Haitian Revolution

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) was the first revolutionary movement in Latin America that culminated in the abolition of slavery in the French colony of Saint-Domingue and the proclamation of the First Empire of Haiti.

Saint-Domingue went from being a colony governed by a caste system, the richest colonial possession of its time, to being the site of the only successful slave rebellion in history, as well as being one of the most radicals.

Background

Plantation system

The wealth of sugar cane thanks to slavery in the Antilles produced greater competition between the European powers for possession of the islands. In 1603 the Spanish abandoned the western half of Hispaniola, allowing twenty years later to begin the French colonization in Tortuga. The concentration on the western side was due to constant pirate attacks in the northwest. The Gauls were led by François Levasseur, who was killed by his men, anxious not to be under Parisian control, it would be necessary to wait until Bertrand d'Ogeron's expedition for the outlaws to submit.During the 1660s their settlements expanded along the western coast while the English in 1655 conquered Jamaica; Spanish power in the Caribbean Sea is reduced to Cuba, Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo, all sparsely populated and developed territories. The colony of boucaniers, "buccaneers", began with a subsistence economy based on the production of coffee and indigo to hands of the engagés, white servants who followed their employers to the island or prisoners who did forced labor. These engagés were released after three years of service and lived daily with the first blacks brought by the bursars., specialists in the slave trade. However, in those early stages the colony's main reason for existence was the flibuste, freebooters, who attacked Spanish trade: their loot financed the first haciendas. In 1680 Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert raised tobacco tariffs, main product of the island. Most of the owners went bankrupt and sold their land, a few bought it and began to produce sugar, indigo, cotton and coffee.

Throughout the eighteenth century there was a prosperous transoceanic trade throughout the Caribbean that neither wars, nor piracy, nor natural disasters could stop. After the first third of the century an irrigation system developed in France was expanded, allowing plantations in Jamaica and Saint-Domingue to move from small local production (rarely more than fifty slaves, as in Brazil, Martinique or Barbados) to large farms (with hundreds of workers). Consequently, both the wealth of the masters and the population of slaves increased.

Cimarronage

Naturally, some slaves fled to the jungles and mountains and became "cimarrones", brown. About a fifth were women. They could live alone, in small groups and even in large towns. Some fled to avoid punishment and returned when promised forgiveness, others did so consciously to be free. They usually took little clothing and food to go light, white weapons and if they could a mule, horse or canoe. They did not know how they would fare but they tried to look for the slave towns in isolated mountainous and jungle areas. Most fled to the Spanish side, in the southern mountains of Bahoruco, an area where the Taínos who fled from the Spanish encomiendas, specifically Plymouth and Maniel, had settled.Organized in small bands they attacked towns and haciendas, motivating expeditions of punishment and recapture, which proved useless and in 1785 the authorities decreed an amnesty for the maroons and recognized their independence. At that time the maroons decreased in number. phenomenon has its similes with what happened in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, in Dutch Guiana, the palenques of New Granada, Central America, New Spain and Cuba, the cumbe of Venezuela and the quilombos of Brazil.

The first important leader of these was François Mackandal (en), born around 1728 in West Africa, was captured, imported and sold to the planter Lenormand de Mezy at the age of twelve. In 1752 he ran away and, thanks to his status as a houngan, "voodoo priest", became a great ringleader. He was captured and burned at the stake in Le Cap on January 20, 1758. The hougan led the sacrificial ceremonies of animals to obtain blood assisted by the hounsi, their servants. Although by law all slaves had to be baptized, the lack of training led to strong religious syncretism.Although the laws also mandated the masters to give Africans Christian burial, poor vigilance or complacency from the masters allowed blacks to perform animist ceremonies. Voodoo was a form of resistance, with networks throughout the colony and with hundreds of priests.

Other ways of resisting slavery (and harming their masters) were suicide and infanticide, but they only reinforced the negative view that whites had of blacks, beings destined to self-destruction if they had no masters.

Saint-Domingue in 1789

At the end of the century, the French colonies in the Caribbean produced a third of the French income. The main one was Saint-Domingue for producing two thirds of the world's sugar, 140 million pounds of that product each year. There were 789 cotton plantations, 3,100 coffee plantations, 3,100 indigo (indigo), 673 food plantations, and almost 800 sugar mills.

Its population was classified into castes: at the top were the blancs, "white" Europeans and Creoles; further down the gens de couleur, "colored people" (also called affranchis or "freedmen", blanchet or "fleece", and faux blanc, "false whites"), that is, the noirs, "blacks", and mulâtres, "mulattos", manumisos; in last place were the esclaves, "slaves". The former were divided into grands blancs or blancs-blancs, "great whites" or "white-whites", noble landowners and wealthy bourgeois, and the petits blancs, "little whites", medium and small owners and workers. The latter were artisans, foremen or domestic servants of the great whites. Most of the bureaucrats, wealthy bourgeois and petty whites lived in the coastal cities, while the plantation managers in the countryside. However, the social differences were not as important as the racial ones, the whites acted as a block to confront the freedmen of color. The freedmen enjoyed laws that allowed them to wear some clothes, live in certain places or access public positions that were forbidden to slaves, moreover, they competed with little whites for chances of social advancement.Many of the militias were made up of free people of color between the ages of 15 and 55 who were eager for stable work and respect in society. They were the blanc-soldat or négre-blanc. The maréchaussée, military corps of freedmen with the sole mission of persecuting the Maroons, were also constituted in 1707. At the end of the Age of Enlightenment, most of the owners of the large plantations did not live on the island, although they traveled constantly to inspect them. instead they were run by the procureur, who assumed all their powers and duties in exchange for a high salary and were willing to do anything to keep production high. Only Creoles lived in the countryside of Saint-Domingue.More and more Frenchmen traveled to the colony to get a good job, make their fortune, and return to France. These great whites were two-thirds of the Europeans and owned three-quarters of the plantations and slaves. The little whites were the remaining third. About a quarter of the estates were concentrated in the hands of freedmen, some especially wealthy, but disadvantaged by the caste system.

The servile population was ten times that of whites and constituted half of the million Antillean slaves. Two-thirds were imported Africans, called bozales and considered less submissive and suffering from the worst living conditions. Only a third had been born on the island and had never experienced freedom.This was due to the fact that the death rate exceeded the birth rate among slaves, their population declining between 2 and 5% per year due to the hard work, poor nutrition, little shelter, no medical attention and excess male population (the lack of women to lower the birth rate). Life expectancy on average did not exceed fifteen years for those born there and was lower for newcomers. Most of the blacks were men between the ages of 17 and 35. Only constant importation could allow the farms to produce. The slaves were organized in ateliers, Work groups. First, the strongest men and women went out to do the hardest work in full sun: cutting trees, extracting rocks, planting coffee plantations, cutting sugar cane and building dams and canals. The shifts lasted twenty hours, at night they went directly to sleep in the black houses. These slaves had the benefit of a larger ration of food and tafia. They operated under the permanent supervision of an employee or foreman, usually white, the maitre sucrier, sometimes he was a black man (even a slave) but this led to friction with the commandeur, head of the group of slaves in charge of respecting the rhythms of work (many of them were the leaders of the rebellion).Work was prohibited on holy days. Blacks spoke Kreyòl.

A symbol of wealth in that society was the possession of a large number of domestic slaves. These were the negres a talent, in charge of the interior of the grande case (master's dwelling), making handicrafts and caring for animals. Women did the same jobs than men, unless advanced pregnancy prevented it.

Saint-Domingue was divided into three provinces or departments: North, West and South. The first had the rich port of Le Cap or Cap-Français, the "Paris of the Caribbean", where a large freed population lived, including several revolutionary leaders. Its population was 6,000 blancs, 9,000 affranchis and 170,000 slaves. It was a fertile plain where most of the plantations were concentrated and was separated from the rest of the colony by the Massif mountains. It also brought together most of the great whites, always desirous of greater autonomy.The second province, the West, began to prosper after the transfer of the capital to Port-au-Prince in 1751, a city that had a rich cultural and economic life, in addition to promoting many vices there in the eyes of the time (theaters saloons, and brothels), as in Le Cap. The governor general and the bulk of the royal troops reside there. The third lagged behind economically, had a smaller population, and its geography kept it apart from the rest of the colony, although it also allowed the many freedmen who populated it to establish a lucrative contraband trade with Jamaica. With few estates, the land was vacant for the freedmen and their dreams of smallholdings. Its capital was Les Cayes or Aux Cayes.

Breed	Estimated population Richardson, 1992	Estimated population Louis, 1999
white settlers	30,000	30,000-40,000
black and mulatto freedmen	28,000	25,000-50,000
black slaves	452,000	465,000-510,000
Total	510,000	520,000-600,000

The colonial government was directed by a governor general assisted by an intendant, both appointed personally by the monarch and frequently at odds with landowners desirous of greater autonomy. The former was in charge of maintaining external defense and internal order and commanding the military forces, although he could intervene in civil matters, such as the distribution of land, the slave trade and the hiring of officials or preside over the Superior Councils, the main courts of justice. The second was in charge of public management, finances and justice. The landowners also hated the merchants for the commercial monopoly laws that allowed them to sell their products only to them.However, that monopoly had not prevented enrichment for landowners, merchants and the state coffers. The colonial administration was detested by most whites and freedmen, this would lead to alliances with each other against it, using each other to achieve their goals. of caste.

According to the laws of the time, slaves could not marry without their master's permission, bear arms, own property, participate in a trial, etc. If they injured or killed their master, their punishment was a slow and painful death such as limb mutilation and burning at the stake, but if the owner killed them, they had to pay a fine. For minor offenses, the whip, chains, iron masks or choke collars were used. The few limitations to the power of the masters were due to the fact that they sought to improve production and ensure the reproduction of the slaves, who were legally reified, which was seen as unfair interference by the whites and they used to ignore it.

Impact of the French Revolution

The Estates General, a consultative body of the monarchy formed by the estates of the kingdom, became the National Assembly that initiated a radical political, legal and social change. On August 26, 1789, the Declaration of the Rights of Man was published, which proclaimed all men free and equal, coming into conflict with the situation in Saint-Domingue, forcing a decision to be made whether this principle was extended to the entire population of Saint-Domingue. the colony.

The great whites saw an opportunity to strip royal officials of control of the island, abolish trade regulations to increase their wealth and become independent, but when the slaves found out they sided with the counterrevolutionaries and the British, fearful that if there was independence they would be left behind. completely in the hands of his masters and his life would be even harder. However, during the first two years the conflict was centered between factions of independentist whites, whites loyal to the metropolis and freedmen. Blacks were left out.

The free colored in Paris demanded equal rights since before the revolution. Led by Julien Raimond (fr) and Jacques-Vincent Ogé (en) they went before the National Assembly and then the National Convention, achieving legal equality for all free men. Ogé returned to the colony in October 1790 and considered that this included the right to vote but the governor general, Viscount de Blanchelande (fr), refused to allow the freedmen to vote.On the 23rd Ogé rose up with the help of Jean-Baptiste Chavannes (fr) and formed a mulatto militia near Le Cap. The colonial authorities reacted, and the rebels fled to Spanish territory but the Iberians refused to give them refuge and handed them over on November 20. Ogé was brutally executed on February 6 and Chavannes on February 23.

A small revolt broke out on January 24, 1791 at Port-Salut, near Les Cayes. The 200 rebels are quickly defeated but at the same time a guerrilla group of mulattoes is organized under the command of André Rigaud. On March 3 there is a small mutiny of the black soldiers in Port-au-Prince, encouraged by the 1000 French radicals brought as reinforcements requested by the governor general; the movement is smoothly put down nine days later and the mutineers deported.

On May 15 the National Assembly decided to give political equality to the freedmen, when the news reached the island on July 8 the whites began to plot their reaction.

Revolution

First phase: 1789- 1791

Bois Caiman Oath

After several weeks of organizing in secret, during the night of August 14 and 15, a voodoo (fr) ceremony is held in Bois Caïman led by the Jamaican slave and houngan Dutty Boukman. In front of two hundred participants, all serfs from Lenormand de Mézy's plantation, and assisted by the mambo, voodoo high priestess, Cécile Fatiman, he swears the following oath:The Good Lord who created the Earth, who gives us light from above, who supports the ocean and makes the thunder roar. Listen well, all of you! This God, hidden in the clouds, watches us. He sees everything the white man does. The white man's god calls him to commit crimes; our God asks only good deeds from us. But this God who is good commands revenge! He will direct our hands; He will help us. Throw away the image of the white god who thirsts for our tears and listen to the voice of freedom that speaks in the hearts of us all.

Although the slaves of the Limbé district came forward, they rose in revolt and soon the entire state of Chabaud was in flames. The majority stuck to the plan and during the night of August 21 and 22 bosses Jeannot Bullet (en), Jean-François Papillon (en) and Georges Biassou began to destroy the Clément, Noé, Molines and Flaville plantations and laid waste to the state of Tremes. On the 23rd Bouckman marches with 2,000 rebels from Acul to the Limbé district, massacring loyal blacks and whites and burning their property. On the morning of the 24th Port-Margot is sacked but the next day the French militias disperse the slaves in Plaisance, the vanquished withdraw and entrench themselves in Champagne Ravine.On the 30th and 31st Boukman attacked Le Cap with 15,000 followers, where the whites took refuge, where the governor general had entrenched himself with the militias and repelled the assault.

By mid-September the entire north was on fire, the surviving whites had to entrench themselves in a few isolated garrisons, 200 sugar plantations and 1,200 coffee plantations were destroyed, and 40,000 of the 170,000 blacks in the province were in revolt. month the first clashes broke out in the Charbonnière mountains, where the mulatto party of Rigaud, Louis-Jacques Beauvais, Pierre Pinchinat and Jean-Pierre Lambert was concentrating. A column of settlers sent from Port-au-Prince attacked them but was defeated at Croix des Bouquets. On the 29th the Centurion arrives in the capital with weapons to help the colonial troops.Soon Beauvais, Pinchinat and 1,500 guerrillas joined the Port-au-Prince garrison after negotiating with the authorities. At that time, the whites disarmed all the freedmen of the Jérémie and are forced to board ships that were in quarantine for smallpox, causing the death of many of them (something difficult to believe, since the incubation period, manifestation of the disease and kill means weeks). In the capital, the Maroon prisoners are expelled to the Mosquito Coast. Shortly after, Boukman is killed in combat.

On November 21, riots broke out in the capital, many freedmen being massacred by the white revolutionaries, others fleeing and forming new guerrillas. Faced with this situation, the British began to support the French monarchists (including several freedmen) against the Republicans (who seek to join forces with the rebellious slaves) and the Spanish hoped that they would weaken each other in order to later conquer the province. On the 29th they arrived. the civil commissioners Frédéric Ignace de Mirbeck and Philippe-Rose Roume et d'Edmond de Saint-Léger and try to negotiate with the blacks. The discipline of the colonial troops vanishes, in the capital on December 11 several units of sailors mutinied and almost arrested their thirty-eight-year-old admiral, Count Grimoüard.The admiral met his death only three years later.

On January 15, 1792 Papillon took Ouanaminthe. On the night of 22-23 Biassou sacked Le Cap to steal ammunition. The Maroon Romaine Rivière la Prophétesse, with 1,300 followers, occupied the lands between Jacmel and Léogâne between November 1791 and March 1792. She was a descendant of the Kongos and based their power on a religious mystique that mixed Marian and African Catholic traditions and telepathy. He died in 1795.

On March 4, the National Assembly orders to recognize political equality for freedmen, but the general in chief of the French forces, the rich Marquis de Caradeux, famous for his cruelty, conditions equality for mulattoes on the demand to support him. in the war. With an army of royalist freedmen, he launches an offensive on the Cul de Sac plain, but is defeated on March 22 at Croix des Bouquets by 10,000 to 15,000 blacks under the command of the young houngan Hyacinthe, barely twenty-two years old. This provokes riots in Mirebalais, Arcahaye, Petite Rivière, Verettes and Saint Marc.

During a visit to Le Platons, a mountainous region in the southwest of the colony, the viscount tries to negotiate with the local rebel chiefs, Armand and Maréchal (or Martial), who command a band of 2,000 mulattoes. However, on July 29 the insurgents attacked the Bérault farm and destroyed it, shortly after they raided Torbeck and added hundreds of volunteers. In response, the Viscount organizes three columns that advance on Le Platons, but are ambushed separately by the rebels. The governor general must withdraw four days later to Les Cayes after suffering 200 casualties and losing two guns. On the 10th he takes a ship to Le Cap.

Arrival of Sonthonax

On April 29, the National Assembly appointed Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, Étienne Polverel and Jean Antoine Ailhaud as civil commissioners for the colony. These arrived at Le Cap on September 18 with 6,000 soldiers. They immediately sought to calm the situation and impose revolutionary authority. First they deported the former Governor General (who will be guillotined in Paris shortly after as a monarchist), then they negotiated the support of the freedmen and exiled all whites who refused to recognize the political equality of all free men (many suspected of being royalists).. However, they refused to give in to the demands of the slaves, and the war continued in the north. On September 21, the First French Republic was proclaimed.

On January 9, 1793, Republican Colonel Olivier Harty, commander-in-chief of the southern province, with an army of 2,000 soldiers from the Aube battalion and freedmen militiamen trained by Jean Kina, attacked Le Platons with the intention of annihilating the rebels hidden there.. Some 3,000 Armand and Maréchal guerrillas manage to retreat to Macaya while hundreds of women, children, wounded, and elderly who lived in their camp are left behind and massacred on the 13th. Shortly after, the Irish-born Harty was sent back to France. and put on trial, although he was reinstated in 1795 to the revolutionary army, he will reach the rank of lieutenant general in 1815 and will die in Strasbourg in 1822.

On January 21, King Louis XVI of France is guillotined and a war officially begins between the British and the Spanish. During that summer, Hispanic militias joined the forces of Papillon and Biassou in the campaigns to the north of the island. At the same time, Hyancinthe encourages the Maroons of Bahoruco to join the rebellion and attack Fond Parisien, and Jean Pineau to revolt at Cul-de-Sac, while the Republicans are busy finishing off the white royalists. On April 4, Sonthonax and Polverel set sail from Le Cap with half a dozen ships for Port-au-Prince against the Marquis de Borel, who was organizing the monarchist Creoles against the radical reforms of the republicans and expelled the 2,000 mulatto soldiers from the city. The port was blockaded and on April 12 its defenses were bombed. borel, knowing that most of his 3,000 seats were dodgy blacks, he fled to Jamaica. The following day the surrender of the capital was negotiated and the commissioners entered victorious on the 14th.During the following weeks, more than a thousand monarchists or suspected monarchists are arrested and deported, the rest flee. In addition, the mulatto soldiers are reorganized into the légion de l'égalité, "legions of equality". Meanwhile, in Spanish Santo Domingo the declaration of war against the French is published and preparations begin for a campaign in the north of the island.

The situation of Sonthonax and Polverel will become critical on June 20, when the political prisoners of Le Cap rise up and get 2,000 sailors to join them in the capture of the arsenal. Both commissioners had to flee to the Bréda plantation, on the outskirts of the city the next day, while fierce fighting took place in the streets of the city where thousands of slaves were involved. Desperate to control the situation, the commissioners decree that any slave who joins the republican forces will be given freedom, French citizenship and full political rights. Thanks to this measure, the 3,000 to 10,000Negroes that the maroon Jean-Louis Pierrot had in the hills around Le Cap (part of the Spanish-rebel invading force) stormed the port on the 22nd, burning it to the ground. Five days later the commissioners returned but most blacks remained skeptical of their promise. Although many rebel leaders were beginning to think of abandoning the Spanish because they were not interested in abolishing slavery, they refused to join the Republicans because the non-combatant population would continue to be subservient.

Due to this, when the bulk of the Hispanic-rebels arrived at Le Cap Sonthonax decreed on August 20 the complete abolition of slavery in the North, winning the support of the blacks. However, the cost was the alienation of whites and mulattoes when the same was proclaimed in the West on September 21. Two days later Port-au-Prince is renamed Port-Républicain. Until then, between 10,000 and 20,000 whites died in the servile rebellion, with the survivors fleeing mainly to the fledgling United States; the white population almost disappeared.

Second phase: 1793-1798

British intervention

From Kingston on September 9, a fleet sails, led by the 64-gun flagship HMS Europa (under Captain George Gregory), the captured French 14-piece sloop Goéland (Commander Thomas Wolley) and the schooner flying fish(Lieutenant Colonel John Whitelocke); he arrived ten days later in Jérémie without encountering resistance with the intention of supporting the white monarchists of Paul-Louis Dubuc. Whitelocke landed with 700 soldiers and took the port on behalf of the country from him. On the 21st Ford and Whitelocke marched to Cap du Môle, reached the next day and convinced the mainly Irish garrison to join their forces. On October 4, the British tried to reach Cap Tiburon, in the southwestern tip of the peninsula of the same name, but not finding the promised royalist reinforcements, they withdrew.

On January 2, 1794, after receiving 800 reinforcements from Jamaica, Ford dispatched the 32-gun frigate Penelope, commanded by Captain Bartholomew Samuel Rowley, to Port-au-Prince to propose the surrender of the colonial capital, but the response refusal causes Rowley to initiate the dock lock. On February 3, the British and French monarchists take Cap Tiburon, meeting little resistance. On the 19th they captured Fort Acul. Thanks to this, the western end of the Tiburón peninsula remained in his power.On January 28, a squadron under Commodore Gabriel de Aristizábal y Espinoza captured Bayahá, seizing 1,031 prisoners, 40 cannons, the entire arsenal, and a small port. On February 3, the Spanish governor, Joaquín García y Moreno, arrives there to establish his base of operations against Port-au-Prince and Le Cap.

However, the Republicans reacted. On February 4, the National Convention officially abolished slavery in all French overseas possessions. Thanks to this, the black chief Alou joins Sonthenax in defending Port-au-Prince during March only to be assassinated by his affranchi rival, Louis-Jacques Beauvais (fr). Hyacinthe is also killed by mulattoes in those months. Shortly thereafter, two days of rioting break out on March 15 when freed Republican soldiers mutiny and arrest Sonthonax, furious that abolition ended their advantage over blacks. In the fighting many non-combatant whites are killed.But more important is that Brigadier Toussaint Louverture, a former slave of the landowner Dominique Toussaint who obtained his manumission and joined the Spanish when the revolt broke out, leaves the Hispanics on June 25 with 4,000 soldiers to join the division general Etienne Laveaux (fr) to fight for the Republic against the English, Spanish, royalists, and mulattoes. Laveaux had been named the new Governor General on October 14 of the previous year.

On May 19, Brigadier John Whyte arrived with three regiments to assume command of the British forces and immediately began planning the assault on Port-au-Prince. On the 31st of that month, the attack began, a fleet made up of the warships Europa, Irresistible (74 cannons under the command of Captain John Henry), Belliqueux (Captain James Brine and 64 cannons) and Scepter.(Captain James Richard Dacres), 3 frigates, 3 sloops, and 12 transports for 1,465 soldiers. By land marched a column of 1,000 royalist whites under the command of Colonel and Baron de Montalembert from Léogâne, and 1,200 freedmen under the command of the landowner Jean-Baptiste Lapointe (by that time many landowners had real private armies) from Arcahaie. 1,200 mulattoes. The assault is interrupted by a downpour until June 3, that day the frigates Hermione (Captain John Hills) and Iphigenia(Patrick Sinclair) bombard the French positions at Bernadou, distracting the French while Whyte advances on the ground. The next day the city falls definitively into English hands, while Sonthonax and Polverel flee to Jacmel, but shortly after they are captured and sent to London on June 14 (they will be released at the end of the year), as well as Whitelocke, in charge of carrying the news of victory. Soon after, the monarchists entered Saint-Joseph and Léogâne, taking the opportunity to ruthlessly take revenge on the republicans until the British impose order.

At the end of that year of 1794, the English controlled Jérémie, Cap Tiburon, Port-au-Prince, Saint-Marc and Cap du Môle. The Republicans control Les Cayes, Macaya, Petit-Goâve, Léogâne, Jacmel and Port-de-Paix and the islands of Tortuga and Gonâve. The rebel slaves controlled the mountainous areas of the center and north of the country, the border areas with Spanish Santo Domingo and the cities of Le Cap and Gonaïves. However, the British occupation was doomed: in the first two months they lost 40 officers and 600 men on campaign, his troops being reduced to 828 soldiers, most of them sick with tropical diseases. Worse, the inhabitants of Saint-Domingue (whites, mulattoes and blacks) refused to enlist in their ranks.

As Louverture quickly seizes significant territory in the north, the Anglo-Hispanics are decimated by disease and their local allies are more concerned with maintaining their own domains. At Christmas the British are forced to withdraw from Cap Tiburon to Cap Dame-Marie by a French force from Les Cayes.

Soon the mulattoes begin to clash with their allies. In March 1795 Rigaud and Beauvais demanded that Léogâne remain under their authority. As the English refuse, they subject Bizoton Fort, near the capital, to a two-month siege. Port-Républiquen suffers from a lack of water when the Cul de Sac blacks cut off supplies. In the end, the British receive reinforcements and manage to regain control of the surroundings of the city. On July 22, the Treaty of Basel is signed between France and Spain. The latter, defeated in the War of the Pyrenees, delivered Santo Domingo, the western half of Hispaniola, in exchange for the peninsular territories occupied by the French. When the news of this change of sovereignty reaches the island in October, a massive emigration takes place.More than 5,000 families are transferred to Cuba by Admiral Gabriel de Aristizábal y Espinosa.

British withdrawal

Governor General Laveaux was viewed with suspicion by the mulattoes because of his open sympathy for the recently freed blacks. Due to this, on March 20, 1796 in Le Cap there was a mutiny among the mulattoes and he was arrested, but Louverture reacted immediately and marched with 10,000 blacks from Gonaïves. Laveux was released and on March 31 Louverture was appointed lieutenant. general, second in command to the governor, but he is the real owner of the colony.

Meanwhile, on March 21, the English from Port-au-Prince attacked Léogâne with the warships Leviathan (74 guns, Captain John Thomas Duckworth), Swiftsure (74 guns, Captain Robert Parker) and Africa (64 guns, Captain Roddam Home), the frigates Ceres (32 guns, Captain James Newman) and Iphigenia (32 guns, Captain Francis Farrington Gardner) and the sloops Cormorant (18 guns, Captain Joseph Bingham), Lark (16 guns, Captain William Ogilvy) and Sirène (French prize, 16 guns, Captain Daniel Guerin).The ground force is made up of 2,000 Redcoats and 1,200 Royalists under Major General Gordon Forbes. The city had been recaptured by the Republicans, who had dug in well, were able to repulse the attack and severely damage Leviathan and Africa.

Instead, in the south a conflict breaks out between blacks and mulattoes that summer. It all started when the three new civil commissioners landed on May 11, one of them was Sonthonax. A few months later Laveaux is sent back to France and Sonthonax is left in command. Openly favorable to the demands of the blacks, they ordered the mulattoes to attack the English. Thus Rigaud organized an attack with 1,200 mulattoes against Cap Tiburon, resulting in a resounding failure. The four columns of his army were decimated and at the base of Les Cayes the mulatto officers began to question the French leadership, being arrested. Rigaud returned with 3,000 to 4,000 mulattoes to the city and confronted the blacks to control the situation; during the clashes the few whites that remained in the city were massacred.Shortly after, in June, the Spanish officially withdraw from Saint-Domingue but the French do not take possession.

Finally, fearful of the power achieved by Louverture, Sonthonax begins to conspire with the mulattoes to remove him from command. However, the lieutenant general found out and forced Laveux and Sonthonax to leave the island on August 22, 1797. After in February 1798 blacks from Louverture and 2,000 mulattoes from Pétion besieged and massacred 300 black royalist militiamen in Fort La Coupe, the British entrench themselves in the capital. In mid-March, decimated by tropical diseases and guerrillas, they begin to negotiate with Louverture, who is the most powerful man in Saint-Domingue. Brigadier Thomas Maintland agrees to withdraw on April 23,Made on May 8 from Port-au-Prince, Saint-Marc and Les Cayes to Jamaica. The British are accompanied by almost all the remaining whites and mulattoes, concentrating in Môle-Saint-Nicolas under the protection of the Royal Navy for an eventual evacuation. On August 31 this finally occurs. The English had mobilized 31,000 men for this war and about 23,000 lost their lives in Saint-Domingue. On June 13 Louverture signs a secret treaty with the United States and the United Kingdom. so that they stay out of the internal events of Saint-Domingue. In exchange, the black leader agrees not to export his revolution to the other Caribbean islands, fear of this had been one of the main causes of the allied offensive.

France again tries to impose itself on Saint-Domingue by sending the Count de Hédouville and the civil commissioner Raimond as the new governor general. They arrive on March 29 and are displaced from the negotiations by Louverture, beginning to conspire with Rigaud against him and trying to demobilize the black militias. This allows Louverture to rally the freedmen of the north against him. On October 23 they are forced to return to the metropolis. Louverture now has an army of 51,000 troops, 3,000 of them white. Rigaud saw in Louverture the only threat to his power after his blacks had forced the garrison of Léogâne who ordered Pétion to evacuate the city, being occupied on May 14.Saint-Domingue was divided between the mulattoes of Rigaud in the south and the blacks of Louverture in the north.

Third phase: 1799-1801

It is known as Guerre des Couteaux, "War of the Knives" (fr), the confrontation between the two leaders who wanted complete power over the island.

Rigaud feared Louverture, he had more than 15,000 soldiers but the forces of his northern rival outnumbered him three to one. Tensions began on February 21, 1799, when he sent emissaries to the cathedral of Port-Républican (old Port-au- Prince) to announce his intention to take Jacmel and Léogâne under his control. The war broke out between June 15 and 16, when Petit-Goâve was stormed by southern armies and most of the black residents were massacred. The mulattoes quickly conquered Jacmel and Grand Goâve but the capital is tenaciously defended by the garrison loyal to Louverture. In addition, the northern region had strong black sentiment and Anglo-American support.

In October, General Henri Christophe besieged Rigaud's mulattoes in Jacmel, while Louverture advanced on the southern province. Jacmel's garrison resists Alexandre Pétion's orders, starving until March 11, 1800, when he evacuates the city. The war ends in July, when General Jean-Jacques Dessalines entered Les Cayes triumphantly. During the conflict there are many massacres and hundreds of executions after the end of hostilities, as many mulattoes were suspected of conspiring in favor of Rigaud's return. The latter fled into exile in France. As many as ten thousand lives may have been lost during the conflict, also known as the guerre du Sud, "war of the South". Dessalines remains as governor of the newly conquered south.Louverture's power over the western half of the island is secured.

The eastern part remained to be claimed. Finally, an army of 10,000 blacks crossed the border under the command of his nephew and adopted son, General Hyacinthe Moïse, and arrived before the walls of Santo Domingo on January 25, 1801. Governor Joaquín García y Moreno barely had 650 men to offer. resistance and half change sides as soon as the blacks arrive. The Creoles and French refugees present in the fort of San Geronimo and in the city surrender the next day and he is left as governor of l'Est, "the East," to the lieutenant general's younger brother, in his forties, Brigadier Paul Louverture. The caudillo owns all of Hispaniola, however, in October a conspiracy to overthrow him in Le Cap is discovered, led by his own nephew; Louverture decides to arrest and execute him on November 9.

Fourth phase: 1802-1804

The First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte wanted to reimpose effective rule over the colony, dispute the Caribbean with the English and create a colonial empire. However, he only dispatched the expedition once he made peace with the vastly superior British on 1 October. In charge of it was his brother-in-law, Charles-Victoire-Emmanuel Leclerc, sailing from Brest on December 14. The fleet was commanded by Admiral Louis Thomas Villaret de Joyeuse (fr) and numbered 21 frigates and 35 ships of the line. Shortly after, reinforcements set sail from Toulon (February 14, 1802) under the charge of Rear Admiral Count Ganteaume (fr) and from Cádiz (February 17) led by Rear Admiral Count of Linois. From Santiago de Cuba Admiral Federico Gravina joined with Spanish ships.

The French estimated Louverture's forces at 16,000 men (5,000 in the North, 4,000 in the West, 4,000 in the South and 3,000 in the East). In reality there were possibly 25,000 regulars and 30,000 militiamen. During the revolution more than 100,000 The slaves took up arms. The plan was simple: 1,000 soldiers would occupy Spanish Santo Domingo under Kerverseau, 3,000 Port-au-Prince (Boudet), 2,000 Fort Dauphin (Rochambeau) and 4,000 El Cabo (Hardy).

Leclerc arrived at Samaná Bay on January 29, 1802, closely followed by a contingent from the Count de La Touche-Tréville (fr). On February 3, Villaret de Joyeuse and Gravina reached Le-Cap and stormed the city two days later. On February 5, General Jean Boudet (fr) landed at Port-Repúblique from ships commanded by Leclerc and La Touche-Tréville. On February 6, Viscount Rochambeau (fr) attacked Fort Dauphin. Three days later General Boudet took Léogâne.On February 11, Boudet sent 2,000 soldiers towards Croix des Bouquet, entering it without meeting resistance. Two days later, the same general landed at Saint Marc with 2,400 men, but his flotilla (three ships and the frigate Aigle) were damaged by batteries on land. He then sends the colonel, Viscount Hénin (fr), to capture Mirebalais and Trianon, a mission he accomplishes in two weeks, leaving the south under complete French control. In charge of the eastern side was General Baron Kerverseau, fifty-one. years. The baron defeated the rebels in Bayaguana on February 16 and four days later entered Santo Domingo, becoming governor of the East.

At this time, the 10,000 blacks of Louverture and Christophe were scattered to the north in small bands while a guerrilla group of 1,500 rebels operated under Dessalines at Crête-à-Pierrot. On April 26 Christophe surrenders with 1,200 followers and on May 6 Louverture sues for peace. However, the French begin to be decimated by tropical diseases but it was not all good news for the rebels. On June 7, Louverture is captured by General Brunet after promising him a truce to negotiate peace. The black leader is sent on the Heroes into exile. At the end of the following month, news arrived that slavery had been reestablished in Guadeloupe, blacks had lost their French citizenship, and the importation of new Africans was reestablished. this frightened the population and turned it against the French. In less than a month, popular support made the rebels recover much of the territory, while Leclerc tried to terrify the blacks with massacres or execute them in crucifixions and tearing them to pieces with dogs. In October Christophe rejoins the rebels and Pétion returns from exile. Black vomit killed Leclerc on the night of November 2 at La Tortuga. He succeeds Rochambeau as Governor General and Commander-in-Chief. By this time the French were entrenched in the cities under his control. In October Christophe rejoins the rebels and Pétion returns from exile. Black vomit killed Leclerc on the night of November 2 at La Tortuga. He succeeds Rochambeau as Governor General and Commander-in-Chief. By this time the French were entrenched in the cities under his control. In October Christophe rejoins the rebels and Pétion returns from exile. Black vomit killed Leclerc on the night of November 2 at La Tortuga. He succeeds Rochambeau as Governor General and Commander-in-Chief. By this time the French were entrenched in the cities under his control.​​

On January 16, 1803, the rebels took Anse-à-Veau and shortly after, a party of 2,000 blacks stormed Cap Tiburon. The following month, the mulatto militias of Port Salut rise up against their French commanders. Shortly after, Nicolas Geffrard (father of the future Haitian president Fabre Geffrard) and Colonel Laurent Férou (fr) besiege Les Cayes. On March 5, 1,200 French and Polish soldiers disembark under the orders of General Jean Sarrazin, they are immediately sent to liberate Les Cayes from its siege but before they try to take Cap Tiburon, they suffer 300 casualties and suffer from black vomit in Les Cayes.

At the beginning of June, the British begin to blockade the ports of Saint-Domingue, further complicating the situation for the French. By August they must evacuate Jérémie and on September 3 the Saint-Marc garrison, under the command of Brigadier Hénin, prefers to surrender to Captain James Walker of the Vanguard and be evacuated to Môle-Saint-Nicolas, avoiding death at the hands of Dessalines. Five days later, at Fort Dauphin, after enduring the bombardment of the English ship Thesus, the garrison commanded by General Dumont surrendered to Captain John Bligh and negotiated to be evacuated to Le Cap.

Dessalines began his offensive and took the French positions one by one until he cornered the French at Le Cap. On November 18, General François Capois (fr) assaulted the Vertières fort with 15,000 soldiers, leaving the city defenseless. Facing certain annihilation, the viscount decides to capitulate with the 5,000 survivors. The Royal Navy evacuates them to Jamaica.

Of the 33,000 soldiers, sailors and civilian personnel on the expedition (including reinforcements received) 29,000 died, mainly from black vomit. These forces included 5,280 Polish soldiers, of whom 4,000 died in the war, 700 returned to France, 400 they stayed in Saint-Domingue and a few dozen fled to the US or other Caribbean islands. Other sources say that out of 6,000 Poles only 330 returned to France.

From the start of the war until the Viscount's surrender the population of Saint-Domingue had shrunk from 520,000 to 350,000 people. According to the American historian Robert L. Scheina (b. 1941), the revolution would have cost the lives of 200,000 slaves and freedmen, 75,000 combatants loyal to France (40,000 between 1802 and 1803), 45,000 loyal to Great Britain (13,000 due to illness between 1793 and 1798), and 25,000 to 50,000 European or Creole non-combatants.

Independent Haiti

Finally, on the New Year of 1804, the independence of Haiti (or Ayiti) was proclaimed with Dessalines as governor for life. Haiti was the first country in the Caribbean and Latin America to gain its independence. It was known as the first black republic and the first country to abolish the slave system.

The firsts years

Among his first measures, the massacre of the white Creoles that remained in Haiti stands out. Between 3,000 and 5,000 people lost their lives and practically there were hardly any whites left in the country. However, the powers of that time did not immediately recognize the independence of Haiti and did not forgive the slave revolution; economic blockades were imposed and the development of the state was not helped (for example, the US only recognized the independence of Haiti in 1862). Although on October 8 he crowned himself emperor with the name of James I.

Dessalines' two main problems involve the economy and national security. When Haiti became independent, the country was bankrupt and mostly destroyed as a result of the war. To raise national funds, he created a labor system that involved returning unskilled workers to the plantations. They received a quarter of the income that came from the export of their products. He was able to generate some wealth through clandestine trade deals with surrounding colonies ruled by nations that had embargoes on Haiti. This system was hated, as the workers did not want to return to the plantations, which contributed to the animosity between Dessalines and his people. However, Dessalines was able to obtain some national income and began to rebuild the country.

Dessalines addressed the issue of national security by creating an elaborate system of fortresses throughout the country. Forts were built on top of high mountains so that they would be difficult to access, and messages could be sent to neighboring forts about an impending attack. Dessalines had most of the major cities and commercial centers moved into the interior of the country, and he left coastal towns that could burn to discourage the French if they were to invade. Between 15,000 and 30,000 men enlisted in his army. In 1805 Dessalines and Christophe tried to organize a military campaign that would eliminate French influences in the eastern part of the island. The campaign was a failure and resulted in the destruction of multiple Dominican cities, Moca, Santiago, Monte Plata,

Despite gaining independence for his country, Dessalines was still very concerned about the slave trade going on around him. In his constitution, he ruled that any slave and downtrodden who landed in Haiti would receive citizenship immediately, and he started a program involving Afro-descendant emigration to Haiti. In 1806, a Venezuelan revolutionary, Francisco de Miranda, landed in Haiti to obtain asylum. In the city of Jacmel, he created what would become the flag of Gran Colombia, proportionally using the blue and red bands in honor of Haiti. Dessalines made sure that he was sent back with arms and ammunition to fight the Spanish, only asking for the slaves' release in return.

The civil War

The animosity of the workers and mulatto elites culminated in a conspiracy that would result in Dessalines's assassination. Although Christophe was favored to succeed Dessalines, the mulatto general, Petion became president of the nation. Frustrated, Christophe went north and proclaimed the State of Haiti and had himself elected its president on February 17, 1807. In response, Pétion proclaimed himself president of the Republic of Haiti on March 9, 1807, starting a war that lasted until 1810. The northern capital was Milot, although it later moved to Cap-Haïtien (Le Cap). On March 28, 1811 Christophe established the Kingdom of Haiti with himself as King Henry I. There were great differences between Petion and Christophe's government. The southern region, ruled by Petion, had more relaxed labor laws and liberal land distribution laws. Petion was very laissez-faire in public policy, earning him the title "papa bon coeur", or in Spanish, "good-hearted father". In contrast, Christophe focused on national development. He modeled a labor system much like Dessalines, which generated a lot of income for his kingdom through trade with the British colonies and the United States. He made a lot of investment in public works and education. He was able to rebuild and revitalize much of the northern region. He finished a project started by Dessalines, the Citadel Laferriere, which became the largest fortress in the Western Hemisphere and is now considered a UNESCO heritage site. Christophe also lived very lavishly and built dozens of country houses and palaces in the northern plains, the most famous being the Sans Souci Palace. He was known as the "Builder King" of Haiti. The north was relatively richer than the south. Unfortunately, this was achieved by modeling the feared Dessalines labor system, which ultimately led to his unpopularity and demise. His reign lasted until a palace revolt on October 8, 1820, where he ended up taking his own life. His son, Jacques-Victor Henri of Haiti (fr), was assassinated ten days later. In December 1810 Rigaud returned to Haiti and proclaimed himself president of the South department,

Pétion gave his support to Simón Bolívar by financing the Expedition of the Keys. In 1816 he proclaimed himself president for life and closed the Senate, but two years later he died and was succeeded by his protégé: Jean-Pierre Boyer. This regains control of northern Haiti after Christophe died in 1820 and unifies the entire island after the Ephemeral Independence, after agreements with the governor of the Independent State of Spanish Haiti that lasted until 1844 when the Dominicans declared independence. This marked the end of the post-independence era.

Impact on the Atlantic world

Haiti represented an enormous threat to the colonial system in the New World. Dozens of uprisings arose as a result of Haiti's independence. This included the United States, Cuba, Jamaica, Santo Domingo, the French West Indies, and Brazil. In 1811, a Haitian refugee led an uprising of 200 slaves in the American city of New Orleans, burning down multiple plantations. The revolutions of Nat Turner and John Brown were inspired by the events that unfolded in Haiti. Many states adopted stricter and more restrictive laws on their slave populations, creating more pressure between black and white Creoles. The Haitian revolution also destroyed Napoleon's plans to invade North America and claim the United States as part of the new France. The revolution scared slave owners around the world, prompting intermittent embargoes of Haiti throughout the 19th century. US President Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner, made sure the United States blocked Haiti's imposing influences, saying he wanted the nation to fail.

Although Haiti suffered significant economic setbacks during the early years of the post-revolutionary era, the ideals of freedom and anti-colonialism never ceased to be part of the Haitian consciousness. Citizenship was offered to any slave or oppressed person who will reach the shores of Haiti as provided by Dessalines's constitution. He offered asylum and weapons to slaves in Martinique and Guadeloupe so they could start their own rebellions. The four previous rulers of Haiti, Dessalines, Christophe, Petion and Boyer had programs involving African Americans to settle there and secure their freedom. The slave ships that were captured and brought to the shores of Haiti resulted in the release and integration of all captives on board into Haitian society. On one occasion, President Alexandre Pétion protected Jamaican slaves from re-enslavement after they escaped from his plantation and landed in the southern town of Jérémie. On multiple occasions, Haitian leaders offered asylum to liberal revolutionaries worldwide. One of the most notable examples of this was Haiti's involvement with Gran Colombia, where Dessalines and Petion offered aid, ammunition, and asylum to Francisco de Miranda, and Simón Bolívar, who landed in Los Cayos, even went so far as to credit Haiti for the liberation of his country. Mexican nationalists Javier Mina and José Joaquín de Herrera took asylum in Los Cayos and were received by Pétion during the Mexican War of Independence. The Greeks later received support from President Boyer during their fight against the Ottomans.

Many other liberal revolutionaries were inspired by Haiti's independence, including José de San Martín, José Martí de Cuba, and Ramón Emeterio Betances. Many African-American activists used Haiti as inspiration for their civil rights advocacy, such as Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass.