Toussaint L'Ouverture

In 1791, the French Revolution inspired disputes in Saint-Domingue between differing classes of whites and mullatos (persons of mixed white and black parentage).(/p)

Almost half a million slaves revolted under their leader, a former slave named Toussaint L'Ouverture.

The resulting slaughter of French colonists generated fear in the Spanish, many of them fleeing the island.

Nevertheless, it seemed to Spain that this was an opportunity to seize the western sector of the island through an alliance with the British. Toussaint and his troops, however, resisted all such attempts.

Desperate not to lose their colony, the French Republic abolished slavery in 1794.

The following year the French, along with Toussaint's soldiers, easily overwhelmed the eastern Spanish portion of the island, which surrendered to French rule in 1795.

Toussaint was appointed Governor General in 1796 in recognition of his leadership against the Spanish, the British, French royalists and the mullatos.

By the following year, as a result of the Treaty of Basle, 1797 (a treaty between Spain and France - part of the on-going efforts in Europe to contain the French revolution) the whole of Hispanolia was surrendered to French control.

Toussaint succeeded in re-establishing administrative and economic order on Hispaniola. However France's new leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, was concerned about the complaints that former colonists were making about their lost plantations. He was also uncomfortable that his richest colony was being governed by a black man.

Napoleon sent his brother-in-law, General Victor Emmanuel Leclerc, to conquer the black administration - and to re-establish slavery.

Toussaint was captured in 1801, but the slave force, now led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines, determinedly held out against their French, Spanish, and British opponents, achieving in 1804 the independence of the western part of Hispanolia, now to be known as Haiti - the first black republic to declare its independence.

The eastern two thirds of the island, Santo Domingo, was still controlled by France. Dessalines attempted to take the city of Santo Domingo in 1805, but turned back after hearing of the approach a French naval squadron.

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