Course of the revolution

1791: Slave uprising

Inspired by the French Revolution and a famous voodoo ceremony at Bois Caïman, enslaved Africans rose in massive coordinated rebellion in August 1791. Plantations across the colony's north were burned. Within weeks, the rebellion involved tens of thousands of enslaved people.

Toussaint L'Ouverture (c. 1743-1803)

The leader who emerged from the rebellion. Born into slavery, freed before the revolution, self-educated. Toussaint demonstrated extraordinary military and political ability. He played French, Spanish, and British forces against each other while consolidating control of the colony. By 1801 he had effectively united the island under his rule, abolished slavery, and issued a constitution. He nominally remained loyal to France but governed as the de facto ruler.

Napoleon's invasion (1802)

Napoleon, intending to restore slavery and French control, sent an army of 30,000 troops under his brother-in-law Charles Leclerc. Toussaint was captured by treachery and sent to France, where he died in prison in 1803. The Haitian struggle continued under his lieutenants.

Independence (1804)

Yellow fever and Haitian resistance destroyed the French expedition. On January 1, 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared Haitian independence, taking the indigenous Taino name Haiti ("land of mountains"). Haiti became the first independent Black republic and the second independent nation in the Americas (after the United States).