Summary: The Haitian Revolution

The Haitian revolution had outlived the French revolution which was their inspiration them from the beginning. Napoleon Bonaparte who was the ruler of France sent a troop out to capture Louverture and restore the balance that was once there. Louverture was taken and sent to prison where he ultimately died in 1803. Jean- Jacques Dessalines, one of Louvertures generals and also a former slave, led the revolutionaries at the Battle of Vertieres on November 18, 1803 where the French was defeated. They not succeeded in ending slavery but they also end the French control over the colonies. Before the end of this war 100,000 of the 500,000 blacks and 24,000 of the 40,000 whites were killed. On January 1, 1804, Dessalines declared the nation independent
The difference between him and Dessalines was he made sure to have a lot of nobles and structured his “kingdom” to replicate European monarchy. He was a dictatorial king, but a person who saw that development was important and set goals to bring his kingdom into a more modern world. He tried to improve the education system for the elite children and spent very much money on monuments and buildings. King Henri I was paranoid like Dessalines, he believed that the French would attempt to re-invade and try to get Haiti back as a colony; since everybody in the world saw that Haiti was a colony in rebellion. He built the Citadelle for military purpose and to prevent any type of invasion. On the other hand Christophe was able to make fermage work and was able to return the production of sugar to about 75% of what it was when French was in control prior to the revolution. Despite that, the success in the production system was the end of Henry I’s power. The people of Haiti did not fight for their independence to be a part of a system that is so much like slavery, hence most of the people fleeing to the south and if they couldn’t most of the people end up hating the system Henry set up. Once Pétion died his successor Jean-Pierre Boyer launched an attack on the north, to Christophe this was a signal of a possible uprising. With the people annoyed by the system
In 1957 Francois Duvalier, a medical doctor, won a free and open election for the presidency. To make his power known, he reduce the size of the army and with his chief aide, Clément Barbot, they created the Tontons Macoutes . In 1959, he had a heart attack in which Barbot had to take over for a while. When he recovered he manipulated the legislative elections in 1961 which extended his term to 1967 in addition, he took more corrupt and despotic measures that terminated U.S aid to Haiti. That summer he had Barbot murdered, he was sent to prison after but on his release he attempted an insurrection. The people tried to overthrow him but were unsuccessful. April of 1964 he declared himself president for life, this man was able to stay in power longer than any of the other presidents. His administration of terror quelled political dissent that caused approximately 30,000 deaths, but at the same time made achieved a degree of political