The Haitian Revolution — how independence was achieved

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August 1791 — enslaved people in the north rose up in a coordinated revolt, beginning the War for Freedom and the wider Haitian Revolution.

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French commissioners abolished slavery in Saint-Domingue in 1793, and the National Convention in Paris confirmed the abolition for all French colonies in February 1794.

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France (after Napoleon tried to restore slavery in 1802), Spain (in Santo Domingo, until 1795), and Britain (which invaded 1793-98 to seize the colony).

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He allied with France once it abolished slavery, built a disciplined army of former slaves, and used guerrilla tactics and disease (yellow fever) to wear down Spanish and British forces.

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He sent an army under General Leclerc to restore French control and re-impose slavery; Toussaint was captured by trickery and deported to France, where he died in prison in 1803.

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Jean-Jacques Dessalines led the revolutionary army to defeat the French at the Battle of Vertieres (November 1803) and declared independence on 1 January 1804, naming the new nation Haiti.

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Enslaved people escaping into remote, hard-to-reach areas (often mountains or forests) to live free of their enslavers.

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A source written in 1793 can only describe events up to that point, so a historian must check what phase of the war it covers before using it as evidence for later events like the 1804 declaration.

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The administrator's purpose was likely to alarm Paris and request troops, so it may exaggerate slave 'savagery'; the soldier's purpose may be to justify the revolt as a fight for freedom, so it may stress French cruelty. Both are useful but need cross-checking.

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Content is what the source actually says or shows; context is who made it, when, where and why — and context shapes how reliable or useful the content is for a given inquiry question.

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French officials often portrayed him as an ambitious rebel threatening order, while Haitian and later Pan-African writers portrayed him as a liberator fighting for universal freedom — perspective depends on who is writing and their political purpose.

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It was abolished in 1793-94, but Napoleon tried to restore it in 1802, which triggered the final phase of the war and led directly to full independence in 1804.