Haiti declares independence and secures the abolition of slavery

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...

Napoleon’s law maintained slavery in colonies returned to France where the 1794 abolition had not been implemented. Its wording did not itself reinstate slavery in Saint-Domingue, where abolition...

After negotiations and military reversals, French forces arrested Louverture and sent him to France, where he was imprisoned at Fort de Joux. His removal did not end resistance. Reports of French...

Louverture died at Fort de Joux after being deported and imprisoned by the French state. His death became a symbol of the violence used to destroy Haitian autonomy. The revolution continued under...

Jean-Jacques Dessalines’s forces defeated the French army at Vertières, the last major battle of the expedition. The victory made restoration of French colonial authority and slavery militarily...

The 1805 constitution stated that slavery was forever abolished. It entrenched the victory of the revolution in the new state’s founding law. Emancipation did not mean full control over work: the...

The expedition sailed from Los Cayos, Haiti, on 31 March 1816 to renew the independence struggle in Spanish America. Haitian authorities and communities provided refuge, logistical support, and...

The revised Constitution of 1806 was approved at Grand-Goâve on 2 June 1816. Article 1 stated that slavery could not exist in the Republic and was forever abolished. The constitutional guarantee...

On 9 February 1822, Haitian president Jean-Pierre Boyer issued a proclamation announcing the union of the eastern departments of Cibao and Ozama with the Republic of Haiti. It stated that “on this...

A municipal record from 29 June 1822, discussed by historian Quisqueya Lora from the Dominican National Archive, describes the “freedom of the cultivators who were formerly enslaved.” Formerly...