Toussaint Louverture promulgates a constitution for Saint-Domingue

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...

The constitution reorganized the French Republic after the fall of the Jacobin government. Its universal political language sat alongside unresolved questions about colonial citizenship and the status...

A planned revolt involving enslaved and free Black people was exposed after severe weather delayed the gathering. Authorities executed Gabriel and others and tightened controls. The plan drew on...

Napoleon’s law maintained slavery in colonies returned to France under the Treaty of Amiens and reinstated the slave trade where it had been abolished. It sought to restore plantation wealth and...

A decree required Black, mixed-race, and other people of color to obtain authorization before entering continental France. The measure hardened racial exclusion in the metropole during the same period...

Denmark’s prohibition on its own participation in the transatlantic slave trade took effect after a decade-long delay between enactment and implementation. The ban ended legal Danish trafficking...

The treaty transferred France’s Louisiana territory to the United States, greatly expanding settler claims across Indigenous lands and the geographic space of slavery. The acquisition strengthened the...

Haiti declared independence, following a revolution in which formerly enslaved people defeated French efforts to restore colonial rule. It became the first independent state born from a successful...