What was the Haitian Revolution?

The Haitian Revolution was the most radical revolution of the Age of Revolutions and the only successful large-scale slave revolt in recorded history. It transformed Saint-Domingue — France's wealthiest colony, which produced roughly 40% of the world's sugar and 60% of its coffee through the labor of approximately 500,000 enslaved Africans — into the independent republic of Haiti.

The revolution began in August 1791 when enslaved people in the northern plains launched a coordinated uprising, burning plantations and killing slaveholders. The revolt was fueled by the brutal conditions of Caribbean sugar slavery (where life expectancy for enslaved people was often just seven years after arrival) and inspired by the French Revolution's rhetoric of liberty and equality — rights that the French National Assembly had conspicuously denied to enslaved people.

Toussaint Louverture, a formerly enslaved man of remarkable political and military genius, emerged as the revolution's leader. He navigated a bewilderingly complex conflict involving enslaved people, free people of color, French, Spanish, and British armies, gradually consolidating control over the entire island. He abolished slavery, promulgated a constitution, and restored the plantation economy using paid labor. Napoleon, seeking to restore slavery and French control, sent a massive expedition in 1802 that captured Toussaint through treachery — he died in a French prison.

But Napoleon's forces, devastated by yellow fever and fierce resistance, were defeated by Toussaint's successor Jean-Jacques Dessalines. On January 1, 1804, Haiti declared independence. The revolution terrified slaveholding societies across the Americas, inspiring hope among enslaved people and dread among slaveholders. It directly influenced abolition movements, contributed to Napoleon's decision to sell Louisiana to the United States, and demonstrated that the Enlightenment's promises of universal rights could not be forever denied.