Haitian Revolution

1. Colonialism and economy

In the XVII century the foundation of world economy was the competition between colonial empires.
At the beginning of this period, England was the main economic power but France little by little started
to dispute that place.

Through the occupation of a part of the island of Hispaniola, France got one third of it and that territory
was called Saint-Domingue. The another part belonged to Spain and its name was Santo Domingo,
today is Dominique Republic.

There were different kinds of explotation crops, used for the consumption in Europe or as raw
materials, but the most demanded crop was sugar. It was so how France, during XVIII century, took
control of the mayor part of sugar production, displacing of that place to English Antilles, which were
the mayor productors before.

However, french power was possible due to slave explotation. In 1720 the amount of people from
Africa that arrived to Saint-Domingue as slaves were around of 47,000. In 1730 the number incresed to
80,000 people. In the next years, the amount of slaves augmented quickly, in 1763 arrived 206,000
slaves from Africa and in 1789 about 465,429.

2. A sample of racism and slavery

When africans were captured by slave traders, they were tied up to columns inside the boats while they
had to charge heavy stones of among 18 or 20 kilos of weight. The slave traders did that for avoid that
the slaves fleed. Moreover, the available space for slaves during the travel was very small. Indeed, after
a long distance journey, the loading area where slaves traveled was in putrefied state. Besides, the
slaves’ attempts to make revolts on board provoked fear in slave traders and these responded with an
extreme cruelty against them.

At the moment to arrive in Saint-Domingue, the slaves were bought by french planters, thereby the
slaves were branded as animals by their new propietaries.

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The life in the land was not better for slaves, according a description of a swiss traveler, the slaves
worked amidst the sunny land, their bodies were naked or semi naked, they carried heavy tools while
they made holes on the soil.

3. The influence of French Revolution

In this context of extreme inequality and explotation, the Revolution burst in France in 1789. This
caused a great reaction in the grands blancs (white planters) and in the affranchis (mulattos owners of
slaves).
The slaves heard the debates of their owners and they were aware of theirself condition. They took
political consciousness of their lives and they decided to do something.

4. The struggle for freedom

The revolutionary ideal of freedom, equality and fraternity widespreaded led to question the slavery
among slaves. The propietaries were concentrated in their rol in the new french republic and they
relaxed their control over slaves. As a result of that, the slaves organized a revolt in 1791 in the north of
the island, every time more slaves joined to the revolt. All of these caused a war that extented during a
decade.

The slave revolution was led by Toussaint L’Overture, who had

been a domestic slave.

At the same time, England, even Spain, wished to grab the

control over Saint-Domingue; but their attemps were stopped by
insurgent slaves. In 1802, Napoleon wanted to restart the
slavery attempting to get the control again with his army.
Despite Toussaint was betrayed and died in France in 1803, the
uprising did not stop. The slaves vanquished to french forces.

In 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who was the successor of

Toussaint, stated the independence of Haiti. Thus, haitian revolution not only was the first
revolutionary movement in Latin America; Haiti was also the first indepedent state and the first black
republic in the world.

Bibliography
Bethell, L. (1991). Historia de América Latina. Tomo 5. La Independencia. Barcelona: Editorial
Crítica, 1991.
James, C.L.R. (2001). Los Jacobinos negros: Toussaint L`Ouverture y la revolución de Haití. Madrid:
México D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica.