Treaty of Ryswick confirms France’s claim to western Hispaniola

Columbus landed on the island Indigenous people called Ayiti (later Hispaniola) and claimed it for Spain. This marked the start of Spanish colonial rule that displaced and violently coerced Taíno...

A royal instruction to Nicolás de Ovando allowed Black people enslaved in Spain, and people enslaved from birth under Christian authority, to travel to the Indies while excluding other groups. The...

The Spanish Crown licensed colonial official Cristóbal de Tapia to bring 15 enslaved African men and two women to Santo Domingo, alongside technicians to build a sugar mill. This primary record ties...

The 1685 French royal ordinance governing enslaved people in French Caribbean colonies was registered by the Sovereign Council of Saint-Domingue on 6 May 1687. The code regulated enslaved people as...

François Mackandal, an African-born maroon and organizer associated with a wide anticolonial resistance network, was condemned and executed by French authorities at Cap-Français. Colonial records...

France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen proclaimed liberty and equality as universal principles, but colonial slavery and racial hierarchy remained in place. Enslaved people, free...

The French National Assembly voted to extend political rights to free men of color born to free parents. The measure did not emancipate enslaved people and excluded many free people of color whose...

Haitian historical memory places a Vodou ceremony led by Dutty Boukman and Cécile Fatiman at Bois Caïman on the night of 14–15 August. It is remembered as a moment of collective commitment and...

Enslaved people rose across plantations in the northern plain, burning estates and attacking the slaveholding regime. The uprising was organized through networks built by enslaved Africans and their...