Skip to content

“Revenge Our Wrongs”: Saint-Domingue Before the Haitian Revolution

A discussion of how to teach Saint-Domingue on the eve of the Haitian Revolution.

Bram Hubbell
Bram Hubbell
— 12 min read
“Revenge Our Wrongs”: Saint-Domingue Before the Haitian Revolution

In most world history courses, students compare the Haitian Revolution to the other Atlantic Revolutions: the North American, the French, and the Latin American revolutions. Compared to the causes of the previous North American and French revolutions, the causes of the Haitian Revolution are surprisingly easy for students to understand. Enslaved Haitians revolted because of the brutality of slavery in Saint-Domingue.

What can be more challenging for students is understanding how the pre-revolutionary social context of Saint-Domingue contributed to the revolution. The sizable and influential community of free “people of color” (gens de couleur) set Saint-Domingue apart from other Caribbean and American colonies. Saint-Domingue was also similar to other American colonies in that enslaved Haitians had developed a culture of resistance before the outbreak of the Revolution. Both free people of color and enslaved Africans challenged the racist colonial structures and contributed to the Haitian Revolution.

Important locations during the Haitian Revolution. Source: History of World Societies.
Important locations during the Haitian Revolution. Source: History of World Societies.

Saint-Domingue’s Free “People of Color” Community

Left: Caribbean in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Source: The Map Archive. Right: Enslaved Africans and Free Blacks in the Caribbean in the early nineteenth century. Source: The Map Archive.

Related Posts

Members Public

“To Render Cairo a Second Manchester”: Teaching Egypt’s Nineteenth Century Production Revolution

Discussion of how to teach Muhammad Ali and Egypt in the nineteenth century

“To Render Cairo a Second Manchester”: Teaching Egypt’s Nineteenth Century Production Revolution
Members Public

“Workmen Constantly Employed”: Teaching Mass Production and Industrialization in the Long Nineteenth Century

A discussion of how to teach the nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution as a global process.

“Workmen Constantly Employed”: Teaching Mass Production and Industrialization in the Long Nineteenth Century
Members Public

Destruction, Creation, and Preservation: Some Thoughts on Teaching the Haitian Revolution

Some reflections about teaching the Haitian Revolution and a collection of all posts about the revolution.

Destruction, Creation, and Preservation: Some Thoughts on Teaching the Haitian Revolution