The Haitian Revolution was the first successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere and established Haiti as a free, black republic, the first of its kind. Historians traditionally identify the catalyst as being a particular Voodoo service in August 1791 performed at Bois Caïman by Dutty Boukman, a high priest. At the time, Haiti was a colony of France known as Saint-Domingue.
However, even larger disturbances were underway, as the slave uprising begun in August 1791 and led by Jean François and Biassou, associated itself with the pro-royalist Spanish authorities in Santo Domingo. The slave rebellion began on the plantations in the north and spread across most of the colony. Slaves burnt the plantations where they had been forced to work, and killed masters, overseers and other whites. One of the most successful black commanders was Toussaint L'Ouverture, a former domestic servant. A French general, Étienne Laveaux, was able to convince him to change sides in May 1794 and fight for the French Republic against the Spanish; meanwhile Sonthonax proclaimed an end to slavery in 1793.
In this 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 expedition of French soldiers to the island, led by Bonaparte's brother in law Charles Leclerc, to restore French rule. After being deceived by false guarantees, Toussaint was seized and shipped off to France where he died two years later while imprisoned at Fort-de-Joux. For a few months the island was quiescent under Napoleonic rule, but in October of 1802, the Haitian generals revolted under the leadership of Jean-Jacques Dessalines (one of L'Ouverture's generals and a fellow former slave). Dessalines led the rebellion from that point until its completion when the French forces were finally soundly defeated at the Battle of Vertières in 1803.
On January 1, 1804, Dessalines declared Haiti a free republic and joined the United States as the second independent nation in the Western Hemisphere. However, due to the fact that France and its allies (including the United States) forced Haiti to make reparations to French slaveholders in 1852 in the amount of 90 million gold francs ($21 billion today), Haiti was forced to pay France for the next one hundred years for its independence and has subsequently become the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
Agitation for independence was at first carried on by the rich white planters, the grands békés, who had resented France's mercantilistic regulation of the island's economy. This class mostly realigned itself with the royalists and the British within a few years of the Revolution.
In this 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 expedition of French soldiers to the island, led by Bonaparte's brother in law Charles Leclerc, to restore French rule. After being deceived by false guarantees, Toussaint was seized and shipped off to France where he died two years later while imprisoned at Fort-de-Joux. For a few months the island was quiescent under Napoleonic rule, but in October of 1802, the Haitian generals revolted under the leadership of Jean-Jacques Dessalines (one of L'Ouverture's generals and a fellow former slave). Dessalines led the rebellion from that point until its completion when the French forces were finally soundly defeated at the Battle of Vertières in 1803.