The Haitian Revolution

The first and only successful uprising of enslaved people to establish a nation-state, the Haitian Revolution began in the French colony of Saint-Domingue in 1791. Inspired, in part, by the ideals of liberty and equality of the French Revolution, what began as scattered uprisings among the plantations quickly grew into a full-scale insurrection. But how did the Haitian Revolution begin? Who were the brave men and women who risked everything for freedom? And why has the world never stopped punishing Haiti for daring to claim its liberty? This is a Short History Of the Haitian Revolution. A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. With thanks to Marlene Daut, Professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University, and author of The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe. Written by Nicola Rayner | Produced by Kate Simants | Production Assistant: Chris McDonald | Exec produced by Katrina Hughes | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by The Soundhouse Studios | Assembly edit by Anisha Deva | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cody Reynolds-Shaw | Fact Check: Sean Coleman Unlock the next two episodes of Short History Of… right now by subscribing to Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening and early access to shows across the Noiser podcast network, including Real Survival Stories and Sherlock Holmes Short Stories. Just click the subscription banner at the top of the feed, or head to www.noiser.com/subscriptions to get started. ⁠A Short History of Ancient Rome⁠ - the debut book from the Noiser Network is out now! Discover the epic rise and fall of Rome like never before. Pick up your copy now at your local bookstore or visit ⁠⁠noiser.com/books⁠⁠ to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  It is a moonlit night in August 1791 on a plantation in the French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue. In the wooden outhouse that serves as his quarters, a middle-aged, white plantation surgeon wakes abruptly to the smell of smoke and burning sugar.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Coughing violently, he fumbles through his clothes in the dark.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  The crackle of flames outside grows fiercer. As he stumbles, panicked from the outhouse, shouts echo across the plantation. Around him, the estate has dissolved into chaos. Against a backdrop of blazing cane fields, lanterns swing wildly, carried by enslaved people rushing around. But there appears to be no effort at all to put the blaze out. If anything, there is a sense of celebration.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  The main house looms over the scene, its shutters thrown open, firelight spilling across the veranda. Smoke curls from the sugar mill and storehouses, where flames devour the dry timber and thatched roofs. In the distance, beyond the burning fields, the horizon glows orange, where neighboring plantations are also ablaze.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Panicked, the surgeon starts to run to the main house, but someone strong grabs him by the shoulders and drags him into the dirt. As he falls, a machete flashes perilously close to his ear.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Could this be the end? His retribution at the hands of the enslaved people he has watched toil and suffer for years. Just then, though, another voice calls out to his attacker.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  With the surgeon's face pressed into the dirt, people around him speak fast, in a language you can't understand. And with some kind of agreement reached, he is forced to his feet and pushed forwards, past the flames licking at the edges of the great house. The heat scorching his skin through the thin linen of his shirt, the surgeon is marched with a group of other captives towards the road. He sees men setting sugar presses ablaze and splintering machinery with iron bars, and behind him, someone is screaming. He doesn't dare turn to discover the source of the noise.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  The party halts near the plantation gate, where the road opens out towards the northern plains. There, a young enslaved man lies slumped against a fence post, blood soaking the leg of his torn trousers. One of the guards shoves the white man forward and tells him to help the wounded insurgent. As he bends to examine a deep cut on the youth's thigh, the surgeon glances around him and begins to understand. This is less a localized uprising and more a full-blown revolution.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  So far, he has always been a part of the apparatus of exploitation, working on the side of the enslavers. But now, as the country that will soon be known as Haiti begins its fight for emancipation, the tables are turning. So he quickly takes off his shirt, tears a strip of fabric, and binds the patient's wound to stem the bleeding. Because if he wants to stay alive, he'll have to experience a small part of what these people have lived through, to do everything he is ordered to, as if his life depends upon it.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  The first and only successful uprising of enslaved people to establish a nation-state, the Haitian Revolution, began in the French colony of Saint-Domingue in 1791.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Inspired in part by the ideals of liberty and equality of the French Revolution, what began as scattered uprisings among the plantations quickly grew into a full-scale insurrection.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  The fight was long and bloody, but eventually it saw Haiti become the first place in the world to permanently abolish slavery and eventually seek independence from France.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  But how did the Haitian Revolution begin? Who were the brave men and women who risked everything for freedom? And why has the world never stopped punishing Haiti for daring to claim its liberty?

• 4:53Speaker 01

  I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is a short history of the Haitian Revolution.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  In 1492, on his quest to find a westward route to Asia, the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus stumbles upon a Caribbean island. Densely forested, with fertile valleys stretching towards the sea, it is known to its indigenous Taino people as Ayiti, meaning "place of high mountains." Columbus calls it La Espaniola, which later becomes Hispaniola. Today, the island comprises the nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Eager to bring news of his Caribbean discoveries to the Spanish crown, Columbus leaves a small outpost on the island and sails back across the Atlantic. When he returns the following year, the settlement lies in ruins, and most of its occupants are dead, the initially cordial relations with the indigenous people having descended into violence.

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  En 1509, el hijo de Columbus, Diego Colon, llega a la isla y se aloja en la capital, Santo Domingo, donde asume el papel de gobernador de los indíes.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Con esto como el piso de su poder en el Caribe, los españoles introdujeron el sistema de comandante, que otorga a los colonistas europeos el derecho a exigir trabajo y tributo de los pueblos indígenas. Por lo tanto, el trabajo y el abuso devastan los números de los Tainos, así como los pequeños pollos europeos y los estrangulados a los que la población local no tiene ninguna inmunidad.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Algo más de dos décadas después de la primera llegada de Columbus, los números indígenas han bajado de alrededor de medio a tres cuartos de un millón a menos de 30.000.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  En un intento de rellenar su fuerza laboral, en 1501, la monarquía española autoriza la transportación de afroestadounidenses captivos a su colonia. Pero casi tan pronto como llegan, aquellos que han sobrevivido el viaje intentan, cuando pueden, huir o levantarse en rebelión.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Marlena Doutt es profesora de estudios de diáspera francesa y africano en la Universidad de Yale. Su libro más reciente es "El primer y último rey de Haití: El surgimiento y caída de Henri Kristoff".

• 7:17Speaker 02

  Después de 1501, cuando la corona española autoriza el comercio de esclavos, hay informes inmediatos de rebelión. De hecho, los españoles instituyen los primeros codes esclavos en los años 2020 para detener una enorme rebelión que ocurrió en una planta propiedad por Diego Colon.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Cuando esta revuelta falla, algunos de los combatientes de la libertad huyen a las montañas. Colon persigue y mata a muchos de los huyentes, conocidos como maruones. Pero el espíritu de resistencia persiste en las comunidades escondidas que ahora forman.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Despite these pockets of defiance however, slavery expands here in the 16th century as the cultivation of sugar cane intensifies. But during the 17th century, the French and English increasingly challenged Spanish dominance in the Caribbean. In the early 1600s, the English go on to found colonies such as Barbados, while the French establish enduring settlements on Martinique and the Archipelago of Guadalupe. Spain's control of Hispaniola weakens, especially along the north and northwest coasts. From nearby islands, French and English pirates or buccaneers attack Spanish ships and settlements, making it harder for Spain to stay in charge of the Caribbean.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  The French actually don't begin arriving on the island until around the 17th century. And by 1697, they've signed a formal treaty with Spain, which cedes to them the western third of the island, which is, of course, today Haiti.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Renamed Saint-Domingue by the French, this western sector of the island is soon the main destination for Frenchmen seeking their fortune in the Americas. It will become the world's leading producer of both sugar and coffee.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  The French just in 100 years essentially, from 1697 to 1791, they transform this society into kind of a middling plantation society into a full-blown slave society. They transport, just in that time of a little under 100 years, almost 900,000 captive Africans, and that's just the French alone, to work the land to produce sugar, coffee, cotton, indigo. And because it is such a brutal atmosphere, there's a high death rate and the colony becomes quite known for its cruelty.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Torture and whippings are common among the enslaved, who make up roughly 90% of the population here. Newspaper notices reveal the brutality in sections about escapees, with listings detailing missing ears and limbs or other marks from punishment.

• 9:58Speaker 02

  The most prominent newspaper called Les Affiches Américaines had in almost every single issue numerous notices for descriptions for enslaved people who had run away so that their "masters" could recapture them, and descriptions of those who had been recaptured and were in jail awaiting their "masters" to reclaim them and put them back on the plantations where they came from. And I call Saint-Domingue the carceral colony because of this. Every tiny little hamlet, the tiniest little town, had its own jail.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  To regulate slavery, the French king Louis XIV issues what is called the Code Noir in the late 17th century. It requires that all enslaved people be baptized and raised in the Catholic faith, while giving their so-called "masters" authority to punish them.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Though the code sets some limits on extreme cruelty on paper, in practice, it legalizes harsh treatment and enforces the absolute control of slaveholders. The richest of the plantation owners, known as the grands blancs, hold enormous economic power and often push for greater autonomy from France. Below them in the hierarchy are the petits blancs, the poorer white population in Saint-Domingue, who own smaller farms or businesses. Another group are the free people of color, which comprises some of those born to African women but fathered by white colonists, as well as a number of formerly enslaved people who have been granted or purchased their freedom. Though they are denied full legal and political rights,

• 11:37Speaker 01

  they can own property, manage plantations, and enslave people themselves.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  You can imagine that people might start to think, "Well, why should one class of people who are also the descendants of Africans and in some cases descendants of enslaved people themselves, be free and able to profit from the riches of the colony and the vast breaking labor of others, and others are crushed under the thumb?" So these were some of the many tensions that just began brewing over the centuries since the time of Spanish colonization, but really burst open during the French period.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  This deeply unjust system is a pressure cooker of fear and dissatisfaction. The white planters hold all the power and fear losing it. The free people of color are dissatisfied with their limited rights, while the enslaved majority, on whose backs the whole system is built, suffer agonizing barbaric conditions and treatment.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  In the mid 1700s, one formerly enslaved Maroon by the name of François Macandal is said to have started a secret campaign to poison French planters. Some records refer to him as a voodoo priest, a leader of the religious practice rooted in Western Central African traditions. Though he is eventually caught and burned at the stake, legend has it that he escapes his fate by transforming into a mosquito, a creature that plagues the white colonists. He and his story come to symbolize the enduring desire of the enslaved for freedom.

• 13:15Speaker 00

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  This October, on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators Returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History Of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world.

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• 14:36Speaker 01

  Across the Atlantic, by the mid-18th century, Europe is in the midst of the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement that champions individual rights and questions traditional authority.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  In France, writers like Voltaire criticize the dominance of the church and monarchy, while Rousseau promotes the belief that all people are born free and equal. As these ideas circulate, they begin to reshape how people understand government, society, and human rights.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  What is very interesting about the French Enlightenment is that often, especially when the conversation turns to Haiti, it's blipped, that what's the effect of the Enlightenment on Saint-Domingue? But actually, it's the opposite, that there had been slave revolts and rebellions on this island since the beginning of the Spanish conquest. So for all of these centuries, people who are debating what are the rights of man, what are the responsibilities of a government to its people, have the example of revolts and rebellions against constituted authority. And so actually, if you read the writings of Rousseau and Voltaire, for example, think of Voltaire's "Candide."

• 15:48Speaker 02

  One of the most forceful passages in that work is when they encounter an enslaved man, missing limbs, and one character says, "It is at this price that you eat sugar in Europe."

• 16:01Speaker 01

  In France, the Enlightenment fuels a growing discontent with the country's monarchy, until revolution takes place in 1789. "With the king's power now significantly weakened, but not fully stripped, the new national assembly proclaims that men are born and remain free and equal in rights." In slave colonies like Saint-Domingue, those words land like a spark.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  By the time you get the French Revolution, they're using this language that everyone is free and equal in rights and is able to resist oppression. And even though they don't mean captive Africans, the French revolutionaries, they absolutely do not, which they will later make explicitly clear in the 1790s when the Free People of Color say, "Does that apply to people of African descent as well?" The French revolutionaries and the French National Assembly, which has been created by that point, will say, "Well, we cannot pronounce on the different conditions of individuals who are free." And that's going to become the major distinction. Is a person free or in bondage? And that's a huge contradiction that eventually is going to collapse and cannot stand.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  It remains unclear how the work of the revolutionaries will apply in the colonies. White planters in Saint-Domingue see an opportunity to push for greater autonomy from France so that they can secure control of the colony's trade. But they reject any suggestion of racial equality. And while the enslaved majority remain locked out of the discussion, the Free People of Color argue that the rights promised to so-called "free men" should apply to them.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  The Free People of Color had been asking for equal rights of representation now that France is going to this assembly model. They're not quite a republic yet, but things are kind of fracturing, breaking open in terms of how France is going to be governed. And they say, "What about the colonies?" And when the National Assembly says "all free people have the same rights", even without specifying that that meant Free People of Color, they are going to rush home, back to Saint-Domingue, and try to force the white French colonists who are completely opposed to giving Free People of Color rights for representation.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Keeping a close eye on the discussions in Paris is Vincent Auger, an affluent free man of color. He returns to Saint-Domingue, determined to turn the rights promised by the French Assembly into reality. When the governor refuses his demand for voting rights, he and a man called Jean Baptiste Chavain lead around 300 free men of color in an armed uprising near the major city of Cap-Français.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  But their rebellion fails, and Auger and Chavain are driven into flight.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  They lead to the Spanish side of the island, but the Spanish governor actually agrees to have them extradited back to the French side. And both men are broken on what is called "the wheel", which is this medieval torture device that involves breaking every bone in someone's body and then just leaving them there to die. The two men did die on the wheels. They cut off their heads and put them on pipes, on major roads, to serve as a warning.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Auger is immortalized as a martyr, both at home and back in Paris. And the National Assembly eventually decides that political rights will be given to free people of color born to two free parents. It's a compromise, but a crucial waypoint has been reached.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  As white planters in the colony refuse to comply with the decision, tension grows between them and the free people of color. Meanwhile, recognizing their opportunity, enslaved black people hold a series of meetings in the northern plains around Cap-Français, home to many large plantations.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  And they essentially pause rebellion. They say, "We vastly outnumber the white French colonists. We vastly outnumber the enslavers. All we have to do is put our minds together."

• 19:58Speaker 01

  In their world of bondage, religious ceremonies offer a place of freedom, where the enslaved can gather and plot.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  It is a hot, humid August night in 1791.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  In the woods, at a place called Bois Cailliman in the north of Saint-Domingue, a young enslaved woman slips through the trees, drawing her shawl around her as it begins to rain. She joins a gathering in a clearing, lit with a ring of torches. This is a place said to be full of spirits and the souls of those who've died at the hands of their enslavers. Voodoo ceremonies, like the one she's here to join, are a space where the enslaved can pray, sing, and remember the worlds from which they were torn. But although these meetings are tolerated by the whites in Saint-Domingue, tonight, there is a different atmosphere.

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  The woman moves anxiously, jumping at the shadows cast by the flickering torches. Even the black pig, pawing at the ground where it stands tethered to a nearby tree, seems disturbed.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  She finds a spot not far from a thick tree trunk, which will act as the potomito, the central pole of the gathering. More and more people arrive, emerging from the plantations in their work clothes, until there must be hundreds of them.

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  Whispers circulate that a group of maroons from Porto Princes are among their number.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  A tense silence settles.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Then the low steady beat of drums begins. The music is a thread, connecting them to their ancestors and distant lands. The beat becomes louder, and the energy of the gathering changes. Now, a line of girls, dressed in white, make their way through the crowd. One of them carries the ason, a sacred tool made of a calabash gourd decorated with glass beads and snake bones.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  Suddenly the drumming stops.

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  A hush descends, the crowd parts, and a tall man steps forward. His name passes like a breeze through the gathering. He is Dati Bukman, the religious leader.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Beside him is Cecile Fatiman, the mambo or voodoo priestess, her hair wrapped in a headscarf.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Bukman begins to speak. "The white man may be encouraged by his god to sin," he says, "but the god of these people gathered tonight asks only good works of them. Now their god is ordering revenge. The time has come to resist the white planters, to seize their freedom."

• 22:50Speaker 01

  The crowd starts to shout in agreement, and the drumming begins again. Cecile Fatiman begins to sway and chant, possessed by the spirits, as the girls in white move ecstatically around the tree.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  All around the young woman, these friends, neighbors and strangers seem lit from within by exhilaration and hope. And as the oath is sealed with the blood of the black pig, it seems that their world might finally be about to change.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Respected as a priest, Boukman was born in the Senegambia region of West Africa, where he was captured and sold into slavery.

• 23:39Speaker 02

  Daddy Boukman, he's famous for what is in Haiti today referred to as the prayer of Boukman. It's a song, and people sing it. But one of the things he says that's very important in this speech is he says, "The god of the white man calls him to commit crimes." But our god, who's the true god, right? Bon Jé, in Haitian Creole, means "the good lord." But it's the real god. He wants peace, and he wants our freedom. And so what we have to do, however, is rise up in order to get that.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  The ceremony marks the commitment to fight for freedom. From around August 21, 1791, enslaved people begin attacking plantations en masse across the region.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  They set fields and buildings on fire and destroy sugar processing equipment to cripple the colony's plantation economy.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  White planters have long feared such an uprising, but the revolt spreads faster than anyone expects. Though estimates of the numbers involved vary, it is thought that by late September, more than 200 plantations have been attacked, and between 20,000 and 80,000 enslaved people are fighting for their freedom. They come from all backgrounds: men and women, African-born and Creole, which is to say, those born in the colony, overseers and field workers alike. Over the next two months, thousands of whites are killed, and hundreds of sugar, coffee, and indigo plantations are destroyed. In response, white militias strike back, killing about 15,000 people of color.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Brutality occurs on both sides, yet there are also moments of compassion, including cases of freedom fighters rescuing and hiding their former enslavers.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Yet even as they fight for their liberty, many enslaved people are not yet demanding independence from France. Some declare loyalty to the French king, encouraged by rumors that he has already ordered the end of slavery and that colonial authorities are concealing the decree. Many enslaved people from the Congo, who had served there as soldiers in the kingdom's civil wars, bring valuable military experience to the uprising.

• 25:53Speaker 01

  They bring different tactics too, working in small, organized groups. As the white planters flee to the colony's cities, the insurgents form camps in the countryside. Ingenious and courageous in the face of European firepower, they set and camouflage traps, fabricate poison arrows, and lure the enemy into repeated ambushes.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  By 1792, the rebels control about a third of Saint-Denis, but the response from Paris has been chaotic. Alarmed by the scale of an uprising that seems capable of collapsing the whole colony, the French have by now rescinded their earlier decision to grant rights to free people of color and in control of the issue back to the colonial assemblies.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  But this U-turn only inflames the situation, radicalizing the group that had begun to see their colonial overlords as allies.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  With both free and enslaved people of color now united by a common cause, April 1792 sees the French flip-flop again, restoring what they had previously offered. But by now the situation is slipping out of control. Rattled by the chaos and the fact that its white colonists are seeking independence on their own terms, France now sends 6,000 troops to the colony and a ship, bearing new management.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  At the end of 1792, the French are going to send another set of commissioners. So when they initially arrive in Saint-Domingue, they say, "We have no intention of abolishing slavery here." They're trying to quiet the white French colonists, who actually are engaged in an independence movement, where they want to be like the American patriots across the sea in what becomes the United States, right? So they have this example. And so the French commissioners are actually there to get the plantation back on track, which means to make slavery profitable again, to quiet down the fighting between the white French colonists and the free people of color. But when they get there and they see what a disaster they are up against...

• 28:01Speaker 01

  To make matters more complicated, news now arrives from France that it has fully removed the king and declared itself a republic. Then, shockingly, in January 1793, King Louis XVI is giltened.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  The event sends shockwaves through Europe, terrifying other monarchies and pushing Britain and Spain to declare war on France and its colonies. Both countries see Saint-Domingue's chaos as an opportunity.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Britain backs the white planters and royalists, hoping to restore the old order and protect its own Caribbean interests. Spain, on the other hand, which controls the eastern side of the island Santo Domingo, temporarily supports the enslaved rebels to weaken French control. The Spanish promise freedom and land to insurgents who join its army, though they have no intention of abolishing slavery in their own colonies.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  It is during this tumultuous time that a man called Toussaint Louverture enters the story. Born enslaved on a sugar plantation in the early 1740s, Louverture was freed as an adult. At that point, he is thought to have given himself the surname, which comes from the French word for "opening" or "the one who opened the way." By the time the Haitian Revolution erupts, he is in his early 50s, a man with an intimate and somewhat unique understanding of the system of slavery.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  One of the reasons Toussaint Louverture rises to leadership is he had this experience of having free status long before many others. He reportedly learned to read and write, which wouldn't have been uncommon for a free man of color to learn how to do. And that he had some instruction through his relationship with his former enslaver and the former manager of one of the plantations he worked with that gave him some insight into military tactics and struggles, but also how to run a plantation, which then becomes a microcosm for, you know, how to run a society and how to influence others. And he was very charismatic and he was very good at speeches

• 30:19Speaker 02

  and inspiring people to follow him.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  In 1793, Louverture becomes known as a powerful leader of insurgents, fighting alongside the Spanish, presenting himself as the true defender of liberty in Saint-Denis. Soon, he commands a large stretch of the western coast with considerable autonomy and minimal Spanish supervision.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Meanwhile, the French commissioners face a crisis and recognize that in the fight against the British and Spanish, the enslaved population can either be viewed as a danger or an asset.

• 30:57Speaker 02

  They decide, oh, actually, the only way to preserve this colony for France is to abolish slavery and get the captive Africans, turn them into laborers instead of slaves and get them on our side so they'll fight with us. And so that's actually what happens. They offer varying degrees of emancipation leading up to August and September and October 1793. By October 1793, general emancipation has been proclaimed. But here's the problem: do they have the sanction of France?

• 31:31Speaker 01

  To answer this question, the commissioners send a delegation to Paris to carry the news of emancipation across the Atlantic. This delegation, which will speak to the National Convention, comprises three men: one white, one of mixed heritage, and one black man, Jean Baptiste Belet, who was born into slavery. It is a dangerous journey across the Atlantic, especially for Belet, who was subject to racist attacks. But when the three of them finally enter the convention in Paris, they are greeted with warm applause.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  In February seventeen ninety-four, this French national convention decision, quite shocking, when they declare the abolition of slavery not just in Saint-Domingue, but in all French overseas territories, which at that point still included the island of Guadeloupe, but did not include the island of Martinique, which had fallen into British hands due to those constant struggles that the two old powers are engaged in.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  In an extraordinary moment in global history, the French government officially frees all enslaved people in its colonies and makes them full citizens. It is a historic act and one that marks a turning point in the revolution.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Responding to France's abolition of slavery, Toussaint Louverture turns his back on the Spanish and joins the French Republic.

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  This October on the Noiser Podcast Network. Real Dictators Returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea and a man is struck blind all alone at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the Sign of Four.

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• 34:16Speaker 01

  España se aleja del conflicto en 1795. Los británicos, después de sufrir pérdidas devastadoras por la fiebre amarilla y las repeticiones de las defensas de Louverture, se alejan gradualmente.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Finalmente, negocian una trusca con Louverture, acordándose de abandonar la colonia en cambio de su promesa de no encorajar las rebeliones esclavistas en los territorios caribenses de Gran Bretaña.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Después de eliminar la amenaza de España y Gran Bretaña, en 1799, Louverture se enfrenta a un nuevo desafío de un ex aliado. Andre Rigaud, que controla la provincia sur de la colonia, se preocupa por que personas de color libres, como él, sean desaparecidas por las políticas de Louverture. La guerra de las espadas, como se conoce en las batallas entre los dos hombres y sus tropas, dura un año. Y Rigaud es solo derrotado cuando Louverture aprovecha la ayuda de Estados Unidos, gracias a las ligas comerciales existentes.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Ahora, la fuerza dominante sin disputas en Saint-Domingue, Louverture se mueve a consolidar el poder bajo lo que es en efecto una dictadura militar. También introduce un nuevo conjunto de políticas que restauran el sistema de plantación tradicional, buscando estabilizar la economía rota y revivir la producción de exportación para Francia.

• 35:33Speaker 02

  Él quiere demostrar a Francia que puede hacer de la colonia ganancia de nuevo. Así que impone sus propias leyes de trabajo que atormentan a algunas de esas leyes anteriores. Y ahora tiene que justificar: "Bueno, ¿cuán diferentes son tus leyes de lo que Francia estaba tratando de hacer?" Y así a él le da la reputación más tarde de ser este autoritario que realmente solo quería poder y no en realidad transformar lo que era una especie de sociedad de trabajo forzado en una sociedad de trabajo de libre trabajo.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Ahora Louverture se centra hacia el este. En enero de 1801, lidera una invasión exitosa de la semejante Santa Dominga hispana, asegurándose de que la esclavitud allí también se desaparece.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Having overcome both foreign and domestic rivals, he now stands as the de facto ruler of the entire island of Hispaniola, governing a black-led, liberated colony. But officially, he remains answerable to France. And before long, the new man at the top over there will remind him of that.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  While Toussaint Louverture has been consolidating his authority on Hispaniola, political life in France has undergone significant change.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Capitalizing on the post-revolution instability, a skilled general by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte seizes control in a coup. But once he's established himself as first consul of the new government, there are signs that he might reintroduce slavery. In response, Louverture draws up a constitution for the island of Hispaniola that states slavery is abolished forever.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  The new constitution sweeps away the old racial order, declaring that everyone born in the colony is equal, free, and a citizen of France. Nevertheless, the constitution is authoritarian in other respects. It declares Louverture governor for life. Voodoo is outlawed. Catholicism is installed as the official religion, and mandatory labor is written into law. The formerly enslaved, now legally free, but still compelled to work under punishing conditions, reject the measures with a series of uprisings. A major revolt breaks out in northern Saint-Domingue. When Moïse Louverture, Toussaint's nephew and a popular general,

• 38:05Speaker 01

  sides with the rebels, his uncle has him arrested and executed. The revolt is crushed, but has dire consequences for Louverture's reputation.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  And the insurgents aren't the only ones with objections to the new constitution.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  Toussaint Louverture signs it in July 1801 and then he sends it to Napoleon Bonaparte, who is by now essentially a dictator. And Toussaint says, "I'm sending this to you for your approval." But Napoleon Bonaparte reads this as, "You've usurped my authority? You think that you're in charge there and you're not."

• 38:45Speaker 01

  To regain control, Napoleon sends a large military expedition to Saint-Domingue. Placing his brother-in-law, Charles Leclerc, in charge, he anticipates the campaign will take around three months. In the final phase, he plans to disarm all the people of color and force them back into slavery, and instructs Leclerc to eject from the island any black people who have held a rank above that of captain.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  When Napoleon's troops land in Saint-Domingue in 1802, the local forces enact a scorched-earth policy to deny them food and shelter.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  One of Louverture's most important generals, a formerly enslaved man called Henri Christophe, sets fire to Cap-Français, burning it to the ground in anticipation of the European Army's arrival.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Unable to crush local resistance outright, Leclerc shifts strategy. He offers amnesty, rank, and pay to any enemy generals who defect. While Louverture is weakened by many of his men being lured away, he is still able to rally support from the British and the United States to blockade ports and prevent the French accessing supplies.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  But what the French don't know is that he also has another, much more lethal ace up his sleeve.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  One of Toussaint Louverture's tactics was, "We need to wait until the rainy season, that will help us, and we need to wait until the fall." Because they knew the patterns of when yellow fever would be resurgent. So you think after the rainy season, all the mosquitoes have hatched, right? So they know that the French don't have immunity to this.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  But the rainy season is still months away. So for now, the insurgents must fight on.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Thanks in large part to the fierce leadership of the formerly enslaved General Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the French suffer heavy losses. But even so, they are able to push into what was once the Spanish side of the island and expel local resistance. In April 1802, a warrant goes out across the colony for the arrest of Louverture and General Henri Christophe. After several failed negotiations, Louverture tries to reach a settlement, sending Christophe to meet with Leclerc to gauge his intentions. Except, once Christophe's there, things don't go the way Louverture had planned.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  They've effectively turned Christophe against him. They do turn Dessalines against him, depending on which account you believe. They sort of turn his own nephew Charles de la Reine against him. And how they can do this is that, you know, he had this reputation of being... He could be harsh. He'd ordered his own nephew Louis executed in October 1801. You can see how the French can lay this up and say, "Are you next?" He's had every person who's tried to challenge his authority in his view deported.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Having secured Christophe's loyalty, Leclerc offers Louverture a deal. He can retain his army rank as long as he agrees to retire from action to his plantation in the north of the island. Recognizing the precarity of his position, Louverture accepts. Despite being more militant than even Louverture, Dessalines is also forced to submit, though by agreeing to cooperate with the French, he keeps his men and weapons.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  In truth, though, he is playing a long game, consolidating his position among his people, picking off rivals on his own side, and waiting for the right moment to unite the colony's people of color against the invaders. And he's right to distrust the French. Because now, Leclerc goes back on the promises he made during negotiations. For Louverture, the resolute leader who once commanded the entire island, time is running out.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  It is June the 7th, 1802. A humid afternoon in the port of Gonaive. Though his hands are bound, Toussaint Louverture makes sure to retain his commanding posture as he leaves the house where the French have confined him. As he steps into the street, he blinks against the bright sunlight.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  The footsteps of his family sound behind him.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  The French deliberately place him at the front of the procession, ensuring his walk through the town is a public spectacle, a warning and a show of power.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Soldiers flank the road towards the harbour, muskets glinting in the sunlight. The townspeople peek from behind shuttered windows. At the harbour, a small gathering has formed. Men and women have come to witness his deportation. Among them, he recognizes the faces of people he once fought alongside.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  At the water's edge, two French naval vessels await, French flags snapping on their masts. The smaller frigate, Creole, rocks lightly, close to the quay, its dark hull lined with cannons.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  Along with his family, Louverture is escorted aboard, climbing onto the narrow deck of the frigate. He steps forward, and, even surrounded by French sailors, a hush falls as he begins to speak.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  He warns his captors that, in removing him, they have cut down only the trunk of the Tree of Liberty, that its roots are deep and numerous and it will spring up again. His gaze returns to his fellow freedom fighters at the harbour, hoping his message is clear.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  When he stops speaking, there is no applause but a stunned silence, broken only by the screams of seabirds and the fluttering of the tricolour in the breeze.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Louverture and his family are now ferried to the larger ship, ready to make the long voyage across the Atlantic. Before he is imprisoned below decks, Louverture takes one last look at Saint-Domingue, the land she has both loved and hated, the place for which she has fought so fiercely, the home he will never see again.

• 45:09Speaker 00

  When you're building a company, you learn that trust is what closes deals. You may have the best product, but buyers won't sign without proof that your product is secure, especially if it has AI. Vanta gets you compliant fast with SOC 2, ISO 27001 and more, and keeps you secure with continuous monitoring. Hyperbound, a YC-backed startup, used Vanta to unlock the Fortune 100 in under a year. Snowfire got audit-ready in a month and closed a multimillion-dollar deal. Trust matters. Get started at vanta.com.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  This October, on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in The Sign of Four.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  The summer after Louverture's departure, Leclerc oversees the reintroduction of harsh labour rules and attempts to restore plantations. The workers now operate on a punishing system of serfdom, in which they are paid a meager wage. Though Dessalines and other elite men of colour keep their ranks and privileges, few of Saint-Domingue's black population truly believe Leclerc's claim that slavery will never be restored.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Then, news arrives that Napoleon has sent troops to the neighbouring archipelago of Guadeloupe to restore slavery by force.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Under the Treaty of Amiens, a brief peace between France and Britain, France also regains the Caribbean island of Martinique, where slavery has never been abolished. In these colonies, even the black elites are stripped of their rights.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  Back on Saint-Domingue, though Dessalines never trusted Leclerc's promises, he recognizes the developments as a serious escalation, and that what's happening over the water is surely about to happen here too. Abandoning any cooperation with the French in late 1802, he begins rallying black troops and former revolutionaries and reigniting uprisings against the expeditionary force.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  This renewal of conflict sees atrocities on both sides reach a new and terrible level.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  The French engage in these just truly barbaric practices. At one point, Leclerc issues a condemnation, saying, "You know, we need to get rid of every single one of them." He asks for permission from the Minister of War and the Minister of the Marine to kill every person over 12 in the colony who's ever worn an A-822. So it's just extremely barbaric, genocidal tactics. And these genocidal tactics really wake up the other black freedom fighters who may or may not have been truly loyal to France at that point. It's questionable, they sometimes did the biddings of the other French generals, then sometimes they didn't.

• 48:34Speaker 02

  But by fall 1802, they are in open revolt against the French and have transformed what was a way to sort of prevent slavery from returning into a war of independence.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  It's now that the longed-for shift in season comes to the aid of the revolutionaries. The mosquitoes do their worst, and devastating outbreaks of yellow fever rip through the French ranks.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  In November 1802, Leclerc himself dies of the disease, and command passes to his brutal successor, Donatien de Rochambeau, under whom the campaign only grows more savage. He imports dogs from Cuba, which have been specifically trained to hunt enslaved people. There are mass executions, decapitations, and drownings.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  At one point, another general, who had been fighting on the side of France, is drowned in this horrifically public way with his wife and children and all of their effects, thrown into the sea. They drown entire brigades of free people of color who had previously been on their side.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  By early 1803, Napoleon's fragile peace with Britain is breaking down. British warships begin blockading the French in Saint-Domingue, restricting reinforcements and supplies, and providing support to the local revolutionary forces.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  And though Toussaint Louverture now dies in custody in the Jura Mountains of France, the revolution he once led presses towards its final victory.

• 50:12Speaker 02

  Du Rochambeau, who was Leclerc's successor, he starts writing desperate letters home, saying, "If you just send me more troops, I can sail this infernal port away from this hell." And the French don't send him reinforcements, and they try to bring Polish soldiers in, because by this time Napoleon has made incursions into Poland. But these Polish soldiers arrive, and they think, "Why would I fight for this? You're our conqueror." And many of them defect. The Polish start defecting, other French soldiers start defecting. Yellow fever is having its way, and the Haitian revolutionaries are in the mountains. They are not engaged in battle the way that the other Napoleonic battles are taking place

• 50:56Speaker 02

  on fields, and people on one side and the other side, and ambushing each other that way. Oh, no, they're hiding. They're doing all of these tactics that the French consider barbaric, but really just show the superior sort of military prowess of people who knew this terrain versus people who did not know this terrain.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  In November 1803, Rochambeau loses the final battle of the War of Independence at Vertierez, and surrenders to Dessalines. A ceasefire is agreed on the condition that French forces evacuate within 10 days. France a non seulement perdu 50 000 hommes, mais aussi ce qui avait été une colonie la plus riche des Caraïbes.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  La grande majorité des restants colonisés blancs fuient en compagnie des français retournant. Beaucoup d'entre eux se dirigeent soit vers Cuba, Jamaïque, ou des villes portiques sud-américaines comme New Orleans et Louisiane. Et bien que ceux qui restent soient initialement tolérés, quelques mois plus tard, ils sont systématiquement massacrés par Desailly, avec juste une foule de professionnels et de médecins.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Le jour de Noël 1804, Desailly déclare l'indépendance pour la nouvelle nation de Haiti, son nom encore réside dans son langage indigeneux pré-colonial. Il devient la première nation dans le monde moderne fondée et dirigée par des gens formerly esclaves, et la première nation indépendante des Caraïbes.

• 52:26Speaker 01

  Desailly sert comme premier dirigeant de Haiti, mais son dur enforcement de l'exploitation conscriptée conduit beaucoup de citoyens de Haiti à se sentir esclaves encore. Il est assassiné après quelques années, après lequel le général Henri Christophe de Louveture établit une monarchie au nord sous son propre règne, alors que le gouvernement républicain contrôle le sud.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Il n'est pas jusqu'à 1820 que la nation est réunie.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Mais malgré sa réunification et l'indépendance, Haiti rencontre une hostilité durable.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  Le monde n'a pas cessé de punir Haiti. Je pense que c'est plus connu maintenant que dans le passé, que dans 1825, les Français ont essentiellement manipulé le président de Haiti Jean Piabli pour signer un accord de dépendance catastrophique, disant que Haiti payerait 150 millions de francs à la prix de la reconnaissance française de l'indépendance haitienne, qu'ils relèveraient leurs plaintes sur l'île et arrêteraient de envoyer ces agressions militaires. Et quand le gouvernement haitien se met à cette demande, cela commence vraiment la phase de l'histoire haitienne que nous vivons maintenant, qui est une phase néocoloniale où Haiti va prendre des termes physiquement, matériellement et financièrement à l'égard des autres pouvoirs du monde.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  The nation doggedly chips away at the debt and associated costs. But even by the time Europe is busy with the First World War, the repayments are still siphoning off over three-quarters of the nation's budget.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  It is not until 1947, 140 years after independence, that repayments are complete.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  But the legacy of its debt is such that even now, the World Bank identifies Haiti as the poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean.

• 54:18Speaker 01

  The lost investment of what the UN estimates to be the equivalent of $21 billion hobbled Haiti's economy and its ability to adequately develop infrastructure, even its capacity to successfully govern itself.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Haiti's achievements remain remarkable, as the first nation in the modern world founded and ruled by formerly enslaved people. Its history stands as a beacon in the fight for equality that inspires movements for liberation across the Americas and beyond. But its freedom came at a price that still burdens the country today.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  And poverty ensues, instability ensues, and this is directly because of the punishments of the other world powers who did not want a free, lack-republic. They did not want that in their hemisphere, whether that was the American hemisphere or the Western hemisphere in general. And Haiti has paid the price and continues to pay.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  Next time on Short History of... we'll bring you a short history of the golden age of railways.

• 55:31Speaker 04

  By 1840s, there was maybe eight or 10 countries with railways. By the 1850s, that had probably doubled again. And really, every country with a good economy had begun to start building railways.

• 55:46Speaker 04

  The point is that it was such a game changer, such an obvious asset to a country, that of course there were some downsides. People sometimes objected to the dirt, the noise, the incurs on the countryside and so on. But those downsides were very small compared to the upside. Quicker travel for people, quicker transfer of freight, a huge boost for technology. So the railways themselves were an important catalyst for the development of technology and so on. It was really quite an unstoppable force.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  That's next time.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  You can listen to the next two episodes of Short History of right now without waiting and without adverts by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Just hit the link in the episode description or head to www-noiser.com/subscriptions to unlock more episodes today. This October on the Noiser Podcast Network, Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks

• 57:04Speaker 01

  on a daring voyage across the North Sea and a man is struck blind all alone at the very top of the world.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes' short stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in The Sign of Four. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.

• 57:33Speaker 00

  When you're building a company, you learn that trust is what closes deals. You may have the best product, but buyers won't sign without proof that your product is secure, especially if it has AI. Vanta gets you compliant fast with SOC 2, ISO 27001 and more, and keeps you secure with continuous monitoring. Hyperbound, a YC-backed startup, used Vanta to unlock the Fortune 100 in under a year. Snowfire got audit-ready in a month and closed a multimillion-dollar deal. Trust matters. Get started at vanta.com.