The Haiti Revolution: Birth of A Republic

The untold story of a republican revolution in the Caribbean.

Jean-Baptiste Belley, a Haitian member of France’s National Convention. Portrait of Girodet, 1797.

It was the summer of 1789. Haiti was still the French colony of Saint Domingue. Back in continental Europe, Parisian mobs rioted against the Crown of France. Promoting the Enlightenment principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, it was the beginning of the glorious French Revolution.

French Revolution

The French revolutionaries demanded an end to aristocratic privilege. A National Assembly was convened, consisting of Europe’s most forward-thinking radical thinkers. They were inspired by the idea that all people have inherent rights. Their revolutionary doctrine was enshrined in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. The egalitarian ideals of the French Revolution shocked the aristocracies of Europe. They also have seismic effects in France’s overseas slave colony off the coast of Florida. Known as Saint Domingue at the time, the western half is now the modern nation of Haiti. 

Sugar slavery

In the 18th century, Haiti was the sugar capital of the world. It was run using a harsh slave economy. French enslavement of the black Haitians was especially cruel. Masters whipped their slaves, meticulously watching their labor. Amputations were inflicted on arms and legs. Hot pepper would be rubbed into skin wounds. Slaves were sometimes strung up and left to die. A typical slave rarely survived over two years. Some blacks managed to escape these nightmarish conditions. Many were born free, the offspring of white planters. Others gained their freedom through their own wit and talent. One such man was Toussaint L’Overture. “I was born a slave, but nature gave me the soul of a free man,” he declared. Toussaint was the Father of the Haitian Revolution. Born and raised on a slave plantation in Saint Domingue, he managed to rise through the ranks of slave society. He gained his freedom in the 1770s. The clever Toussaint was a man who saw opportunity even in the bleakest of circumstances. He had business connections around the world, including in the US. When the French Revolution broke out, Toussaint initially kept silent. Many whites and even free people of color were worried about slave uprisings in Saint Domingue. Race was not black and white. There was a racial hierarchy with as many as a hundred categories, calibrated based on the amount of African blood in a person’s ancestry. 

Unrest in Haiti

The first Haitians to urge for revolution were not the blacks, but those of mixed race. Their chance came in 1791, when the mulattos petitioned the Revolutionary French government for the rights of citizenship. It enraged the island’s white population. Working-class colonizers began a full-scale intimidation campaign. But it was received much differently in Paris. The delegates at the National Assembly extended the rights of French citizenship to Haitians of mixed racial heritage. Even though those reforms were very moderate, they were still deemed too radical by the white colonists of Haiti. They refused to obey orders from Paris, even threatening to secede. Slaves came from various African ethnicities, originating from what is now Nigeria, Benin, Angola, and the Congo. The Kongolese were the largest ethnicity. They developed their own syncretic spirituality, which mixed elements from Roman Catholicism with the Vodou beliefs of West Africa. There was a slave uprising, which demolished Haiti’s massive sugar plantations and coffee farms. Whites and mulattos fled to the capital, as huge fires broke out. Educated in both European and African culture, Toussaint was uniquely positioned to provide discipline and structure to the amorphous slave revolt. He was well-versed in the most radical thinkers of the Enlightenment in Europe. Guillaume Raynal, a French Enlightenment intellectual who wrote the History of the Two Indies, predicted the rise of a Black Spartacus who would liberate the African slaves from colonial oppression. Toussaint saw himself as the anticipated Black Spartacus, fighting for freedom in Haiti. With the growing violence and unrest, Toussaint was placed in a difficult position. His own finances were heavily tied to the very plantations being destroyed. He had carefully mediated between the black and white worlds of Haiti for 15 years. No longer a slave, he himself owned two or three plantations. His interests were different from those of the masses. So he actually returned to the plantations to protect his former owners. Revolutionary France sent military reinforcements to restore white colonial rule over Haiti. Toussaint attempted to negotiate a peaceful end of the conflict. He proposed some moderate reforms to slavery, but the aggrieved white colonizers flatly refused. 

Liberation of a colony

Back in France, the Revolution had turned into the Reign of Terror. As the revolutionaries battled against its surrounding European aristocracies, the French government began to crack down harshly on traitors within. Thousands were executed. In 1793, the French revolutionaries publicly beheaded King Louis. One French revolutionary was an abolitionist named Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, who proclaimed emancipation for all slaves in Saint Domingue. It was an attempt to bring black troops to his side. He established representative institutions, inviting mulattos to participate. White slave owners were enraged. Toussaint wrote an open letter, calling for liberty and equality in Saint Domingue. With this proclamation, he emerged as the leading figure of the Haitian Revolution. Toussaint struck a deal with Spain, a rival of France. The angry white colonists turned to Great Britain to crush the slave revolt. The British, Spanish, French, and black slaves all clashed for control over the small island colony. In early 1794, the events in Paris caused another explosion in the colony. A multi-racial delegation appeared before France’s National Assembly. Invoking the principles of the French Revolution, it urged the emancipation of Haiti’s slaves. They argued that the black Haitians were fighting on behalf of the French Republic against the seditious white colonists, who had sided with the British monarchy. The Assembly granted freedom and equality to the Haitians, with celebrations erupting across France. The ideals of the French Revolution had triumphed in the Caribbean. Nearly a million black Haitians instantly became French citizens. Toussaint and his revolutionaries continued to make gains against the white plantation owners. To the racists, it was embarrassing for black soldiers to defeat their white enemies. Slaveholders around the world became increasingly anxious about the growing success of the Haitian Revolution. In the United States and Cuba, even white Frenchmen were not allowed to come. Fears abounded of uncontrollable slave revolts. In an unprecedented manner, Toussaint rose through the ranks of the military. He gained promotion to brigadier general, and then to governor of Saint Domingue. No black man had ever achieved this before. 

Napoleon’s invasion

In 1797, Napoleon went to Egypt to expel the British. Napoleon and Toussaint had many similarities. Both men came from the fringes of French society. Both had risen to prominence through their military achievements, which allowed them to become political leaders. Months after conquering Egypt, Napoleon returned to Paris. There, he mounted a military coup. Toussaint watched Bonaparte’s rise with caution and suspicion. He was aware of the many pro-slavery voices still in France. Fearing the worst, Toussaint decided to restore economic productivity by sending blacks back to the cane fields. The newly freed slaves refused to be forced back into bondage. They wanted to produce crops for their own profit. Toussaint began to lose popular support. Meanwhile, Napoleon’s popularity soared high. He proclaimed a new constitution in France, which reinstated slavery in the colonies. Toussaint responded by drafting his own constitution, which became the first in the world to explicitly prohibit racial discrimination. He declared himself governor for life, establishing Haiti as a military dictatorship. Napoleon was outraged. The British, Spanish, French, and United States all shared a contempt for the black republic. In 1802, Toussaint was stunned to see the largest French expeditionary force ever assembled to invade Saint Domingue. “My decision to destroy the authority of the blacks in Saint Domingue is not so much based on consideration of commerce and money, as on the need to block forever the march of the blacks in the world,” Bonaparte reflected. Toussaint resisted the French invasion for three months, but he was unable to mobilize much support within his own country. Toussaint surrendered, and was arrested like a common criminal. He was deported to France, where he died in 1803. Saint Domingue erupted in anger. Conflict broke out between blacks and whites. After losing 50,000 troops, the French were driven off the island. Having gained independence, Haiti became the world’s first black republic in 1804. 

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