also signaled his acceptance of a losing position in North America.

He sent 40,000 troops to the colony, and they captured Toussaint L’Ouverture in 1803. Toussaint L’Ouverture died in a French prison that year. The revolutionary spirit continued - General Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a former slave, took control of the St. Domingue revolutionaries and finally defeated the French at the Battle of Vertieres in late 1803. Two months later, in 1804, Haiti became an independent nation. It came with a heavy cost – well over 135,000 people died in the war. Of that number, perhaps as many as 100,000 were of African descent.

Results of the Haitian Revolution

In 1804, Dessalines (shown to the right on a banknote from Haiti) declared himself emperor but was assassinated. The third leader united the factions, built a palace at the capital, and improved the economy, but also forced the former slaves to work on their old plantations.

The monarchical system was not yet gone, and the promise of true freedom was not yet realized. The new nation, once one of the most lucrative colonies on earth, could not even pay off its independence debt for nearly a century. But the Haitian Revolution still inspired slave revolts in the United States, Venezuela, Brazil, Jamaica, and Cuba.

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