The Haitian Revolution

Podcast Transcript

Between 1791 and 1804, the only successful slave rebellion in human history occurred.

The revolution was an insurrection of enslaved Africans against French colonial rule in the Caribbean colony of Saint-Dominge.

The success of the revolution led to the establishment of a free state known as Haiti.

Yet, despite achieving their freedom, the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution has led to long-term problems that plague the country to this day.

Learn more about the Haitian Revolution and why it was successful on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

The subject of the Haitian Revolution is significant and complex, so this episode will be one of those 30,000-foot episodes, where we examine the big picture and then use it as a reference for more narrowly focused episodes later on.

To understand what sparked the revolution, we need to know what pre-revolutionary Haiti was like and the conditions under which the people there lived.

Haiti is located in the Caribbean on the western half of the island of Hispaniola. Before the revolution, it was a French colony known as Saint-Domingue. The colony was plantation-based and primarily focused on cultivating sugarcane.

By the 1740s, the colony of Saint-Domingue had become one of the world’s leading suppliers of sugar. It was the most profitable of the French colonies and one of the most profitable colonies in all of the 18th century.

However, this profit came at a high human cost, as it was totally dependent on slave labor.

About 30,000 slaves were transported every year into the colony. Those who were shipped to Saint Dominigue faced terrible conditions in the plantations, including contracting malaria and yellow fever. This led to about 50% of slaves dying within their first year of arriving.

Additionally, slaves in Saint-Dominigue faced horrific treatment. While any slavery is bad, the conditions in Saint-Domingue were considered to be worse than those in any other colony in the Western Hemisphere.

The treatment of slaves and the death rates were so high that it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the plantation owners considered slaves to be disposable. They would work most of them to death and then just import more.

By 1758, plantation owners began to implement a caste system. In the case of Haiti, they were separated into three different class groups.

The top group was the white colonists, the “les blancs.” These were the plantation owners and lower-class whites.

The second group was the free people of color, also known in French as the “gens de couleur libres.” This group was typically mixed-race and was often educated and literate. Typically, those in this group would be the children of a plantation owner and an enslaved mother, or former slaves who had bought or inherited their freedom.

The third group, which outnumbered the other groups almost 10 to 1, was the enslaved group. Within this group, the culture was separate from others on the island, having more African influence due to the high numbers of slaves being imported into the colony.

Within the 3rd group, there was internal separation between the slaves born in Africa and those born within the colony, known as “creoles.”

Creoles tended to have more opportunities than African-born slaves and better jobs on the plantations.

Unsurprisingly, this caste system led to conflict and violence between the different groups.

These conflicts tended to be with escaped slaves known as ‘maroons.’ The groups of runaway slaves would often raid sugar and coffee plantations, attacking the white owners and workers.

The Enlightenment ideas, which were gaining traction in France at this time, brought the ethics of slavery in Saint Dominique into question.

Everything that Enlightenment thinkers were advancing in France about freedom, liberty, and equality ran counter to the reality of what was happening in Saint-Domingue.

In 1789, the colony held roughly half the slave population in the entire Caribbean.

The colony had a population of 40,000 whites, 28,000 mixed-race and free blacks, and 452,000 slaves.

Laws began to become more and more discriminatory, specifically against freedmen, which caused tensions to grow, and freed blacks and mixed-race people to side with those enslaved.

Specifically in the Northern Port city ‘Le Cap Français’, freedmen would become increasingly frustrated with the laws banning them from public positions, forcing them to wear distinctive clothing, and limiting their ability to live where they chose.

This group would become some of the key leaders of the Haitian Revolution.

Then in 1789, the French Revolution broke out.

The Haitian Revolution and the French Revolution are inherently intertwined, as many of the initial Haitian actions were direct responses to the Revolutionary ideologies of the French.

During the Revolution, the First French Republic published the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.’

This legislation stated that all men are free and equal, but it was unclear if this applied to colonies, slaves, and women.

This had ramifications for Saint-Dominge. The white colonizers took this as an opportunity to gain freedom from France and create their own economic policies.

As the whispers of freedom from the plantation owners spread across the island, the African population began to hear about it.

Initially, many of the slaves and freedmen in the colony actually took France’s side as they were worried that separating from French rule would lead to even worse treatment at the hands of the plantation owners.

Free people of color began to appeal to France and the Colonial Governor, citing French law for equality, which led to small insurgencies.

The freedmen led these first insurgencies and did not end slavery, nor were they intended to. Nonetheless, they would lead to the later rebellion by the enslaved populace.

In 1791, the Haitian Revolution officially began. It started with the Free People of color once more.

The French Revolution granted citizenship to wealthy men of color, a move that the white population in Haiti refused to adopt. This led to fighting breaking out between the two groups.

On August 21, 1791, thousands of slaves revolted.

That night, the slaves had attended a religious vodou ceremony. While there, they were given an omen in the form of a tropical storm. Taking this as a sign, the slaves started killing their masters, starting a rebellion.

Over the following few days, slaves took control of the Northern Province, getting revenge on the plantation owners. The violence was extreme, and while many of the whites had been prepared for a revolt, but the vast number of those in the rebellion, roughly 100,000 slaves, proved too much for their defenses.

The slaves had killed 4,000 whites, destroyed hundreds of plantations, and inflicted massive economic damage.

However, there were still pockets of white population within the Northern Territory, which managed to strike back, killing 15,000 of the rebelling blacks.

At this point, the slaves were claiming to have fought for the King of France. They had falsely believed that King Louis XVI had given the orders for freedom, as information about the new French Republic had been suppressed from the enslaved populace. They demanded their freedom based on the declarations of the King.

By 1792, the rebels controlled a third of the island. The National Assembly gave free men of color equal rights in March of that year in an attempt to stop the revolts.

Additionally, they also abolished slavery within the Northern part of the island and sent an additional 6,000 soldiers to the colony.

The decision to grant freedom to the slaves was shocking to countries throughout Europe and to the United States.

Meanwhile, back in Europe, France declared war on Great Britain in 1793. Many of the plantation owners within Saint-Domingue were upset with the rights granted to the former slaves and asked for British aid.

The British viewed the island as an asset, as it was economically valuable. Additionally, they were worried the slave revolts would spread to their colonies in the Caribbean.

The British made a deal with the French colonists to help restore the previous caste system and restore slavery by troops on the island.

This went horribly for the British as the troops were untrained and being decimated by disease. They ended up doing very little to help the plantation owners regain power.

Spain also fought in the conflict as it controlled the other half of the island, which is today the Dominican Republic. They fought with the British and worked against France.

It is here where I mention one of the main leaders of the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint Louverture. He was a former slave who identified as Creole.

Louverture played a crucial role in the leadership of the initial slave revolts in 1791.

I bring him up here because he actually fought alongside the Spanish, despite them technically working to reimpose the slave system.

The politics of the situation were complicated, but many on the island did not trust the French to end slavery or grant them rights. He viewed the British and Spanish as tools to undermine French rule in the colony and aid in his goal to achieve freedom and independence.

He was using the old adage, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

However, this changed when the French government ended slavery within France and its colonies while granting rights to all black men, placing the abolition of slavery in the French Constitutions of 1793 and 1795.

After the French abolished slavery, Louverture turned against his Spanish allies and expelled them from the colony.

He was also conciliatory towards the white population, stating that he did not want freedom from France, but instead simply wanted to rebuild the island.

After the Spanish were pushed out of the Colony, the British moved to take over the island, dispatching more troops to the territory. To make a long story short, this failed as the soldiers were decimated by yellow fever and the French troops, most of whom were made up of former slaves.

At this point, the British leave the island.

After the British left, Louverture began a civil War against the Southern Provinces, which were led by a mixed-race man named André Rigaud.

Again, Louverture came out on top and ruled Saint Domingue for all intents and purposes as a dictator.

As a leader, he continued to work with the French but maintained the island’s autonomy.

He then began to call for a sovereign black state with black autonomy, which led Napoleon to send military forces to the island. These forces were under instruction to restore slavery.

The French arrived in 1802 and ordered Saint-Domingue to turn the city of Le Cap over to the French. When they refused, the French began to use force to take the city, and the Haitians opted to burn the city rather than surrender it.

Haitian leadership and generals were ruled as outlaws and rebels, and citizens were told to hunt them down.

Louverature opted for a Fabian Strategy, on which I have a previous episode. This basically means they aimed to win by not fighting the enemy.

The goal was to last until the rainy season. So, to make it until then, the Haitians tore up roads, burnt supplies to the ground, and destroyed anything that could be of use to the French.

France had expected the Haitians to naturally want to fall back into the previous “natural” order, so when that did not happen, they were unprepared for the violence that followed.

One aspect of the Revolution that is notable was the psychological warfare the Haitians employed against the French.

As the French were fighting to reinstitute slavery, the Haitians would sing songs of the French Revolution, ask why they were fighting for enslavement, and claim that they were only enacting the ideals of the Revolution.

Eventually, Louverture gave up fighting after 11 years and agreed to integrate his army into the French army. He was promised freedom and land if he gave in. He was deceived and sent back to France, and he died in prison in 1803.

The new leader, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, submitted to the French army and became the new governor of the island.

Haitians were punished en masse for their rebellious actions, and the French viewed the conflict over, despite the occasional guerrilla attacks.

Napoleon sent a group of Polish soldiers to the island to help replace the French troops decimated by yellow fever.

The Poles believed that if they aided Napoleon, he would grant Poland its independence.

The Poles and Haitians soon found many similarities with each other and began to develop mutual respect. These same Polish troops later helped the Haitians gain independence, and in return, the Haitians granted citizenship to some of the Poles for their aid.

In October 1802, Dessalines and Alexandre Pétion, another leader of the Haitian Revolution, turned on the French and resumed the fight against them.

The French began an almost genocidal war against the Haitians, leading to Dessalines committing similar acts of violence. The French genocidal actions made many loyalists switch sides to the rebels.

With the war between Britain and France flaring up again in 1803, the French were unable to send reinforcements to Haiti. The British also began to supply arms to the rebels to weaken France.

If that sounds familiar, that is almost the same as what the French did to the British during the American Revolution.

This led the French to abandon the province in October 1803. The remaining French on the island held out as long as possible, but on January 1, 1804, Dessalines declared independence and renamed the country Haiti.

France officially recognized Haiti’s independence in 1825, more than two decades after Haiti declared itself a free republic in 1804. This recognition was granted under King Charles X, but it was not given freely. France demanded a massive indemnity of 150 million francs, later reduced to 90 million in 1838, as compensation for lost property, including enslaved people.

Haiti, under the threat of a French naval blockade and possible invasion, agreed to pay this sum in exchange for diplomatic recognition.

Haiti didn’t pay off this debt until 1947. They had often had to loan money at exorbitant interest rates from French banks to make their payments, which hamstrung their economy for almost 200 years.

The Haitian Revolution was a simple uprising that achieved freedom and independence. It was a very messy and tumultuous affair that lasted years, and the aftermath of which lasted centuries.

Nonetheless, the revolutionaries in Haiti managed to do what most people thought impossible. Execute the only successful slave revolt in history and become a free and independent country.

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.

Research and writing for this episode were provided by Olivia Ashe.

A reminder that I will be hosting the Everything Everywhere Daily 5th anniversary celebration in a little over a week. It will be held the evening of July 19th at McFleshman’s Brewing Company in Appleton, Wisconsin.

If you are interested in attending, there is a sign-up form on Facebook. You can access it from the Facebook group or click on the link in the show notes.

Today’s review comes from listener André Santos Pinto from Apple Podcasts in Portugal. He writes:

Golden Scalpel Completionist Club

Hello Gary! I have just now completed all the episodes of this precious podcasted encyclopedia just as l’ve ended my plastic surgery residency, and I cannot possibly think of a better way to describe this show as the very motto of my faculty – The one who only knows about Medicine, doesn’t even know about Medicine! I’m so proud and grateful! Please, where can I find the golden scalpel? Truly the best, André

Thanks, Andre! Congratulations on both the completion of your residency and your entry into the completionist club. I will drink a glass of Vino Verde in your honor.

Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you, too, can have it read on the show.