St. Domingue: The Haitian Revolution

The revolution had amazing effects on slavery, and thousands of slaves won their freedom by serving on both sides of the War of Independence. As a result of the Revolution, a surprising number of slaves were liberated, while thousands of other slaves ran away to be freed. Many slaves in the south ran away and were able to achieve

In 1791, the Haitian Revolution began. The commander was Toussaint Louverture. He was assisted by Georges Biassou and Jean-François, leaders of the rebel army of black slaves. Louverture was an educated former slave who had studied the military campaigns of Julius Caesar. His skills and knowledge contributed to his leadership and organizational ability, two characteristics that had been missing in past revolts.

George Fitzhugh claimed that "The Negro slaves of the South are the happiest the freest people in the world." (Document H). John Brown a major person in the fight to end slavery "led a band of 18 men into Virginia to seize the federal arsenal there, distribute the captured arms to slaves in the area, and create a general slave uprising." (Document I).John Brown was executed and the aftermath of his death made tensions rise betwwen the North and South. "

A second uprising, Cato’s Conspiracy, originated in Stono, South Carolina, in 1739. England at this time was at war with Spain, and a group of about eighty slaves took up arms and attempted to march to Spanish Florida, where they expected to find refuge. A battle ensued when they were overtaken by armed whites. Some forty-four blacks and twenty-one whites were killed.

Through history we can see how “slavery began, the factors that made it both possible and economically valuable to the European trading states, and the products produced by the slaves.” Slavery in South/Central America began with the natives doing much labor for those such as the Spanish. Planting, and tending to the crops the Spanish wished to trade. With much of the South and North Americans died out due to diseases, the U.S decided it was time to search out for a new mass number of slaves. They

The exploration and settling of the New World by European powers was a long process that tried to incorporate a very large area. African slaves provided labor for this expansion alongside of white laborers who had come to the new world as indentured servants, lured by the offered transit of the Atlantic in return for many years of their labor to European investors. North American slavery evolved differently in each region throughout the centuries, but a unified vision of slavery as the harshest of existence with the constant dangers of disease, violence and death from starvation emerges from the collective histories of American slavery, but were listed as servants in census in1623 alongside whites that were also unfree. 70 to 80% of whites

Saint Domingue was one of the richest colonies of the Americas during the late eighteenth century. Its extravagance resulted from their large production of highly demanded coffee, cotton, and sugar, which heavily depended on strict slave regime. Slaves, many whom were African born, made up the vast majority of the population and suffered poor working and living conditions. The anger of slaves caused the Haitian Revolution, which would lead to Haiti freeing itself from its oppressor and becoming an independent republic in the Caribbean. The Haitian Revolution created a profound effect not only the former French colony, but also acted as a leader for reformation around the world.

There are even accounts of mothers killing their own children to save them from being separated and enslaved. In order to cut costs and prevent rebellion, slave families were separated at the whim of their slaveholder. The possibility of separation was an ever-present threat to any and all slaves. The principle of partus sequitur ventrem meant that any child born to a slave woman would be also be a slave, regardless of who the father was. Jacobs describes how one mother, watched in horror as her seven children were sold: "She begged the trader to tell her where he intended to take them; this he refused to do.

During the 18th century, Britain prided themselves with their constitution and individual liberty, however their economy was heavily based on the slave trade. During this time the triangular trade was in place and was transporting 40,000 African Americans on this horrific journey to the New World in exchange for goods such as tobacco, rum, etc. The Romantic poets during this time had a major impact on this matter and in 1780 most of the major poets were writing for this cause. With the help of these romantics who brought up many debates, the Emancipation bill was enacted in 1833 and freed about 800,000 slaves. The autobiography of a man named Olaudah Equiano had a great impact on the abolition of slavery, where in his autobiography

Douglass has shown how religious slaveholders are the worst especially when entertainment comes into play. The first being from one of his slaveholders Master Thomas, he whipped a young woman while reading a quote from the scripture to explain his reason for whipping her. The next example was with his other Master Mr.Covey, he would go to church and preach the word but come back beating slaves and going against the almighty God. The last example that is shown is again shown with Mr.Covey, he was guilty of compelling his woman slave to commit the sin of adultery. All of the examples illustrate that religious slaveholders are worst than non-religious slaveholders.

In 1775, the Royal Governor of Virginia said that if slaves volunteered in the war for the British they would be freed. This proclamation was intended to ruin the Patriots economy considering Virginia had the highest number of slave owners. The Revolutionary War allowed the Americans to create and take charge of their own government and development of a

First off, you were treated like trash; by being either separated from your family or traded off to slave owner after slave owner. A slave would be punished for many things. Any form of resist or attempting to run away would result in some kind of punishment to break the slave’s will. Slaves would get in trouble for talking too much, disobeying, and not working hard enough. Slave owners had many punishments for slave it rarely depends how serious the crimes were.

In the Caribbean, plantation owners, mulatto like John Rapier Jr., were considered the “elite” and managed to rise to prominent positions in Central and South America such as the chief of police and “commander of the port” both in Haiti (Franklin p.180). Through his journal entries, Rapier comes off as very condescending toward blacks here, emphasized his superiority throughout the rest of the story. He tells of how the laborious slaves are “primitive in all their customs and habits” (Franklin, p.182). He goes on to judge the lack of morality and principles as well (Franklin, p.183). As stated previously, Franklin’s book shows the ability to start and run a successful business.

Yet there were thousands upon thousands who had to go through this unfair state of living. One of the reasons slavery was hated is because it was very harsh. If you were a slave back then usually you would be beaten every week. They were not just taps to get you to work faster but they were lashes with leather rods.

" The author tells how sad is the life of a slave girl and how, as soon as she is old enough, and against her will, she would learn about the malice of the world. Meanwhile, male slaves rarely suffered from such abuse, and different from women, slavery mostly affected their manliness. As Douglas says while describing one of the oversees: "It was enough to chill the blood and stiffen the hair of an ordinary man to hear him talk. " By saying so, he proved how, at a very patriarchal time, male slaves completely lost the bravery and "superiority" often used to describe white men.