Haitian forces defeat the French at Vertières

Colonial authorities publicly executed four men involved in the Bahia Conspiracy. The punishment targeted a movement remembered for popular participation and challenges to racial inequality. Their...

Absalom Jones and other free Black petitioners asked Congress to end the international slave trade, move toward emancipation, and protect free people from kidnapping. Their demands connected slavery...

Louis Delgrès confronted arriving French troops and issued a proclamation appealing against oppression. Resistance defended emancipation won during the revolutionary period. The conflict exposed the...

Surrounded by French forces, Louis Delgrès and companions died in an explosion at Matouba rather than surrender. Their last stand became a symbol of resistance to renewed enslavement. The event...

French forces arrested Toussaint Louverture and deported him to France. Removing a major Black leader was part of an effort to reassert imperial control. Resistance continued, demonstrating that the...

Jean-Jacques Dessalines proclaimed Haiti’s independence after years of collective struggle. Formerly enslaved people had defeated attempts to restore French domination. Independence protected...

Haiti adopted a constitution prohibiting slavery and naming its citizens Black. The declaration challenged colonial color divisions and asserted dignity after independence. This political rejection of...

The Slave Trade Act received royal assent after extensive campaigning. It prohibited British participation in the slave trade, but did not free people already enslaved in British colonies....

Enslaved men and women launched a carefully organized rebellion in Barbados. Leaders used plantation networks to coordinate resistance. Although colonial forces defeated the uprising, participants’...

Chile’s government issued an abolition decree, ending legal slavery after earlier gradual measures. The legal outcome must be read alongside enslaved people’s efforts to gain freedom. A subsequent...