First ecer Haitan uprising

[Dirty Commie]

Does anyone know anything about the slave uprising around 1800 in Haiti that led to its independence?

[Hampton]

Although the eighteenth century was experiencing a widespread revolutionary situation, not all of it ended in full-blown, convulsing revolutions.6 But everywhere, the old order was being challenged. New ideas, new circumstances, and new peoples combined to create a portentously "turbulent time." Bryan Edwards, a sensitive English planter in Jamaica and articulate member of the British Parliament, lamented in a speech to that body in 1798 that "a spirit of subversion had gone forth that set at naught the wisdom of our ancestors and the lessons of experience." But if Edwards's lament was for the passing of his familiar, cruel, and constricted world of privileged planters and exploited slaves, it was certainly not the only view.

The Haitian Revolution (http://www.swagga.com/haitian.htm)


The Slave Rebellion of 1791

Violent conflicts between white colonists and black slaves were common in Saint-Domingue. Bands of runaway slaves, known as maroons (marrons), entrenched themselves in bastions in the colony's mountains and forests, from which they harried white-owned plantations both to secure provisions and weaponry and to avenge themselves against the inhabitants. As their numbers grew, these bands, sometimes consisting of thousands of people, began to carry out hit-and-run attacks throughout the colony. This guerrilla warfare, however, lacked centralized organization and leadership. The most famous maroon leader was François Macandal, whose six-year rebellion (1751-57) left an estimated 6,000 dead. Reportedly a boko, or voodoo sorcerer, Macandal drew from African traditions and religions to motivate his followers. The French burned him at the stake in Cap Français in 1758. Popular accounts of his execution that say the stake snapped during his execution have enhanced his legendary stature.

Link (http://www.lalley.com/haiti.htm)


Hispaniola, the largest Caribbean island after Cuba, is close to Cuba, Puerto Rico and Jamaica. Haiti (called St-Domingue till 1804) is the western third of Hispaniola. In 1492 Columbus claimed Hispaniola for Spain. Seeking gold, the Spaniards reduced a Taino-Arawak population of perhaps a million to about 200 by 1532, although we shall see that Arawak culture was not so easy to kill. Black slaves were imported from Spain itself (i.e., rather than directly from Africa) in the 1520s and the Muslims amongst them at once led a rebellion (1522), with the result that maroon groups were established in the mountains, which reach 8,000 feet. (This episode caused slavers to avoid Muslims in future.) Of a further 15,000 Africans imported in 1577, 7,000 also escaped to the mountains. Even in 1751 there were thought to be 3,000 maroons there.

Link (http://archive.workersliberty.org/wlmags/wl102/haiti.htm)


PART I: PRELUDE TO THE REVOLUTION: 1760 to 1789

The colony of San Domingue, geographically roughly the same land mass that is today Haiti, was the richest colony in the West Indies and probably the richest colony in the history of the world. Driven by slave labor and enabled by fertile soil and ideal climate, San Domingue produced sugar, coffee, cocoa, indigo, tobacco, cotton, sisal as well as some fruits and vegetables for the motherland, France.

When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, there were four distinct sets of interest groups in San Domingue, with distinct sets of interests and even some important distinctions within these many categories:

Link (http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/102.html)

[Dirty Commie]

Thank you, I didn't know that that many Caribbean revolts took place.

[Rastafari]

http://www.artehistoria.com/historia/jpg/CDT12061.jpg
Toussaint "The Opener" potentially changed the face of world history. Especially American History and it's expansion (Louisiana Purchase) and its following paranoid dealings with slaves.