# 1791 slave rebellion

The 1791 slave rebellion was a slave rebellion in the French colony of Saint-Domingue which sparked the Haitian Revolution. Unlike previous rebellions, French colonial authorities were unable to suppress it, and the rebellion eventually led to the abolition of slavery in the colony. The revolt was notable for being one of the only slave rebellions in history to succeed and for its prominence in the history of Haiti.

## Background

Arawak and Taino people inhabited for more than one thousand years what was later known as Hispaniola. Christopher Columbus arrived to the island on December 5, 1492.
In 1659, half of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, became the French colony Saint-Domingue, during the time of the Atlantic slave trade
Early attempts were made by slaves in order to recover their freedom, among them can be named the uprising in Saint-Domingue made by Padrejean in 1676, and the uprising of François Mackandal in 1757
Political unrest on Saint-Domingue began to rise after the French Revolution and the signing of the Declratation of the Rights of Man. After the Fall of Bastille on July 14, 1789, White Planters in the colony expelled the intendant, a military strongman sent by France to govern the colony. The colonists proceed to reform the government by creating local and provincial legislative assemblies. In 1790, they created a Colonial Assembly that met at the town of St. Marc. A few Free Blacks participated in some local assemblies, but according to David Patrick Geggus, who wrote Haitian Revolutionary Studies, “by 1790 it was clear that the colonists were determined to maintain the status quo and keep nonwhites out of politics.”
The political marginilazation of free Blacks led to an armed rebellion in late 1790 led by Vincent Oge, a former merchant and activist and Jean-Baptiste Chavannes, a soldier who had fought with France in the American Revolution. Oge and Chavannes revolted in October of 1790 in the North, where there were not many free Blacks. This limited the number of people they were able to recruit since Oge refused to enlist slaves. With an army of 300, he was defeated and executed by being broken on a wheel. Oge’s brutal execution inspired a backlash in France, where on May 15, 1791, the National Assembly declared Blacks and Whites equal to avoid future revolts. Oge's rebellion was the largest, but not the first instance of violence between former slaves and White planters; within two months isolated fighting broke out between the two gropus.
The political situation in Saint-Domingue grew more violent and complicated during 1791. A forged royal decree emancipating all slaves circulated around the island and White backlash against the May 15 Declaration created a great deal of tension. After the Colonial Assembly announced that they were ignoring the declaration, many free Blacks formed militias in the West and South of the colony. Furthermore, there were three small-scale slave revolts in June and July of 1791 on plantations near Port Au Prince, all of which were suppressed.

## Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

In 1789, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789) set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, it is a human civil rights document from the French Revolution. Inspired by Enlightenment philosophers, the Declaration was a core statement of the values of the French Revolution and had a major impact on the development of popular conceptions of individual liberty and democracy in Europe and worldwide. The Declaration was originally drafted by the Marquis de Lafayette, in consultation with Thomas Jefferson. Influenced by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of man are held to be universal: valid at all times and in every place. It became the basis for a nation of free individuals protected equally by the law.

## Planning the Revolt

The slave revolt that led to the Haitian revolution was conceived on August 14, 1791 at gathering of over 200 slaves at the estate of Lenormand de Mezy in the north of Saint-Domingue. Many of those present were coachmen or overseers, professions Geggus referred to as a part of the “slave elite.” Scholars disagree on whether the attendees made the spontaneous decision to revolt at the dinner at Leonard de Mezy. Geggus claimed that after a discussion the slaves present made the decision to revolt, while Laurent DuBois wrote that the meeting was specifically “[to make] final plans…for the uprising.” The initial leaders of this revolt were Dutty Boukman, Jean-François Papillon, George Biassou and Jeannot. Scholars generally accept that Boukman was a coachman while Papillon, Boassou and Jeannot were plantation overseers prior to the revolt. The rebels' initial plan was to capture Cap-Francais on August 25th.
Seven days later, on August 21, a second meeting was held, likely at a forest called Bois Caïman behind the Choiseul plantation. The rebels convened this meeting after a comrade of theirs had been tortured until he gave a detailled confession of the revolt plans. As a result of that, the participants of the Bois Caïman meeting agreed to revolt the next day. The Bois Caiman meeting has left a large mark on Haitian history and folklore because of the religious ceremony that took place there. According to popular history, during the ceremony Dutty Boukman and priestess Cécile Fatiman prophesied that Georges Biassou, Jeannot, Jean-François Papillon would lead the revolution and then gave a speech.

## Rebellion

Jean-François Papillon was born in Africa but was enslaved and taken in captivity to the North Province of Saint-Domingue, where he worked in the plantation of Papillon in the last decades of the 18th Century. He escaped from that plantation and became a maroon, when the revolution started on the 22nd of August 1791 had a second experience of freedom and led the initial uprising of enslaved workers and later allied with Spain against the French.
One week after the ceremony, the rebels had destroyed 1800 plantations and killed their former slaveholders.
Thomas Madiou's Histoire d’Haïti (English: History of Haiti) emphasises that within the first months of fighting, Georges and Jean-François became the most important insurgent leaders. Biassou commanded approximately 40,000 slaves to burn plantations and murder the "great whites". Georges and Jean proposed peace negotiations with France, offering to cease the revolt in exchange for emancipation. France was preoccupied, being at war with several monarchies and kingdoms, and hence dismissed this proposal. Concurrently, Georges and Jean developed informal contacts with Spain, which controlled Santo Domingo.
Jeannot Bullet launched vicious attacks on whites and mulattoes, devising gruesome methods of putting them to death. Toussaint Louverture was sickened by his attitudes and actions. (Beard, p. 55)

## Aftermath

The aftermath of the 1791 Haitian slave rebellion was decisive, resulting in the abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue by 1793 and paving the way for Haiti's independence from France in 1804. This was the first successful formation of a nation led by former slaves. The insurrection significantly interrupted the colony's plantation economy, causing long-term economic problems. Socially, it led to a dramatic transfer of power from white elites to black and mixed-race Haitians, changing Haiti's future governance and socioeconomic structure. Internationally, Haiti's revolution encouraged other oppressed people, but it also sparked concern among countries with slave-holding economies.