the Haitian revolution begins: August–September 1791

Slaves in the Limbé district stray from the rebel leaders’ plan, apparently due to a misunderstanding, and are caught setting fire to an estate. During their interrogation they reveal the conspiracy and the names of the leaders.  

Interestingly, though, many of the planters who are warned of the rebellion stand by their slaves and refuse to believe the rumors. One plantation manager, for example, “offered his own head in exchange if the denunciations….proved true.” Other planters, warned of the coming violence, escaped with their lives but still couldn’t protect their property, often losing everything.  

The other slaves involved in the conspiracy prepare to move ahead with the rebellion as planned, vowing to “to burn le Cap, the plantations, and to massacre the whites all at the same time." (Fick, 102)

Image: Limbé near Cap Haïtien. Source.

The slaves launch their insurrection in the North. That night Boukman and his forces march throughout the region, taking prisoners and killing whites. By midnight, plantations are in flames and the revolt has begun. Armed with torches, guns, sabers, and makeshift weapons the rebels continue their devastation as they go from plantation to plantation. By six the next morning, only a few slaves in the area have yet to join Boukman, and scores of plantations and their owners are destroyed.  

The group, numbering 1,000 to 2,000, next splits into smaller bands to attack designated plantations, demonstrating their highly organized strategy. As the revolt in the North grows “awesome in dimensions,” whites become anxious about defending Le Cap, where the colonial government is centralized. It is to Le Cap–the social and cultural hub of the colony–that whites flee their burning plantations and rebelling slaves. Later an interrogated slave would declare that “in every workshop in the city there were negroes concerned in the plot.” (Fick, 103) The whites and slaves both realize that controlling the city would be critical in determining the revolution’s outcome.  

Blanchelande writes that “Fears of a conspiracy [in Le Cap] were confirmed as  we had successfully discovered and continue daily to discover plots that prove that the revolt is combined between the slaves of the city and those of the plains; we have therefore established permanent surveillance to prevent the first sign of fire here in the city which would soon develop into a general conflagration.”

The slaves march to the Limbé district, adding to their forces. The group moves from plantation to plantation, seizing control and establishing military camps. Along the way more slaves join the rebellion, and those who don’t are cut down mercilessly.  

By the end of the day, “the finest sugar plantations of Saint Domingue were literally devoured by flames.” A horrified colonist wrote that “one can count as many rebel camps as there were plantations.” (Fick, p. 97)

Image: View of Cap Haïtien burning. Souce.

The slaves continue west to Port-Margot in the early evening, hitting at least four plantations.

The rebels march to Le Cap, after burning down the region’s largest plantations and killing scores of whites. Every entrance to the city is guarded, and the slaves march against the whites’ cannons and guns, meeting armed resistance for the first time. Though the whites manage to drive the slaves back, the rebels divide up and regroup, returning by two different routes to successfully seize the city.  

The slaves hold out for three weeks against the planters, who are badly armed, disorganized, injured, and desperately in need of help. The slaves’ strategy is clear: every time the planters encircle or overcome them, the slaves retreat to the mountains to reorganize and prepare a new attack.  

At the same time, slaves in the northeast rise up, “torch in hand, with equal coordination and purpose,” and advanced “like wildfire.” The slaves burn down the plantations methodically until all the major parishes in the upper North Plain region are hit and communication between them is severed.

The revolution spreads, becoming more militant and organized. On the plantations it takes less to incite riots. Plantation crops are ruined as entire fields of slaves desert or simply stop working. In the “magnificent” Plaine-des-Cayes, comprising of almost 100 sugar plantations, every single plantation is destroyed. Many of the planters, “financially and morally ruined,” are desperate to save their fortunes while others consider themselves fortunate “just to get out of this wretched colony with their lives and a shirt on their backs.” (Fick, p. 150)

The white troops are completely unprepared for the rebel’s guerrilla tactics, which include surprise attacks, thefts of supplies and livestock, ambushes, and poisoned arrows. The slaves, more resilient than the whites, are merciless, taking no prisoners of war. Over half of the 6,000 troops from France have at this point already “perished from the ravages of a tropical climate and endemic sicknesses reaching epidemic proportions.” (Fick, p. 150)

“This is the graveyard of the French; here one dies off like flies.” - A French army volunteer

Image: Frontispiece from L’Incendie du Cap, ou Le règne de Toussaint-Louverture, by René Périn, 1802. Link.

 Slaves continue to make demands, but with the entire colonial system at stake, the planters refuse to concede. One colonist writes presciently of the colonists’ dilemma in negotiating with the slaves: 

“For, if we reward with freedom those who have burned our plantations and massacred our people, the slaves who have hitherto remained loyal will do likewise in order to receive the same benefit. Then nothing more can be said: the whites must perish.” 

Another states, “There can be no agriculture in Saint Domingue without slavery; we did not go to fetch half a million savage slaves off the coast of Africa to bring them to the colony as French citizens.” (Fick, p. 154)

The Colonial Assembly at Saint Marc recognizes the May 15 decree. Remember that this 1791 decree declared a limited number of free-born persons of color eligible to be seated in future assemblies, with the rights of voting citizens. Though the action was conservative–only applicable to persons born of free parents and “possessing the requisite qualifications”–colonists were furious. In recognizing the decree, the Colonial Assembly grants citizenship to mulattoes and free blacks. White planters object violently and tensions in the colony rise.

The National  Assembly in France revokes the May 15 decree, which had granted limited rights to free blacks and mulattoes, and names three commissioners to restore order in Saint-Domingue. In response, mulatto agitation in the South becomes open, armed rebellion in collaboration with the black slaves. Rebels in the west seize the capital city Port-au-Prince, cut its water supply and block all access to incoming food supplies before they are overcome by the French troops.