Bois Caïman ceremony is remembered as a turning point before revolt

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...

The Treaty of Ryswick, signed by France and Spain among other powers, formalized a European settlement that recognized French possession of the western part of Hispaniola. The agreement treated the...

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...

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...

The Legislative Assembly reaffirmed full political rights for free men of color born of free parents and extended the measure to free women of color. It addressed racial inequality among free...

Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, Étienne Polverel, and Jean-Antoine Ailhaud arrived in Saint-Domingue with troops to enforce the rights of free people of color and restore French authority. They initially...

As French republican forces faced revolt and foreign intervention, commissioner Sonthonax issued a measure promising freedom to enslaved people who joined the republican army. The offer was limited...

Under pressure from the uprising and the struggle to retain the colony, Sonthonax proclaimed freedom for enslaved people in the northern province. The decree was a decisive local abolition, won in a...