Mass uprising begins in Saint-Domingue

Parliament passed the Dolben Act, setting limits on the number of enslaved Africans carried on British ships and requiring a surgeon aboard. The act responded to public pressure and exposed the lethal...

William Wilberforce addressed the House of Commons in support of ending Britain’s slave trade. Parliamentary advocacy drew on a much wider campaign: Black testimony, petitions, boycotts, organizing by...

The declaration proclaimed universal rights but left colonial slavery unresolved. Free people of color and enslaved people in the colonies contested the limits of French revolutionary citizenship,...

The National Assembly extended political rights to some free men of color born of free parents in the French colonies. It did not free enslaved people and excluded most of the free population of...

A gathering remembered as Bois Caïman is associated with the coordination of the revolt that began days later. The event’s details come largely through later and colonial accounts, but the uprising...

The Danish Crown prohibited its subjects from participating in the Atlantic trade after a transition period, making 1803 the effective date. The delay allowed merchants to accelerate trafficking...

France enacted a law granting equal political rights to free men of color in its colonies. It addressed neither the legal status of enslaved people nor the fundamental power of plantation owners. In...

The first federal Fugitive Slave Act created procedures to seize and return people accused of escaping slavery. It denied alleged fugitives a jury trial and punished those who aided them. Black...

French commissioner Sonthonax proclaimed freedom for enslaved people in northern Saint-Domingue amid the revolution and a military crisis involving French, Spanish, and British forces. Enslaved...

The National Convention abolished slavery in French colonies, extending the emancipation first proclaimed in parts of Saint-Domingue. The decree was inseparable from the Haitian Revolution and the...