When the French king is killed in 1793, obviously the Revolutionary Wars begin in Europe. This becomes a kind of global imperial war and it's happening on various fronts. And one of those fronts is the Americas as it happened throughout the 18th century. So this is well established in terms of warfare that's ongoing to Britain and France during this period. But they both get involved in Sandal Mag, but they do it in different ways. The Spanish try to form an alliance with the Black Revolutionary armies which have grown up led by some of the major legions of the revolution since 1791. People like Jean-Francois and people like Toussaint Louverture who appears during
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Haitian Revolution. In 1791 an uprising began in the French colonial territory of St Domingue. Partly a consequence of the French Revolution and partly a backlash against the brutality of slave owners, it turned into a complex struggle involving not just the residents of the island but French, English and Spanish forces. By 1804 the former slaves had won, establishing the first independent state in Latin America and the first nation to be created as a result of a successful slave rebellion. But the revolution also created one of the world's most impoverished societies, a legacy which Haiti has struggled to escape.
Contributors
Kate Hodgson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in French at the University of Liverpool
Tim Lockley, Reader in American Studies at the University of Warwick
Karen Salt, Fellow in History in the School of Language and Literature at the University of Aberdeen
Producer: Luke Mulhall.