This was also in the period of the violent slave revolts in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which ultimately led to the slaves gaining the independent republic of Haiti in 1804. The French lost thousands of troops in an attempt to take back the island in 1803, many to yellow fever epidemics. Thousands of whites and free people of color were killed in the revolution. Europeans throughout the Caribbean and in the Southern United States feared future slave revolts.