It ended Napoleon’s attempts to create a French empire in the Western Hemisphere and arguably caused France to decide to sell its North American holdings to the United States (the Louisiana Purchase)—thus enabling the expansion of slavery into that territory. Thomas Jefferson was President during the time Haiti gained its independence. Saint Domingue was the French portion of the Carribean island of Hispaniola, which was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492. 1. In fact, it is still so important that the site is visited even today, once a year, every August 14th.
Yet the Haitians would never be slaves again; and somehow, the determination behind that spirit won out over arguably one of history’s greatest world conquerors. The truth is, the idealism propounded by revolution, in America and elsewhere, was fraught from the beginning.
Closely shaping the course of the conflict was the French Revolution which began in 1789, and was at first widely welcomed in the island. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, undated engraving. The young country had a shaky start; the war had devastated many plantations and towns, and Haiti was plagued with civil unrest, economic uncertainties, and a lack of skilled planners, craftsmen, and administrators. In 1793 a commissioner, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, was sent from France to maintain order and offered freedom to slaves who joined his army; he soon abolished slavery altogether, a decision confirmed the following year by the French government.
Its reported that before the Haitian Revolt began, the African Slaves conducted a Voodoo ceremony to strengthen themselves for the battle ahead according to the ways of their ancient African forefathers. Increasingly, he began taking on more and more roles to support freedom in Haiti, until he eventually began recruiting and supporting rebellious slaves.
He even discussed importing new Africans to jump-start the plantation economy. In 1801, he made Haiti a sovereign free Black state, appointing himself as governor-for-life. The slaves who were brought in directly from Africa were less submissive than those who were born into slavery in the colony. In 1801, a French Fleet 50, 000 men strong was dispatched to Saint-Domingue with orders to annihilate the ’embarassing’ new Black Republic. The country was torn by rival factions, some of which were supported by Spanish colonists in Santo Domingo (on the eastern side of the island, which later became the Dominican Republic) or by British troops from Jamaica. Infused with the divine energy of the incantations and rituals performed by Boukman and Fatiman, they laid waste to the surrounding area, destroying 1,800 plantations and killing 1,000 slave owners within one week. He wanted Whites, some being former slave owners, to stay and rebuild the colony. By 1776, Britain’s colonies in America — fueled by revolutionary rhetoric and Enlightenment thought that challenged the existing ideas about government and power — revolted and overthrew what many considered to be the most powerful nation in the world.
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