The Haitian Revolution: Successful Revolt by an Enslaved People

On August 22, 1791, Haitian Slave Revolution began. An excerpt from the article:

"The Haitian Revolution was the only successful revolt by enslaved Black people in history, and it led to the creation of the second independent nation in the Western Hemisphere, after the United States. Inspired in large part by the French Revolution, diverse groups in the colony of Saint-Domingue began fighting against French colonial power in 1791. Independence was not fully achieved until 1804, at which point a complete social revolution had taken place where formerly enslaved people had become leaders of a nation...

Beginning of the Haitian Revolution
By 1791, enslaved people and mulattoes were fighting separately for their own agendas, and White colonists were too preoccupied with maintaining their hegemony to notice the growing unrest. Throughout 1791, such revolts grew in numbers and frequency, with enslaved people torching the most prosperous plantations and killing fellow enslaved people who refused to join their revolt.

The Haitian Revolution is considered to have begun officially on Aug. 14, 1791, with the Bois Caïman ceremony, a Vodou ritual presided over by Boukman, a maroon leader and Vodou priest from Jamaica. This meeting was the result of months of strategizing and planning by enslaved people in the northern area of the colony who were recognized as leaders of their respective plantations.

ambushing troops in a forest during the Haitian revolution
Ambushing troops in a forest, Haitian revolution, illustration. Getty Images
Due to the fighting, the French National Assembly revoked the decree granting limited rights to affranchis in September 1791, which only spurred on their rebellion. That same month, enslaved people burned one of the colony's most important cities, Le Cap, to the ground. The following month, Port-au-Prince was burned to the ground in fighting between White people and affranchis."