Sonthonax proclaims emancipation in northern Saint-Domingue

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...

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...

Commissioner Étienne Polverel issued emancipation measures covering the colony’s western and southern provinces, completing the local abolition begun in the north. Proclamations differed in timing and...

The Convention abolished slavery in all French colonies and declared formerly enslaved people citizens. Saint-Domingue’s mass uprising and the local emancipation decrees had made the old order...

Under the treaty ending Spain’s war with France, Spain ceded its eastern colony of Santo Domingo to France. This diplomatic transfer brought the whole island under nominal French sovereignty, but...

The constitution promulgated under Toussaint Louverture declared that slavery could not exist in Saint-Domingue and made the ban permanent. It granted Louverture governorship for life and gave the...

A French expedition commanded by Charles Leclerc reached Cap-Français to reassert metropolitan authority over Saint-Domingue and displace Louverture’s autonomous government. Napoleon’s government...