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After years of disputes, by 1791 the country was plunged into a complex, many-sided civil war. Besides three-way racial conflict among whites, gens de couleur (people of mixed African and French descent), and blacks (many of them slaves of African birth), the country was polarized by regional rivalries between the North, South, and West; class conflict between rich white planters (grands békés), poorer whites (petits békés), free blacks or gens de couleur (affranchis), and slaves; and conflict between proponents of independence, those loyal to France, allies of Spain, and allies of Britain. Closely shaping the course of the conflict was the French Revolution which began in 1789, and was at first widely welcomed in the island. So many were the twists and turns in the leadership in France, and so contorted were events in Haiti itself, that various classes and parties changed their alignments many times.
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.
The affranchis had meanwhile been actively appealing to France for full civil equality with whites. At length, in 1792, the National ConventionThis article is about a legislative body and constitutional convention during the French Revolution. The term national convention also refers, in the United States, to the presidential nominating conventions. During the French Revolution, the National Con proclaimed the equality of all free people in the French colonies regardless of colour, and sent Léger-Félicité SonthonaxLeger-Felicite Sonthonax son of a prosperous French merchant, was a revolutionary affiliated with the Girondin party. He rose in the ranks during the French Revolution and in 1792 was sent to Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) as part of the Revolutionary Commiss to Saint-Domingue ensure that the colonial authorities complied.
However, even larger disturbances were underway, as the slave uprising begun in August 1791 and led by Jean FrançoisJean Francois was a leader of the 1791 slave rising that began the Haitian Revolution. With Georges Biassou and Jeannot, he was prophecied by Dutty Boukman to lead the revolution, and fought with the Spanish royalists against the French Revolutionary auth and Biassou, associated itself with the pro-royalist Spanish authorities in Santo DomingoSanto Domingo population 2,061,200 ( 2003), is the capital of the Dominican Republic. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River. It is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the Western Hemisphere, and was. The slave rebellionThe Spaniards used the island of Hispaniola also known as Haiti, Quisqueya, and Bohio (of which the Republic of Haiti occupies the western third and the Dominican Republic the remainder in the modern era) as a base in the early 16th century from which to 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.
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 Hédouville ), defeated the British expeditionary force in 1798, and even led an invasion of neighboring Santo Domingo, freeing the slaves there by 1801.
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 Vertičres 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.
In 2004 Haiti celebrated the bicentennial of its independence from France.