The Haitian Revolution

Arguably the most notable, iconic, and influential political revolution, besides maybe the French Revolution, was the Haitian Revolution that took place in the years 1791-1804. This date is moderately superficial though, for most historians would argue that the people of Haiti had been in a constant state of rebellion from their French and British colonizers since their inception as a product of Europe’s colonial fetish. Despite the magnitude of the Haitian Revolution’s role in history, you may be questioning why we, your chairs, feel the Haitian Revolution important enough to mention in a committee regarding the Congress of Vienna, an event occurring thousands of kilometers away from Haiti. The answer is this: without the Haitian Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars may have seen a much different, possibly more drawn-out end, which would in turn affect the existence of the Congress of Vienna, itself, as an attempt to salvage the continent left behind by Napoleon and his oh so grand wars. 

We encourage you to do your own, individual research on the Haitian Revolutions, and other relevant historical events that overlapped with our time frame, but here’s a quick summary. As mentioned above, the Haitians were an intensely proud group who resented their enslavement and role as a colony. Therefore, when the French Revolution broke out in 1789, many Haitian slaves, freed slaves, and runaway slaves started to wonder why the language of the “Declaration on the Rights of Man” constituted their freedom, yet they remained enslaved by the very country who authored such a declaration. The hypocrisy sparked an urgency in the Haitian  revolutionaries, leading to a brutal revolution led by Toussaint l'Ouverture, and following l'Ouverture's arrest and death in France, led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Dessalines was fueled by the rage of enslavement when they cried that “it is necessary to live independent, or die,” a battlecry that solidified Haiti’s new independence from their colonial counterpart, France.  (Dessalines). Haiti emerged from its revolution as the modern world’s first post-slavery state, a precedent that would pave the way for abolitionists all around the world, and even spark some debate and discussion in the Congress of Vienna years later regarding the validity of the ancien regime colonial power.