The Haitian Revolution, 1789–1804

On the night of August 22, 1791, thousands of small illuminated specks could be seen on the otherwise darkened Plaine du Nord of Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean. With a torch in one hand and a knife in the other, the slave of Saint-Domingue was destroying a society which had suppressed him for nearly one hundred years. But the agonies of that night were only the beginning of a great socioeconomic explosion, lasting almost thirteen years. During that period Saint-Domingue emerged as Haiti, the fi