Haiti Declares Independence
Haiti declared independence on 1 January 1804, the only state in history founded by a successful revolt of the enslaved. Saint-Domingue was the richest colony in the world — producing something like half the sugar and coffee consumed in Europe on the labour of around half a million enslaved people, imported continuously because the mortality was such that the population could not sustain itself. The revolt began in August 1791 in the northern plain with a ceremony at Bois Caïman and the burning of the plantations. Its leadership passed to Toussaint Louverture, a former coachman freed before the revolution, who fought the Spanish, the British and the French in turn, drove out an invasion that cost Britain some 15,000 dead, and by 1801 governed the whole island under a constitution he wrote naming himself governor for life. France abolished slavery in 1794 under pressure of events and Napoleon restored it in 1802, sending an army of some 40,000 under his brother-in-law Leclerc to retake the colony. Toussaint was seized under a flag of truce and died in a fortress in the Jura in April 1803. The war that followed was fought in the knowledge that defeat meant re-enslavement, and it was merciless on both sides. Yellow fever destroyed the French army; Jean-Jacques Dessalines destroyed what was left at Vertières in November 1803. Dessalines tore the white band from the French flag and named the country Haiti, its Taíno name. France demanded an indemnity of 150 million francs in 1825 for the loss of its property, under the guns of a fleet, and Haiti paid it down for over a century.
- Year: 1804 CE
- Category: Political
