Slavery In Saint Domingue

Who knew at its start in 1791, a slave revolt in Saint Domingue would lead to the first Black republic that continues to have global implications on the rest of the world? The African slaves that were viewed as being socially, culturally and intellectually inadequate more than proved their worth by defeating their colonizers. Now the Republic of Haiti, the country’s revolution serves as a symbol of Black intellectual and social greatness that continues to contradict the standard, set by a White oppressive world. It is important to note that two-thirds of slaves in Saint Domingue in the late eighteenth century were African born (Dubois 42). Dubois shares, “The enslaved, recalled, and sometimes called upon, their homelands. In one Vodou song …show more content…
They engaged in several practices that are fundamentally human that their oppressors tried to steal from them including: marriage, abortion, religious ceremonies, having dialogue and some even ran away and created villages of their own where they could be free – these people were called Maroons. This is all to say that slavery was not sustainable in the society that they were in and that they fought against what had come to be accepted as the norm; this is significant throughout all of Caribbean history. The slave and free people or color’s response to the French Revolution played a paramount role into Haiti’s Revolution. The free people of color looked to the “Declaration of the Rights of Man” to demand equal rights from the French National Constituent assembly. On May 15, 1791, their demand was granted. Although it did not apply to slaves it was a step closer to liberty for all on Saint Domingue. The Enlightenment philosophy reached Saint …show more content…
It led to numerous abolitionist movements in other countries and was an inspiration to those of the African Diaspora across the “New World”, from Rio de Janeiro to Cuba. Even in the United States of America, one can make direct connections from the Haitian Revolution and the Civil War, which resulted in the abolishment of slavery in 1865. Dubois shares, “stories of the Haitian Revolution provided ‘fuel’ for ‘both sides’ in public debates on race and slavery. Many writers emphasized the barbarity of the slave insurgents and saw the main result of their emancipation as a descent into laziness and lawlessness”, using these reasons to defend slavery where it still existed” (Dubois 305). Striking fear that a similar revolt would occur in the Southern States of the U.S., it caused slave owners to be more harsh and strict with their slaves and promoted growing tensions with the slave owners and White abolitionists. Haiti truly is a representation of people mobilizing to change their individual situation, but result in changing