Toussaint Louverture: The Haitian Revolution

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Revolution began to spread across the Atlantic in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The modification of social realities began to challenge the old ways of life, while Enlightenment extracted ideals of freedom and equality. This led to reformers in vast areas to strive for political and government change. On the other hand, continuous wars over the Atlantic economy left European states enfeeble by their overwhelming debt, making them vulnerable to call for reform. In conclusion, revolutions derived from people’s desire to fight for greater freedom from a repressive government. In the Middle Ages, eighteenth-century European society was legally divided into social groups with special privileges; the nobility and the clergy, and groups with special burdens, such as the peasantry (McKay 612). As the economy began to change within European …show more content…

The European population included French colonial officials, wealthy plantation owners, merchants, and poor immigrants (McKay 640). In accordance to the documentary, Haitian Revolution: Toussaint Louverture, during Haiti’s peak within the western hemisphere, it was considered the richest of all Caribbean islands. The wealth produced from Saint-Domingue was solely based on enslaved labor. Many of the whites on Saint Domingue began to support an independence movement that began when France imposes steep tariffs on the items imported into the colony (Haitian Revolution). And planters were extremely disenchanted with France because they were forbidden to trade with any other nation (Haitian Revolution). The three remaining groups were of African descent: those who were free, those who were slaves, and those who had run away (Haitian Revolution). Slaves were subject to brutal treatment and labor, as other blacks were under the restraints of 1865 Code Noir (Black

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