The Haitian Revolution
The only slave revolt in history to found a state.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 13 years
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Early Modern, Holocene
Enslaved people in Saint-Domingue, France's most profitable colony, rise in 1791 under leaders including Toussaint Louverture, defeat French, Spanish and British forces, and declare independence as Haiti in 1804. It is the second republic in the Americas and the first to abolish slavery outright. France extracted a crippling indemnity in 1825 as the price of recognition, which Haiti paid until 1947 — a debt widely regarded as a principal cause of its later poverty.