EXHIBITS

"Bitwa na San Domingo" (Battle for Palm Tree Hill, Saint Domingue, Haiti)  painted by January Suchodolski, 1845. [5]

The Saint Domingue (Haitian) Revolution

Saint Domingue, the country now known as Haiti, is located on the western third of the island Hispaniola.  The French established their colony on the island in 1695 through the Treaty of Ryswick.  It wasn’t long before colonists realized the potential of the island.[1]  The fertile soil and tropical environment created the perfect environment for in-demand commodities of the time period.  Exports of sugar, indigo, cotton, hides, molasses, cocoa and rum fueled the import of slaves.[2] In 1695, King Louis XIV signed into existence The Negro Code.  The purpose behind the law was to ensure the humane treatment of slaves, paradoxical as that may seem. Yet, it had the fringe effect of establishing slavery as a legal institution.[2] 

By 1791, the year that marks the beginning of the Saint Domingue Revolution, there were roughly 30,000 whites on the island with about the same number of Mulattoes and free blacks.[2]  The slaves, however, numbered more than 500,000.[3]  The French third of the island was the most profitable colony in the Caribbean—and the world.[3]  In the year 1791, the slaves of French-ruled Saint Domingue rose against their masters in the only successful slave revolt in modern history.  World powers immediately reacted.  The United States was in its infancy and revolution trembled throughout a fractured France.  Meanwhile, the slave trade boomed in the New World.  

Haitian Declaration of Independence, 1804. [6]

The spirit of revolution rippled across the ocean from the United States to France—and back again to the Caribbean.  The spirit of Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite splashed onto the island of Saint Domingue wetting the souls of the slaves and colonists alike.  However, the Saint Domingue culture was far from healthy.  The colony had long been diseased by an ailing social hierarchy.  Various racial groups vied for power in the colony: the slaves, the free blacks, the mulattoes, the petit blancs or small whites, the great whites, and the French bureaucrats. Each these groups adopted the slogan of the French Revolution, cherry picking and emphasizing the part that would most benefit their socio-economic group.[3]  It wasn’t long before the society broke under its own weight.  Fueled by revolution in France, and the instability caused by it, the slaves saw their chance and rose up.

What followed was a decade of revolution on the island.  The French sent armies, the Spanish sent troops, the British sent redcoats, and the Americans sent ships—yet no one succeeded in conquering the rebelling slaves. Haiti made and broke fragile treaties as they fended off one Western power after another.  Europeans frantically tried to reoccupy their plantations on the most lucrative colony in the world.  While many fought for control of Haiti, only Haiti fought for independence.  Though France came to the aide of the United States during the American Revolution, the Haitians quickly found that “neither France nor the United States [would] easily accommodate [them] into universalizing visions of freedom and equality.”[4]  

Despite all odds, no outside force could prevail, and after a decade of attempted subjugation by dominant world powers, Jean-Jacques Dessalines formally declared the independence of Haiti on January 1, 1804—completing the world’s first and only successful slave revolution.[3]  No other country would formally recognize the declaration, and it would be years—and in some cases decades—before European nations acknowledged Haiti’s independence.   Since then, other countries have done everything possible to rob Haiti of its glory, ultimately undermining the accomplishments of the nation and keeping it from achieving its full potential.