Haitian Revolution - Resistance To Slavery

Resistance To Slavery

For a few months, the island was quiet under Napoleonic rule. But when it became apparent that the French intended to re-establish slavery (because they had nearly done so on Guadeloupe), black cultivators revolted in the summer of 1802. Dessalines and Pétion remained allied with France until they switched sides again, in October 1802, and fought against the French. In November Leclerc died of yellow fever, like much of his army.

His successor, the Vicomte de Rochambeau, fought an even more brutal campaign. His atrocities helped rally many former French loyalists to the rebel cause. The French were further weakened by a British naval blockade, and by Napoleon's inability to send the requested massive reinforcements after war with England resumed in the spring of 1803. Having sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States in April 1803, Napoleon began to lose interest in his failing ventures in the Western Hemisphere. He was more concerned about France's European enemies such as Great Britain and Prussia. With that, he withdrew a majority of the French forces in Haiti to counter the possibility of an invasion from Prussia, Britain, and Spain on a weakened France. Dessalines led the rebellion until its completion, when the French forces were finally defeated in 1803.

The last battle of the Haitian Revolution, the Battle of Vertières, occurred on 18 November 1803, near Cap-Haïtien. It was fought between Haitian rebels led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the French colonial army under the Viscount of Rochambeau. On January 1, 1804, from the city of Gonaïves, Dessalines officially declared the former colony's independence, renaming it "Haiti" after the indigenous Arawak name. Although he lasted from 1804–1806 several changes began taking place in Haiti. Transnationals became the backbone of Haitian identity as the territory's social structure changed becoming once again an agricultural society in a state of semi-serfdom. A tiny minority of state officials and civil servants were employed, who were exempt from manual labor, included many freed colored Haitians. This major loss was a decisive blow to France and its colonial empire.