Unit Essential Question: Is nationalism the most powerful force
in shaping the geopolitical world?
Aim: To what extent did the French Revolution spread to
Haiti?
Directions: The questions below are meant to guide you through
the reading about the slave rebellion for freedom and independence
on the French colony that is today known as Haiti. Read each
question, and then complete after you have finished reading the
document.
1. APW Theme 4: What was the economic structure of Haiti, and
why was it one of the wealthiest colonies in the Americas?
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2. What inspired the revolt, and how does this connect to APW
Key Concept 5.3?
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3. Comparison: Who would you compare Toussaint L’Ouverture to
past or present? Explain your answer.
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4. Periodization: Analyze how was the Haitian Revolution
connected to the French Revolution providing at least two
examples.
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5. How did the Haitian Revolution transform the social structure
of Haiti? (APW Theme 5)
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Toussaint L’Ouverture Leads the Revolt in Haiti
In the late eighteenth century, the majority of French people
lived on land owned by the nobility. They were barefoot and lived
on black bread, and it was common for them to be strapped to a
plough to pull a cart like an ox.[footnoteRef:1] Laws were designed
to preserve not just the wealth, but also the status of the
nobility.[footnoteRef:2] However tough life was for peasants and
sans-culottes, they were lucky not to be part of another group
governed by royalist France, the slaves. In the seventeenth
century, French buccaneers sailed to the Caribbean island of San
Domingo (later renamed Haiti) and fought the British and Spanish
for the island. By 1695 the western half of the island was theirs,
where they cultivated a coffee crop, then sugar, and imported
slaves from West Africa to pick it. [1: Mark Steel, Vive la
Revolution (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2003), 15. ] [2: Steel, Vive
la Revolution, 16. ]
Once captured, slaves were forced to march to the African coast,
where they were sold to French traders who shipped them as cargo to
the plantations. They were bound, right hand to right leg and left
hand to left leg, and attached in rows to iron bars for the
journey, during which they were kept at the bottom of the ship, and
20 percent died en route. On arrival in San Domingo, the survivors
worked on sugar plantations every minute there was light.
Some slaves were compelled to wear masks to stop them from
eating the sugar. Punishment included applying burning wood to the
victim’s buttocks. Salt, peppers, lemon and ash were poured on to
bleeding wounds as extra punishment. There were regular cases of
slaves having burning wax poured on to them by their masters, of
being burned alive, of being filled with gunpowder and blown up, of
being buried up to their necks and covered in sugar to attract
wasps.[footnoteRef:3] [3: Steel, Vive la Revolution, 21-2.]
In 1791, a revolt broke out in the French Caribbean colony of
San Domingo (Haiti). By then San Domingo had become one of the
wealthiest colonies the Americas. It produced half of all the sugar
and coffee exported to Europe and the United States. This wealth
was the result of the work of the enslaved Africans who were
brutality treated.
It had taken two months for news of the storming of the Bastille
to reach the slave island of San Domingo. The National Assembly in
Paris authorized the setting up of a similar assembly in San
Domingo, except that any election would be solely for the whites.
The mulattos were the mixed-race section of the population, the
product of decades of illicit relationships between masters and
slaves. There were around 15,000 of them, divided by how
dark-skinned they were. One that was three-quarters Black was
deemed slightly inferior to one half Black, and so on, with the
intermediate shades creating 128 degrees of blackness. Mulattos
were forbidden to carry a sword or to wear European clothes. They
were forbidden to play European games, and if a white man entered
their house they were forbidden to sit at the table with
him.[footnoteRef:4] [4: Steel, Vive la Revolution, 106. ]
Both slaves and mulattos began plotting their own rebellions
when both groups were denied citizenship rights promised by the
leaders of the French Revolution. As the revolt spread, enslaved
Africans rose up against their French masters. During the uprising
there was cruelty from both sides. Sugar cane fields and plantation
houses were burned and captives were raped and murdered.
People of African ancestry outnumbered Europeans on the island
by about 10 to 1. In 1794, the National Assembly of France
abolished slavery in its colonies. However, while mulattos were
granted full political rights, nothing was mentioned of the rights
of blacks. By January 1800, Toussaint L’Ouverture, a former slave
and the leading general of the black revolt, became the undisputed
leader of the entire island. The son of slaves, L’Ouverture learned
to read and write from a Roman Catholic priest. Because of his
education and intelligence, he had gained popularity in his
recruitment, training, and leadership of the rebel army. By 1797
L’Ouverture led an army of 20,000 that controlled most of San
Domingo, and in 1801 he declared a constitution that granted
equality and citizenship to all residents of San Domingo. He
stopped short of declaring independence from France, however,
because he did not want to provoke the new French leader, Napoleon
Bonaparte into attacking the island.
Nevertheless, in 1802 Napoleon dispatched 40,000 troops to
restore French authority in the French colony, overthrow the
government of Toussaint L’Ouverture, and restore slavery on the
island. L’Ouverture was captured and sent to France where he died
in a French prison. However, the rebels continued to fight in his
name, and by the end of 1803 the French forces were defeated. On
New Years Day 1804, President Jean Jacques Dessalines declared the
birth of the free republic of Haiti. Haiti became the second
independent republic in the Western Hemisphere, and the only
successful slave revolt in history.
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Predict and Evaluate:
Where do you think the success of the Haitian Revolution will
spread to? Support your answer.
Both the American Revolution and the French Revolution inspired
the Haitian Revolution.
The American Revolution inspired the French Revolution.
