As with the Laws of Burgos, Le Code Noir gave some provisions for the humane treatment of the enslaved populace, but it also set provisions for hereditary slavery and torture. Perhaps the most horrific method of executing enslaved Africans was the insertion of gunpowder charge in the rectum and detonation of the explosive. Like the Laws of Burgos, Le Code Noir was also impossible to enforce to full effect, and the colonial French used the parts they liked, and ignored the rest. In the long run, it did more to continue the horrors that it sought to end, as the sections dealing with punishment and torture gave the French enslavers justification for their abominable actions.

San Domingue had the largest and wealthiest group of ‘freed’ Africans in the New World. These individuals were called gens de couleur (people of color) and the census of 1789 counted 25,000 individuals in this group. While many free people were formally enslaved, they were often people of mixed African and European ancestry and had never enslaved at all. They could own plantations of enslaved Africans, and often did. The enslaved peoples viewed them with contempt as these gens de couleur supported the very same system of oppression that plagued their brethrens. Until the revolution, the gens de couleur often supported this slave system but did not have all the same rights and privileges as ordinary white French people. Statutes and provisions within the law prevented them from holding certain jobs, marrying whites, carrying a sword or firearm in public, wearing European clothing, or attending social gatherings where whites were present. There was, however, no statute to prevent them from purchasing or owning land, and many did so. Ironically, coffee (which thrives on hilly plots of land) was the reason for the growth of this new planter class.

Before the revolution took place, there had been groups in Haiti that attempted to abolish slavery Two of the most prominent were the British Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and the Amis des Noirs (Friends of the Blacks). Such groups worked closely with other dissenters in Saint-Domingue, supplying arms to them and pushing emancipation in Paris. Many of Saint Domingue’s free people of color, among them Vincent Ogé, who was a member of Amis des Noirs, had been petitioning the French government for full civil equality with whites since the 1780s. Working with other abolitionists, they managed to make racial equality the leading question before the National Assembly in 1790 and again in 1791. By May of 1791, the National Assembly would pass new laws giving wealthy colored men the right to vote in the colonies. Vincent went to exercise his right. Denied by the colony governor, he waged a small and unsuccessful insurgency, in which he was captured and brutally put to death on the breaking wheel.

Many of Haiti’s formerly enslaved Africans saw the vicious treatment of Ogé as a sign to rise up and fight and resisted any treaties with the colonists. Before the time, the conflicts had been either legal as with the whites and the gens de couleur class, or violent, such as the war wages by the Maroons against the whites and gens de couleur that owned slaves. But the fighting was now divided along racial instead of class lines.

In 1789, Santo Domingo accounted for 40 percent of the world’s sugar production, and in that same year, The Rights of Man was published in France, declaring all men free and equal. The revolution in France was well underway. Some French colonists present on the island began clamoring for Independence as the political situation in France predicted that a major change would come. On the island of Haiti, its African population first heard talk of revolution among the Grands Blancs.

Le Grands Blancs were the highest ranking class, mostly comprised of minor nobles born in France but who had come to live in Haiti. Before the French revolution, they had wanted to leave Haiti as quickly as possible, unwilling to put up with what they saw as the rabble of their servants and the diseases they harbored. Tired of being under French control and resenting the French regulation of foreign trade on the island, the Grands Blancs made their own bid for independence. The Africans mostly sided with the royalists or Britain, knowing that an independent island whose ruling class was comprised of enslavers would only mean even worse treatment for them. This led to isolated incidents of fighting between the Grand and Petit Blancs (the latter being white, lower and middle class French nationals) on one side, and the gens de couleur and enslaved Africans on the other.

Then from among the Maroons came a strong leader. His name was Dutty Boukman; described as being…

“…a commandeur (slave driver) and later a coachman on the Clément plantation, among the first to go up in flames once the revolt began. While his experience as commandeur provided him with certain organizational and leadership qualities, the post as coachman no doubt enabled him to follow the ongoing political developments in the colony, as well as to facilitate communication links and establish contacts among the slaves of different plantations. Reputedly, Boukman was also a Vodou priest, and as such, exercised an undisputed influence and command over his followers, who knew him as “Zamba” Boukman. His authority was only enhanced by the overpowering impression projected by his gigantic size.”

Boukman’s rebellion was the spark that lit the Haitian revolution, and while he himself was killed in November, and his head displayed by the French to dispel his invincible aurora, not even the might of a French army could stop the people from rising up against their oppressors.

The formerly enslaved populace of Saint Dominique also rose up against their masters in droves on August 22, 1792. Within the next ten days, they had control of the entire Northern provenance. Within weeks, the armies of now free Africans totaled 100,000 and were growing stronger day by day. Having predicted such a move, the French colonists had themselves armed well, however, their attempts to fight off the enslaved Africans failed. In the next two months, over two thousand whites would be killed and close to two hundred plantations burnt to the ground as waves of wholesale violence and slaughter rocked the colony. By 1792, the enslaved population controlled a third of the isle. In its attempts to lessen the bloodshed, the Legislative Assembly granted civil and political rights to free men in the colonies in 1793. This decision shocked both America and the rest of Europe. However, it was not a completely magnanimous offer. To prevent further damage to the colony’s infrastructure and end the rebellion quickly, six thousand French soldiers were to be sent to the isle.

In 1793, Great Britain and Spain declared war on France, the planters and enslavers of Haiti sided with Great Britain, willing to make concessions for a British colony. Spain promptly invaded from the eastern part of the island, jealously protective of the wealth that her former land had enjoyed for years. There were but 3,500 French soldiers on the island now and they were facing military collapse. To prevent a military disaster, a French commander freed enslaved Africans in his jurisdiction, others followed suit, and a resolution was passed in 1794 by the National Convention—slavery was abolished and all men were granted the same political and civil rights throughout the colonies. This, of course, had a limited effect until the Haitian Revolution ended in 1804.

Toussaint L’Ouverture emerged from the revolution as one of its most important figures. Much of L’Ouverture life story is lost in time for all that can be said for certain is that upon reaching the age of thirty-three, he won his freedom. A doctor, initially, he soon became a general of legendary skills in battle. Like many of his contemporaries, he initially fought for Spain as a commander. After the British invaded Haiti, L’Ouverture agreed to fight for France, if they promised to free all of the enslaved. With his irresistible charm and obvious skills, many important people were said to be attracted to L’Ouverture, who resisted violence and slaughter. Under his leadership, the formerly enslaved Africans expelled the Spanish and won concessions from the British; essentially restoring the French back to power in Haiti but being careful to ensure that their power was in name only.

Having consolidated control of the colony by 1799, L’Ouverture quickly set about firmly establishing Haitian independence. Alexander Hamilton himself (the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, a Founding Father, economist, and political philosopher) helped him to draft a constitution for the new nation. Article 3He states: “There cannot exist slaves [in Saint-Domingue], servitude is therein forever abolished. All men are born, live and die free and French.”

L’Ouverture was a champion of equality for all races, negotiated trade agreements with the British and Americans, and instituted forced labor policies to keep production high. But as Napoleon came onto the scene in France after the chaos of the French revolution, he turned his hungry eye back to the colonies in the Americas. Under his brother Lecerc Bonaparte, he sent a force of twenty thousand soldiers with orders to re-establish control of the colony and reinstall slavery.

Toussaint L’Ouverture and the new government fought valiantly against the French, forcing Napoleon to send an additional forty thousand troops. Things were beginning to look impossible for the new republic. Betrayal from former allies, critical hesitations, and defections forced L’Ouverture to surrender to the French. He was later kidnapped, and taken to a prison in the French Alps where he died without seeing his beloved country again. His last words were: “In overthrowing me, you have cut down in Saint-Domingue only the trunk of the tree of liberty. It will spring up again by the roots, for they are numerous.”

While the French army had numerical superiority, their losses from yellow fever were costly, claiming substantial numbers of their men, Lecerc Bonaparte included. He was replaced by Viscount of Rochambeau who waged such a brutal campaign that it united both the gens de couleur and the free Africans of Haiti against him. When it became apparent that the French sought to reinstate slavery, the people of Haiti fought without end. These factors, coupled with a naval blockade and Napoleon’s shrinking interest in the New World as well as his unwillingness to send adequate frontline reinforcements meant that the direct involvement of France in Haiti was over. The island’s hard-earned independence had been won at last.

Haiti would go down in history as the first independent nation in Latin America, and the first post-colonial country in the world governed by former slaves; the only nation on earth whose independence was gained through a slave rebellion/an organized uprising. The problems that Haiti has suffered since, and is suffering now, may weigh heavily upon it; but its virtue is in its unrelenting quest for self-determination in which the fighting example it has set for oppressed peoples of the world still shines through even in the midst of this new devastation. From rising out of some of the darkest days the Western Hemisphere has ever seen, the people of Haiti prevailed, just as they will again now.

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