Good Morning POU!
Having grown tired of over three centuries of the worst form of oppression, social hierarchy and brutal enslavement, black African slaves in the prosperous French colony of Saint-Domingue began a brutal revolt against the white plantation class and slave owners in 1791. The revolt, which lasted until 1804, came to be known as the Haitian Revolution, the first successful slave uprising that culminated in the overthrow of French and European control and then the birth of the world’s first black republic.
It was the first time in all of history that blacks were able to challenge the prevailing stereotypes about their race being inferior and lacking the capacity to rule themselves. The Haitian Revolution, which was anything but a simple affair, sent shockwaves throughout the world.
Leaders of the Revolution
Dutty Boukman
The god of the white man inspires him with crime, but our god calls upon us to do good works. Our god who is good to us orders us to revenge our wrongs. He will direct our arms and aid us. Throw away the symbol of the god of the whites who has so often caused us to weep, and listen to the voice of liberty, which speaks in the hearts of us all.
Dutty Boukman (or Boukman Dutty; died 7 November 1791) was a leader of the Haitian Revolution. Born to a Muslim family in Senegambia (present-day Senegal and Gambia), he was enslaved to Jamaica. He eventually ended up in Haiti, where he became a leader of the Maroons and a vodou houngan (priest).
According to some contemporary accounts, Boukman, alongside Cécile Fatiman, a Vodou mambo, presided over the religious ceremony at Bois Caïman, in August 1791, that served as the catalyst to the 1791 slave revolt which is usually considered the beginning of the Haitian Revolution.
Toussaint Louverture
We have no other resource than destruction and flame. Bear in mind that the soil bathed with out sweat must not furnish our enemies with the smallest aliment. Tear up the roads with shot; throw corpses and horses into all the fountains; burn and annihilate everything, in order that those who have come to reduce us to slavery may have before their eyes the image of hell which they deserve.
François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture also known as Toussaint L’Ouverture or Toussaint Bréda (20 May 1743 – 7 April 1803), was a Haitian general and the most prominent leader of the Haitian Revolution. During his life, Louverture first fought and allied with Spanish forces against Saint-Domingue Royalists, then joined with France, becoming Governor-General-for-life of Saint-Domingue, and lastly fought against Napoleon Bonaparte’s republican troops. As a revolutionary leader, Louverture displayed military and political acumen that helped transform the fledgling slave rebellion into a revolutionary movement. Along with Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Louverture is now known as one of the “Fathers of Haiti.”
Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Leave nothing white behind you.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines (20 September 1758 – 17 October 1806) was the first Haitian Emperor, leader of the Haitian Revolution, and the first ruler of an independent Haiti under the 1805 constitution. Initially regarded as governor-general, Dessalines was later named Emperor of Haiti as Jacques I (1804–1806) by generals of the Haitian Revolutionary army and ruled in that capacity until being assassinated in 1806. He spearheaded the resistance against French rule of Saint-Domingue, and eventually became the architect of the 1804 massacre of the remaining French residents of newly independent Haiti, including some supporters of the revolution. Alongside Toussaint Louverture, he has been referred to as one of the fathers of the nation of Haiti. Dessalines was directly responsible for the country, and, under his rule, Haiti became the first country in the Americas to permanently abolish slavery.
Dessalines served as an officer in the French army when Saint-Domingue was fending off Spanish and British incursions. Later he rose to become a commander in the revolt against France. As Toussaint Louverture’s principal lieutenant, he led many successful engagements, including the Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot.
In 1802, Louverture was betrayed and captured, and sent to prison in France, where he died. Thereafter, Dessalines became the leader of the revolution and Général-Chef de l’Armée Indigène on 18 May 1803. His forces defeated the French army at the Battle of Vertières on 18 November 1803. Saint-Domingue was declared independent on 29 November and then as the independent Republic of Haiti on 1 January 1804, under the leadership of Dessalines, chosen by a council of generals to assume the office of governor-general.
Fearing a new French military expedition and the annihilation of the black population, he ordered the genocidal 1804 Haitian massacre of the remaining French population in Haiti, resulting in the deaths of between 3,000 and 5,000 people, including women and children, and an exodus of thousands of refugees. Notably, he excluded surviving Polish Legionnaires, who had defected from the French legion to become allied with the enslaved Africans, as well as the Germans who did not take part in the slave trade. He granted them full citizenship under the constitution and classified them as black, along with all other Haitian citizens. Tensions remained with the minority of mixed-race or free people of color, who had gained some education and property during the colonial period.
As Emperor, Dessalines enforced plantation labor to promote the economy and began a dictatorship. In 1806, he was assassinated by members of his own administration and dismembered by a violent mob shortly thereafter.
For much of the 19th century, Dessalines was generally reviled by Haitians for his autocratic ways. But by the beginning of the 20th century, Dessalines began to be reassessed as an icon of Haitian nationalism. The national anthem of Haiti, “La Dessalinienne”, written in 1903, is named in his honor.