On January 1, 1804, in Gonaïves, Jean-Jacques Dessalines publicly proclaimed Haiti's independence from France. The declaration was drafted by his secretary, Louis Boisrond-Tonnerre, and it framed independence as a permanent break backed by a collective vow to resist any return of French rule. (Encyclopedia Virginia, primary document) This page explains what the proclamation said, why…

Toussaint Louverture (circa 1743 to 1803) rose from enslavement in Saint-Domingue to become the revolution’s most powerful commander and, by 1801, the colony’s governor-general under a new constitution that banned slavery while keeping the plantation economy running. His greatest achievement was building enough military and political leverage to make emancipation irreversible in practice, even as…

The Haitian Revolution was a long, shifting struggle in the French colony of Saint-Domingue that began in 1791 and ended with an independence declaration in 1804. This page gives you a source-based timeline plus explanations of the main turning points: why conflict erupted, how emancipation and abolition changed the stakes, and why leaders like Toussaint…