The Official Early(pre-1950s) Haitian History Thread

[Bawon Samedi]

Watsup Coli...

Thesis​

I made this thread to combat some misconception about Haitian history. For example, one big misconception about Haitian history is that they won the big revolution, but then Haiti is the country going straight to sh*t right after. The End. When in fact there was many factors that contributed to its fall throughout time. Unknown to many people, Haiti was actually a self sufficient and wealthy country, even after the French reparation and even going into the 1940's. In this thread I will not only be posting about the revolution, but things prior and after it. It has always been a lie that the media wanted people to believe that Haiti had always been a failed state. But In fact, throughout the 1800s Haiti remained a force in the Americas.

I want many people to sub to this thread, because like the Seminole Wars...No the Gullah Wars. A war oblivious to African Americans thread, I will be connecting the dots. I will also try my best to post the sources in chronological order.

Anyways enjoy.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Let's start with Dutty Boukman and prior to he revolution:

Many people know of Toussaint L’Ouverture and his unique role in fanning a blaze against slavery into a national conflagration from which was forged the historic transformation of Haiti’s enslaved population into a Black self-governing people.

However, many do not know much about another heroic figure: “Dutty” Boukman. If they do, they might know he was a houngan or vodun priest. Or they might even know that it was his anti-slavery activism that sparked an initial revolt of slaves into a full-scale uprising.

In this, Boukman was the historical descendant of Nat Turner, the enslaved Black American who had also sparked a rebellion in Virginia on August 21, 1831. Prior to the American Civil War, this revolt resulted in the largest number of fatalities then to occur. Turner’s revolt, like Boukman’s, was met with death: Boukman beheaded; Turner lynched.

However, Turner’s courage also inspired the White abolitionist, John Brown, two decades later. In 1859, Brown tried unsuccessfully to seize the federal armoury at Harper’s Ferry. His subsequent trial, conviction and hanging further increased inflammatory racial tensions. These led to Secession, which led to Civil War. One year after he was hung, former Black slaves marched into war singing, “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldrin’ in the grave, but his soul goes marchin’ on…”

So, too, with Boukman. His death did not kill the chantuelles he had taught his followers; chants they sang, fearlessly running into the jaws of death: of cannon, grapeshot and musket fire. Ill-armed, barefoot, hungry, but organized and led by Toussaint, they defeated huge odds: Britain’s armada of 218 ships.

Even fewer people know that Boukman was not Haitian, but Jamaican. A Maroon. And possibly a Muslim. His name is probably derived from the nickname, “bookman”, a term used to describe slaves able to read the Quran.

Boukman had been a slave in Jamaica. There he had been caught, not only being able to read, but also teaching other slaves to read. The moniker, “Dutty” was not complimentary. It summed up how slave owners viewed slaves who were literate. Before being sold off from Jamaica to slave owners in Haiti, he was punished by lashes with thongs to his back.

As cruel as this punishment was, it was nonetheless mild, relative to what could have occurred had he been caught being able to read in Barbados. In the same way gunpowder was rammed into the mouth of a cannon before an attached fuse was lit, so was gunpowder and fuse rammed up the anus of literate slaves; a punishment called, “blowin away the Bottom of a n_ _ _ _r”.

But who was Boukman? And who, apart from being a Jamaican, a houngan, a Maroon and the slave who lit the fire that blazed into freeing Haiti of slavery, thus hastening the ending of slavery in this hemisphere from the Carolinas to the Cayman Islands; from the Blue Mountains to Cerro Aripo?

He was described as someone huge, imposing, with a volcanic temper, magnetic influence, vast leadership skills, and as courageous as he was fearsome. Bought and brought into Haiti, he had been made slave driver on a plantation. This position gave him room to create secret meetings with the slaves.

What Boukman sparked started at Alligator Swamp, or in Creole, Bois Caiman. What occurred there is now talismanic, epic, mythic. Something not unusual for details magnified when a single action results in such vast and irreversible consequences.

However, what is clear is who called the meeting of slaves, why, and what followed? Boukman demanded that each one present take a blood oath: “end slavery or die”. A date, set for beginning the uprising was moved up because some of the conspirators had been caught. In addition, there were other forces at play, ironically from within Republican France itself. The “metropole” created conditions which would ironically free “property” in the “hinterland”. The fervour of the slaves for freedom had been stirred in particular by the National Constituent Assembly of Republican France adopting “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”, on August 26, 1789.

Like the earlier American Declaration of Independence, which stated “All men being created equal and endowed with rights,” the adoption of this Declaration as the fundamental document of the French Revolution had not included “slaves and free people of colour”.

However, as in the U.S., those left outside the widening circumference of freedom, stormed the diameter, ensuring that the centre would not hold. They seized their rightful place. Although today they are perceived as extraordinarily heroic, in their time they were among the wretched of the earth. They knew that while the meek will inherit the planet, they must also be prepared to fight and die for this right.
Source:
http://sharenews.com/who-was-dutty-boukman/

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Connecting the dots to theory of Boukman being Muslim and Muslim Maroons:

The Muslim Factor in the Haitian Revolution
Sylvaine Diouf​

‘What the French did not realize was that their most profitable colony, Saint-Dominique (now Haiti), was fertile ground for Muslim maroons and rebels. The island had always had numerous maroon communities, and an average of a thousand runaways were advertised every year. The notices posted by the plantation owners, who listed the disappeared give a measure of the place of the Muslims among the maroons. Although large numbers of Muslims had been forcibly baptized, some had retained their original names, such as Ayouba, Tamerlan, Aly, Soliman, Lamine, Thisiman, Yaya, Belaly, and Salomon who appear in the notices. Female runaways, such as Fatme, Fatima, and Hayda, are also mentioned.
The Africans fled individually and, more usually, in groups. For instance, twelve Mandingo men, aged twenty-two to twenty-six, fled one night in 1783 from their owner’s house in Port-au-Prince. They were all professionals—masons, carpenters, and bakers.

It is not known if some maroon communities were entirely composed of Muslims, but major communities had Muslim leaders. Yaya, also called Gillot, was a devastating presence in the parishes of Trou and Terrier Rouge, before he was executed in September 1787. In Cul-de-Sac, an African Muslim named Halaou led a veritable army of thousands of maroons.

Part II

These Muslims were well known and feared, but the most famous of the pre-
Revolution maroon leaders was without a doubt Francois Macandal. Macandal was a field
hand, employed on a sugar plantation. One day, as he was working the sugar mill, one of his
hands got caught on the wheel and had to be severed. As he could no longer cut the cane, he
became a cattleman, later running away. For eighteen years Macandal was at large, living in
the mountains but making frequent incursions on the plantations to deliver death. He
organized a network of devoted followers and taught the slaves how to make poison, which
they used against their owners or against other slaves in order to ruin the slaveholders. His
reputation was such that a French document of 1758 estimates—with much exaggeration, no
doubt—the number of deaths he provoked at 6,000 over three years. In eighteenth-century
Saint-Domingue, poison was called macandal.
An African born in “Guinea,” Francois Macandal was in all probability a Mandingo.
He came from an illustrious family and had been sold to the Europeans as a war captive. He
was a Muslim who “had instruction and possessed the Arabic language very well,”
emphasized nineteenth-century Haitian historian Thomas Madiou, who gathered information
through the veterans of the Haitian Revolution. Macandal was most likely a marabout, for
French official documents describe him as being able to predict the future and as having
revelations. He was also well known for his skills in amulet making so much so that grisgris were called macandals. In addition, he was said to be a prophet, which indicates that he was perceived as having a direct connection to God. Thus besides being a marabout he may
have been a sharif, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammed (Peace Be Upon Him) ; but this
is only speculation, as no evidence exists to confirm or inform this hypothesis.​

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Continued:

Part III

Francois Macandal was much more than simply a maroon leader. He had a long-term plan for the island and saw the maroons as the “center of an organized resistance of the blacks against the whites,” stressed an eighteenth-century French document. He used practical symbolism to explain his vision for Saint-Domingue, Here are the first inhabitants of Saint -Domingue, they were yellow. “Here are the present inhabitants”—and he showed the white handkerchief—“here, at last, are those who will remain the masters of the island; it is the black handkerchief.”

To turn this prophecy into reality, Macandal planned to poison the wells of the city of Cap-Français. Once the slaveholders were dead or in the middle of convulsions, the “old mand from the mountain,” as Macandal was sometimes called, followed by his captains and lieutenants, would attack the city and kill the remaining whites. Before he could launch his assault, however, a slave betrayed him and he was caught. Tied up in a room with two guards, he somehow managed to escape. If he had killed the men with the pistol that lay on a table between them, Macandal may have been able to remain at large. But he had not. The guards gave the alarm, and he was caught again, this time by dogs.

Part IV

On January 20, 1758, Macandal was burned at the stake. The pole he was tied to collapsed, and the crowd saw this incident as a sign of his immortality. He had told his followers that as he was put to death, he would turn into a fly and fly away. The executioner asked to kill him with a sword as the coup de grâce, but his request was denied by the attorney general. Macandal was tied to a plank and thrown into the fire again.

The maroon leader Macandal can best be described as a marabout-warrior. He used his occult knowledge and his charisma to gain allies to wage war against his enemy, and he participated in the action personally.

Part V

Another popular leader who attained quasi-mythical status in Haitian history was Boukman. Very little is known about him. He was not born in Saint-Domingue but came from Jamaica, smuggled by a British slaver. As a slave, he became professional and rose to the rank of driver, later becoming a coachman. Using a position that allowed him to travel from plantation to plantation, as well as his charismatic personality, he had built a network of followers in the north. He definitely entered Haitian history when he galvanized a large assembly of slaves gathered on the night of August 14, 1791, in a clearing in the forest of Bois-Caiman. During this voodoo ceremony, Boukman launched the general revolt of the slaves with a speech in Creole that has remained famous. He denounced the God of the whites, who asked for crime, whereas the God of the Slaves wanted only good. “But this God who is so good, orders you to seek revenge,” he pounded. “He will direct our arms, he will assist us. Throw away the image of the God of the whites who is thirsty for our tears and listen to freedom which talks to our hearts.”

A week later, two hundred sugar estates and eighteen hundred coffee plantations were destroyed by the slaves, who were said to have cut the throats of a thousand slaveholders. At the beginning of November, Boukman was shot dead by an officer as he was fighting a detachment of the French army with a group of maroons. His severed head was fixed on a pole and exposed on a public square in Cap-Français.

There are indications that Boukman was a Muslim. Coming from Jamaica, he had an English name that was rendered phonetically in French by Boukman or Boukmann; in English, however, it was Bookman. Boukman was a “man of the book,” as the Muslims were referred to even in Africa—in Sierra Leone, for example, explained an English lieutenant, the Mandingo were “Prime Ministers” of every town, and they went “by the name bookman.” It is likely that Boukman was a Jamaican Muslim who had a Koran, and that he got his nickname from this.

Part VI

As many Muslims had done, and would continue to do, he had climbed the echelons of the slaves’ power structure and had reached the top. He was trusted, professional slave. He was also at the top of the slaves’ hierarchy in another way: he was recognized as a priest. He had passed down in history as a voodoo priest, but this does not mean that he was such. Because the Muslim factor largely has been ignored, any religious leader of African origin in the Caribbean has been linked to voodoo or orbeah.

Part VII

There is thus compelling evidence that two major leaders in Haitian history—Macandal and Boukman—were not only Muslims, they did not embark on a jihad, but they were the leaders of the slave population, irrespective of religion. What they provided was military expertise coupled with spiritual and occult assurance that the outcome of the fight would be positive. Both skills were of extreme value, each in its own way; but put together, they conferred on these leaders the aura of mythical figures. Because of their marabout knowledge they could galvanize the masses, push them to action and to surpass themselves.

Other marabouts, and the Muslims in general, played a crucial role in the Haitian revolts and ultimately in the Haitian Revolution through their occult skills, literacy, and military traditions. The marabouts provided protections to the insurgents in the form of gris-gris, as Colonel Malenfant recorded, and the Muslims used Arabic to communicate during uprisings. Through their role and contribution have not been acknowledged, the Muslims were essential in the success of the Haitian Revolution’
Source:
The Muslim Factor in the Haitian Revolution: The Untold History | THOUGHT MERCHANT

One should also note that Haitian creole also has a mix of Arab in it.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Anyway's Mods can you move this thread to the High Learning section? Didn't mean to post it in this section.

 

[Akata Man Bromo]

-subs-

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Additional info on the Maroons of Haiti:

Source:
JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

 

[chief_keef_stan]

which c00n 1 starred this shyt

 

[Bawon Samedi]

There were many free black's in Saint Domingue, one of them being Jean Baptiste Point du Sable...

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable was the first settler of Chicago. He was also the city's first black resident.

As a free black man, Point du Sable is believed to have been born most likely in Haiti sometime before 1750. His biography is sketchy, pieced together from the rare instances when he had to deal with the British or American governments.

From 1768 or so, Point du Sable operated as an engagé, a fur trader with an official license from the British government. In the early years of the United States, Point du Sable was managing a trading post in Indiana. The area was officially Indian-owned (he was a tenant) and Point du Sable was harassed by both British and American troops who passed through the Midwest.

'Chicago in 1779 (Then called Eschikago) showing the cabin of Jean Baptiste Point de Saible (colored) The first permanet settler'. Raoul Varin 1930 Published by A. Ackerman Sons By 1788 he had established a farm in Chicago and lived there with his wife, Catherine, a son and a daughter. In the years that the family lived there, they provided some stability to an area that was primarily frequented by peripatetic traders. With the end of the Revolutionary War, Point du Sable's farm prospered. People as far away as the East coast knew Point du Sable as the only source of farmed produce in the area.

Suzanne Point du Sable, Jean Baptiste and Catherine's daughter, was married in 1790 and bore a daughter, Eulalie, in 1796. Her brother, Jean Baptiste Jr., worked as a trader on the Missouri River. He died in 1814.

Point du Sable left Chicago in 1800, selling his property to a neighbor. His wife did not sign the bill of sale, and may have been deceased at the time. Point moved to St. Charles in Spanish Louisiana. His business deals did not go well, and was declared insolvent in the territory in 1813. At the end of his life, Point du Sable was destitute and depended on the goodwill of a neighbor, possibly a lover, for his housekeeping.

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable died on August 28, 1818.
Source:
American Experience | Chicago: City of the Century | People & Events

 

[Bawon Samedi]

More on free blacks in Saint Domingue prior to the revolution, but this is really interesting...

^^^Haitian monument in Savannah Georgia.

Monument dedicated to Haitian soldiers in American Revolution
Written by RUSS BYNUM

SAVANNAH, Georgia (AP) - Haitians learn it in school, but it is virtually unknown in the United States: In the American Revolutionary War's bloody siege of Savannah, hundreds of Haitian soldiers were there for the colonies.

That contribution to American independence has been honored with a monument dedicated Oct. 8 in Savannah's Franklin Square. Life-size bronze statues of four soldiers now stand atop a granite pillar 6 feet tall and 16 feet in diameter.

"This is a testimony to tell people we Haitians didn't come from the boat,'' said Daniel Fils-Aime, chairman of the Miami-based Haitian American Historical Society, one of many Haitian Americans who came to Savannah for the dedication. "We were here in 1779 to help America win independence. That recognition is overdue.''

In October 1779, a force of more than 500 Haitian free blacks joined American colonists and French troops in an unsuccessful push to drive the British from Savannah in coastal Georgia.

More than 300 allied soldiers were gunned down charging British fortifications Oct. 9, making the siege the second-most lopsided British victory of the war after Bunker Hill.

Haiti's role in the American Revolution is a point of national pride. After returning home from the war, Haitian veterans led their own rebellion that won Haiti's independence from France in 1804.

"It's a huge deal,'' said Philippe Armand, vice president of the Association of American Chambers of Commerce in Latin America, who flew to Savannah from the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. "All the Haitians who have gone to school know about it from the history books.''

Fils-Aime's group has spent the past seven years lobbying Savannah leaders to support the monument, which the city approved in 2005, and raising more than $400,000 in private donations to pay for it.

Fils-Aime said the historical society still needs $250,000 to finish two additional soldier statues.

As it stands now, the monument features statues of two Haitian troops with rifles raised on either side of a fellow soldier who has fallen with a bullet wound to his chest.

The fourth statue, a drummer boy, depicts a young Henri Christophe, who served in Savannah as an adolescent and went on to become Haiti's first president - and ultimately king - after it won independence.

It is unclear exactly what role Haitian troops played in the battle at Savannah because Haitian records from that era were destroyed by fire in the 1830s, said Scott Smith, director of Savannah's Coastal Heritage Society, which is dedicating a park on the battlefield site Tuesday.

But surviving records show 545 Haitian soldiers sailed to Savannah in 1779 - making them the largest military unit of the Savannah battle. The Haitians are also believed to have been the largest black unit to serve in the American Revolution.

^^^Look at the timeline, 1779. That's the time of the Haitian revolution. This is just speculation by me, but why would the Haitians help the Americans when the Americans were allied with the French? Or...This was around the time when Haiti was at war with the British. Because Haiti not only fought the French but also the British and Spanish but were also allied with those same three powers. If Haiti was not fighting against the British in Savannah than they invaded America...

Again just speculation on my part.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Lets fast forward to the Haitian revolution, which was sparked after the death of Boukman. In the Revolution untrained slaves took on three world powers. The French, British and Spaniards. But what happened when France lost Haiti?

Connecting the dots:

Haitian Revolution

​

The Haitian Revolution has often been described as the largest and most successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere. Slaves initiated the rebellion in 1791 and by 1803 they had succeeded in ending not just slavery but French control over the colony. The Haitian Revolution, however, was much more complex, consisting of several revolutions going on simultaneously. These revolutions were influenced by the French revolution of 1789, which would come to represent a new concept of human rights, universal citizenship, and participation in government.

In the 18th century, Saint Dominigue, as Haiti was then known, became France's wealthiest overseas colony, largely because of its production of sugar, coffee, indigo, and cotton generated by an enslaved labor force. When the French revolution broke out in 1789 there were five distinct sets of interest groups in the colony. There were white planters -- who owned the plantations and the slaves -- and petit blancs, who were artisans, shop keepers and teachers. Some of them also owned a few slaves. Together they numbered 40,000 of the colony’s residents. Many of the whites on Saint Dominigue began to support an independence movement that began when France imposed steep tariffs on the items imported into the colony. The planters were extremely disenchanted with France because they were forbidden to trade with any other nation. Furthermore, the white population of Saint-Dominique did not have any representation in France. Despite their calls for independence, both the planters and petit blancs remained committed to the institution of slavery.

The three remaining groups were of African descent, those who were free, those who were slaves, and those who had run away. There were about 30,000 free black people in 1789. Half of them were mulatto and often they were wealthier than the petit blancs. The slave population was close to 500,000. The runaway slaves were called maroons; they had retreated deep into the mountains of Saint Dominigue and lived off subsistence farming. Haiti had a history of slave rebellions; the slaves were never willing to submit to their status and with their strength in numbers (10 to 1) colonial officials and planters did all that was possible to control them. Despite the harshness and cruelty of Saint Dominigue slavery, there were slave rebellions before 1791. One plot involved the poisoning of masters.

Inspired by events in France, a number of Haitian-born revolutionary movements emerged simultaneously. They used as their inspiration the French Revolution’s “Declaration of the Rights of Man.” The General Assembly in Paris responded by enacting legislation which gave the various colonies some autonomy at the local level. The legislation, which called for “all local proprietors...to be active citizens,” was both ambiguous and radical. It was interpreted in Saint Dominigue as applying only to the planter class and thus excluded petit blancs from government. Yet it allowed free citizens of color who were substantial property owners to participate. This legislation, promulgated in Paris to keep Saint Dominigue in the colonial empire, instead generated a three-sided civil war between the planters, free blacks and the petit blancs. However, all three groups would be challenged by the enslaved black majority which was also influenced and inspired by events in France.

Led by former slave Toussaint l’Overture, the enslaved would act first, rebelling against the planters on August 21, 1791. By 1792 they controlled a third of the island. Despite reinforcements from France, the area of the colony held by the rebels grew as did the violence on both sides. Before the fighting ended 100,000 of the 500,000 blacks and 24,000 of the 40,000 whites were killed. Nonetheless the former slaves managed to stave off both the French forces and the British who arrived in 1793 to conquer the colony, and who withdrew in 1798 after a series of defeats by l’Overture’s forces. By 1801 l’Overture expanded the revolution beyond Haiti, conquering the neighboring Spanish colony of Santo Domingo (present-day Dominican Republic). He abolished slavery in the Spanish-speaking colony and declared himself Governor-General for life over the entire island of Hispaniola.

At that moment the Haitian Revolution had outlasted the French Revolution which had been its inspiration. Napoleon Bonaparte, now the ruler of France, dispatched General Charles Leclerc, his brother-in-law, and 43,000 French troops to capture L’Overture and restore both French rule and slavery. L’Overture was taken and sent to France where he died in prison in 1803. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, one of l’Overture’s generals and himself a former slave, led the revolutionaries at the Battle of Vertieres on November 18, 1803 where the French forces were defeated. On January 1, 1804, Dessalines declared the nation independent and renamed it Haiti. France became the first nation to recognize its independence. Haiti thus emerged as the first black republic in the world, and the second nation in the western hemisphere (after the United States) to win its independence from a European power.
Source:
Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed

 

[Gifted one]

very informative thread breh

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Now what happened when France lost Saint Domingue?

Connecting the dots:

France forced to sell Louisiana
​

"Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in 1799 after overthrowing the French revolutionary government. During this time, U.S. and French negotiators were concluding negotiations to end the Quasi-War with France. In 1802, Napoleon ended ten years of warfare with Great Britain under the Peace of Amiens. He used this opportunity to attempt to crush the Haitian Revolution, but the army he sent met with defeat. Napoleon had also re-obtained the North American province of Louisiana from Spain in 1800. However, the loss of Haiti made Louisiana strategically undesirable, and with war again on the horizon with Great Britain, Napoleon was willing to agree to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803."
Source:
Napoleonic Wars and the United States, 1803–1815 - 1801–1829 - Milestones - Office of the Historian


"By late 1802, France had lost an estimated 55,000 men [source: Lachance]. Since Saint Domingue was France's most lucrative colony in the West, Napoleon considered it a key asset for building his Caribbean EMPIRE[source: Rodriguez]. Cutting his losses, Napoleon abandoned the Western strategy and decided to refill France's dwindling treasury for impending war with Britain.

While Napoleon sorted out his imperial problems, another legendary leader also contemplated expanding his nation's horizons. President Thomas Jefferson viewed French control over the port at New Orleans as a hindrance to American settlement in the West. Jefferson didn't want to fight with France over the territory, instead seeking a diplomatic solution. He sent James Monroe as his envoy to the French government with an offer to buy New Orleans for no more than $3 million."
Source:
HowStuffWorks "The Haitian Revolution"

A slave revolt in Haiti and an impending war with Britain, however, led France to abandon these plans and sell the entire territory to the United States, which had originally intended only to seek the purchase of New Orleans and its adjacent lands.
Source:
Louisiana Purchase - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Louisiana:

 

[Bawon Samedi]

But...We can't continue on with this thread without the man who really started it all...

Connecting the dots:

Toussaint Louverture

It was the only successful slave insurrection in history. It grasped the full meaning of French revolutionary ideas — liberté, eqalité, fraternité — and used them to create the world's first Black republic. It changed the trajectory of colonial economics...and led to America's acquisition of the Louisiana territory from France. "It" was the Haitian Revolution, a movement that's been called the true birth moment of universal human rights. Vaguely remembered today, the Haitian Revolution was a hurricane at the turn of the nineteenth century — traumatizing Southern planters and inspiring slaves and abolitionists, worldwide.

The man at the forefront of Haiti's epochal uprising was Toussaint Louverture. He was world-known in his day and deserves a place among history's most celebrated figures today. Born into slavery, Toussaint had been freed by his master before the revolt began. He owned property and was financially secure. He risked it all, however, to join then lead an army of slaves that would fight, in turn, the French, the British, and the Spanish empires for twelve years.

He was often compared to George Washington. But his is military feats alarmed Thomas Jefferson... and ultimately provoked a full-scale attack from Napoleon Bonaparte. France's final offensive would cost Toussaint his life. But France lost, nonetheless, and the richest colony in the Americas became an independent black republic.

The story of Haiti's revolution is a story of extraordinary pathos. Half a million slaves dared hope for an unprecedented end to slavery and thousands died in the process. But the revolution's history is also a story of forgotten people and milestones. Haitian slaves did not just fight with weapons. In 1794 a multi-racial delegation from Haiti traveled to Paris to address the national assembly. They spoke powerfully about slavery's moral and physical violence. They argued that their struggle was part of France's domestic revolution against despotism. And they won the day. The elocution of Haitian Blacks led to a sudden decree that not only freed the empire's entire slave population, it made them French citizens, too.
Source:
Égalité for All | Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution : PBS

Toussaint L'Ouverture, François Dominique (fräNswäˈ dômēnēkˈ tōsăNˈ lōvĕrtürˈ) [key], c.1744–1803, Haitian patriot and martyr. A self-educated slave freed shortly before the uprising in 1791, he joined the black rebellion to liberate the slaves and became its organizational genius. Rapidly rising in power, Toussaint joined forces for a brief period in 1793 with the Spanish of Santo Domingo and in a series of fast-moving campaigns became known as L'Ouverture [the opening], a name he adopted. Although he professed allegiance to France, first to the republic and then to Napoleon, he was singleheartedly devoted to the cause of his own people and advocated it in his talks with French commissioners.

Late in 1793 the British occupied all of Haiti's coastal cities and allied themselves with the Spanish in the eastern part of the island. Toussaint was the acknowledged leader against them and, with the generals Dessalines and Christophe, recaptured (1798) several towns from the British and secured their complete withdrawal. In 1799 the mulatto general André Rigaud enlisted the aid of Alexandre Pétion and Jean Pierre Boyer, asserted mulatto supremacy, and launched a revolt against Toussaint; the uprising was quelled when Pétion lost the southern port of Jacmel.

In 1801, Toussaint conquered Santo Domingo, which had been ceded by Spain to France in 1795, and thus he governed the whole island. By then professing only nominal allegiance to France, he reorganized the government and instituted public improvements. Napoleon sent (1802) a large force under General Leclerc to subdue Toussaint, who had become a major obstacle to French colonial ambitions in the Western Hemisphere; the Haitians, however, offered stubborn resistance, and a peace treaty was drawn. Toussaint himself was treacherously seized and sent to France, where he died in a dungeon at Fort-de-Joux, in the French Jura. His valiant life and tragic death made him a symbol of the fight for liberty, and he is celebrated in one of Wordsworth's finest sonnets and in a dramatic poem by Lamartine.
Source:
http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/people/toussaint-louverture-francois-dominique.html

Like I said the Haitians played the French, British and Spanish against each other.

 

[tmonster]

sub