Haitian Revolution

In 1791 France granted citizenship to mulattoes, but Haiti's European population disregarded the law. In 1793 a commissioner was sent from France to maintain order and offered freedom to slaves who joined his army; he soon abolished slavery altogether. 

Toussaint Louverture, a military leader and former slave, gained control of several areas and earned the initial support of French agents. He gave nominal allegiance to France while pursuing his own political and military designs. Napoleon I attempted to restore the old regime (and European rule) by sending his brother-in-law, Gen. Charles Leclerc, with an experienced force from Saint-Domingue that included Alexandre Sabès Pétion and other exiled mulatto officers. 

The Haitian Revolution has been described as the largest and most successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere.

In the 18th century, Saint Dominique, as Haiti was then known, became France's wealthiest overseas colony largely because of its production of sugar, coffee, indigo, and cotton generated by an enslaved labor force. 

The whites on Saint Dominique were dissatisfied with France because they were forbidden to trade with any other nation. 

There were 30,000 free black people in 1789; half of them were mulatto and often wealthier than the white farmers. The runaway slaves were called maroons; they had retreated deep into the mountains of Saint Domingue and lived off farming. 

Dessalines declared the former colony's independence on January 1, 1804, from the city of Gonaïves, renaming it "Haiti" after the indigenous Arawak name. 

During his reign, which lasted from 1804 to 1806, Haiti underwent a number of changes. 

The independence of Haiti was a severe setback for France and its colonial empire, but it took the French state several decades to acknowledge the colony's loss. As the French departed, Haiti, once known as the "Pearl of the Antilles" and the world's richest French colony, became poor as its economy collapsed following the revolution. Haiti's economy took a long time to rebuild after the conflict.

The Haitians had paid a terrible price for their independence, losing over 200,000 people between 1791 and 1803, and unlike the majority of Europeans who died of yellow fever, the majority of Haitians died as a result of bloodshed.