what are the events that inspired haiti's fight for independence?

Question

it is homework please answer quick before i get a zero0 tommorrow

Answer 1

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) was the most successful of the many African slave rebellions in the Western Hemisphere and established Haiti as a free, black republic, the first of its kind. At the time of the revolution, Haiti was a colony of France known as Saint-Domingue. By means of this revolution, Africans and people of African ancestry freed themselves from French colonization and from slavery.

Haiti is the first black republic in modern history. It went directly from being a French colony to self-governance through a process that has had lasting effect on the nation. The system established by slaveholders demonstrated the effectiveness of violence and force in controlling the majority. This system survived the revolution and continued under the nascent black republic. A light-skinned elite took control of political and economic power

Historians traditionally identify the catalyst as being a particular vodou service in August 1791 performed at Bois Caïman by Dutty Boukman, a high priest.A number of complex events set the stage for the most significant revolt in the history of African enslavement.


The slave population on Saint-Domingue totaled at least 500,000 by 1789, almost half of the 1 million slaves in the Caribbean. [3] They were mostly African-born as the slavery system there was extremely harsh and the population did not reproduce. The slave population declined at an annual rate of two to five percent, due to overwork, inadequate food, shelter, clothing and medical care, and the misbalance between the sexes.[4] About one-fifth of the slaves were domestics, who worked as cooks, personal servants and artisans around the plantation manor, largely born in the Americas.

In 1758, the white landowners began passing legislation that set restrictions on the rights of other colors and classes, until the restrictions became so specific that a rigid caste system was defined. Most historians have classified the people there at the time into three groups. One was the white colonists, or blancs. A second was the free blacks (usually mulattoes, or gens de couleur (people of color), otherwise known as affranchi. A third group, outnumbering the others by a ratio of 10-to-1, was made up of mostly African-born slaves, who spoke a patois of French and West African languages known as Kreyol. [5]

White colonists and black slaves frequently had violent conflicts. Bands of runaway slaves, known as maroons, lived in the woods and often raided the island's sugar and coffee plantations. Although the numbers in these bands grew large (sometimes into the thousands), they generally lacked the leadership and strategy to accomplish large-scale objectives. These attacks did, however, establish a black Haitian martial tradition. The first effective maroon leader to emerge was François Mackandal, who led a rebellion from 1751 through 1757 that succeeded in focusing the black resistance on its target. A vodou priest, Mackandal inspired his people by drawing on African traditions and religions. In 1758, he was captured by the French and burned at the stake.[6]

Among St. Domingue’s 40,000 white French colons in 1789, European-born Frenchmen monopolized administrative posts, lording over proud but insecure native-born Creoles. The sugar planters, the grand blancs, were largely minor aristocrats, or upwardly mobile bourgeoisie. Most returned to France as soon as possible, where their fortunes allowed nobles to reestablish their social positions, and bourgeois to buy into the noblesse de robe, while those residing on the island passed their leisure time with banquets, gambling and slave women, hoping to avoid the dreaded Yellow Fever. “A manager and an overseer, and the more intelligent of their slaves were more than sufficient to run their plantations.” [7] Beneath them were coffee planters, usually of less affluent origin, since coffee thrived in marginal hillside plots and required less capital and fewer slaves. Finally, there were the poor whites, petit blancs-artisans, shopkeepers, slave dealers, overseers, and day laborers. Contemptuous of their wealth and power of the planter class, they despised free blacks and free coloreds even more, their defensive racial pride earning them the title aristocrats of the skin.

St. Domingue’s free coloreds, the [[gens de couleur]] numbered over 28,000 by 1789.[8] Through the custom of placage, planters enjoyed a type of common-law marriage with their slave mistresses, freeing their mulatto offspring and allowing them to inherit property. Many freed coloreds became coffee planters and slave-owners; by 1789, the [[gens de couleur]] owned a quarter of the land and slaves in the colony; in the west and the south, the portion was higher. As they grew in numbers and wealth, free coloreds were stripped of many of the rights they once enjoyed under the Code Noir, enacted by Louis XIV. Statutes forbade [[gens de couleur]] from taking up certain professions, marrying whites, wearing European clothing, carrying firearms in public, or attending social functions where whites were present. Reacting to this social ostracism, mulatto planters sought to identify with the grand blancs, whitening their children through marraige to lighter-skinned mulattoes and educating them in Paris while acting with contempt towards darker-skinned mulattoes, free blacks and poorer whites.

Leadership of Toussaint
Under the military leadership of Toussaint, the rebellious slaves were able to gain the upper hand and restore most of Saint-Domingue to France. Having made himself master of the island, however, Toussaint did not wish to surrender power to Paris, and ruled the country effectively as an autonomous entity. Toussaint overcame a succession of local rivals (including Sonthonax, André Rigaud, and Comte d'Hédouville). Hédouville forced a fatal wedge between Rigaud and Toussaint before he escaped back to France.[9] Toussaint defeated a British expeditionary force in 1798, and even led an invasion of neighboring Santo Domingo, freeing the slaves there by 1801.

In the same year, Toussaint issued a constitution for Saint-Domingue which provided for autonomy and made Toussaint himself governor-for-life. In retaliation, Napoleon Bonaparte dispatched an expeditionary force of French soldiers to the island, led by Bonaparte's brother in law Charles Leclerc, to restore French rule. The French soldiers were accompanied by mulatto troops led by Alexandre Pétion and André Rigaud, who had been defeated by Toussaint three years earlier. Some of Toussaint's closest allies, including Jean-Jacques Dessalines, defected to the French. Toussaint was promised his freedom, if he agreed to integrate his remaining troops into the French Army. Toussaint agreed to this in May 1802, but was deceived, and was seized and shipped off to France, where he later died, while imprisoned at Fort-de-Joux.

Answer 2

"While the Spanish side of the island was largely neglected, the French side prospered and became the richest colony in the Western Hemisphere, exporting large amounts of sugar and coffee. French colonial society contained three population groups: Europeans (about 32,000 in 1790) who held political and economic control; the gens de couleur, some 28,000 free blacks (about half of which had mulatto background) who faced second-class status; and the slaves, who numbered about 500,000.(Living outside French society were the maroons, escaped ex-slaves who formed their own settlements in the highlands.) At all times, a majority of slaves in the colony were African-born, as the very brutal conditions of slavery prevented the population from experiencing growth through natural increase. African cultures thus remained strong among slaves until the end of French rule.

Inspired by the French Revolution, the gens de couleur pressed the colonial government for expanded rights. In October 1790, 350 revolted against the government. On May 15, 1791, the French National Assembly granted political rights to all blacks and mulattoes who had been born free - but did not change the status quo regarding slavery. On August 22, 1791, slaves in the north rose against their masters near Cap-Français (now Cap-Haïtien). This revolution spread rapidly and came under the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture. He soon formed alliances with the gens de couleur and the maroons, whose rights had been revoked by the French government in retailiation for the uprising."

This from Wikipedia, the free, online encyclopedia at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti

There is even more on the Haitian revolution in Wikipedia at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_revolution

Hope this helps!

Answer 3

Santo Domingo may be the capital of the Dominican Republic and the oldest European town in the Americas and if you wish to see one of many UNESCO World Heritage List then, this hotelbye may be the place. Santo Domingo is really a collection of cultures and neighborhoods. It's where in fact the sounds of life, domino parts smacked on tables, backfiring mufflers and horns from crazy traffic. In one's heart of the city could be the Zona Colonial, where you'll find one of many oldest churches and the oldest remaining European. Also, in the Zona Colonial you will see Gazcue, among the city's oldest neighborhoods, filled with old Victorian properties and tree-lined streets.