Facing Racial Revolution: Eyewitness Accounts of the Haitian Insurrection

written by: Jeremy D. Popkin

The only truly successful slave uprising in the Atlantic world, the Haitian Revolution gave birth to the first independent black republic of the modern era. Inspired by the revolution that had recently roiled their French rulers, black slaves and people of mixed race alike rose up against their oppressors in a bloody insurrection that led to the burning of the colony’s largest city, a bitter struggle against Napoleon’s troops, and in 1804, the founding of a free nation.Numerous firsthand narratives of these events survived, but their invaluable insights into the period have long languished in obscurity—until now. In