I am Toussaint Loverture. My name is perhaps known to you. He was called the black George Washington the photo of 3 empires in in reached Napoli Italy the post SPECT other black Republic is equally disturbing to the Spanish the English and the Americans he championed Liberty any Gary D for all to say Louisville to of and the Haitian Revolution I'm this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS stations from viewers like you thank you you he is always described as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere I'm but during its hiding I sent an angry it was the richest place in the Americas the thing about it does that those responsible home rooted you slaves its wealth was based on human capital I owning that human capital and always be personal mister sewn he shines the main out bending over and named Sweden my GP and if we told you the game yet through was as you know each disappear therefore you become a 90 min any respect do leave like an animal the diminutive the master had to be absolute but that absolute missus self made the master into something other than human as well 1 that was new for the world the to sent over to you is the epitome of humanity you realize your early on that the condition he was in with totally insufferable com to say who it to you recruited about three to four thousand people train them game before the French reach into Spanish comic for twenty years they burned the mechanisms of their production they've burning the plantation feels burning down houses there was a wholesale massacre under really really enormous scale it's a big match paybacks stool the Haitian Revolution is probably the most profound evolution ever realized by you mean be the only please wear sleeves created in the shin but nobody wants to talk about in the summer of 1789 when he was still the doom it come on you've seen looming it was friends to grab the world's attention persian mobs rioted against the French King in against him desperate poverty chanting slogans for liberty equality and brotherhood they sparked a revolution that would feel history books for centuries to come the truth about the French Revolution was that it meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people 0 one in the streets of Paris the French Revolution Minton and to the appalling privileges as well the new and France's brand new congress call the National Assembly it meant the ideas if Europe's most radical thinkers could be realized the nobody knows exactly what's gonna come out it but just the idea of up having rights right the idea that all people have rights that those rights are inherent this is something that obviously philosopher said written about before but during the course the French Revolution was written down in a text on the Declaration of the Rights of Man it's a dangerous idea because the society is based on equality that's what makes it work because it was not supposed to work for everybody it was supposed to work for the minority 0 and its slave holding colonies off the coast of Florida Martinique grade nope in Island noon as the pearl fent least them today the western half is he team then it was the French colony a single man could be one thing that's fascinating about that time people think the things we're very far away the word on Neots traveled very very fast we have to remember that the ocean was like a highway in the 18th century mean ships were constantly bringing news back and forth everyone was obsessed with news sailors would come off the ship's name first people they were talk to the people they would work with as they were unloading ships were enslaved people sell their reports were describing the events that have been going on in Paris to to the enslaved that are working alongside happens %uh few intended clone your sleeves shitty democratic ideas too hard with far too much was at stake sugar grease the wheels eighteenth century economy and send a link was the shooter capital the world things Liam this old it was easy even for France's political radicals to ignore the agony that made it all possible this believes on do sugar cane I just like me miss kunin saw give the got you you may not even seed been when you perspire the switch get see deep burns into one's the app ants or the fight in windy thank you you we scratch 074 after the team's you do will grow refused to work with these the it all which you just shoot him at songs the whole concept of slavery itself is is it totally savage one the French the brought it down to a science slave coming from Africa would not last three years the way the system he was organized they had it down to that kinda statistics did did very systematic and it was very successful themes slavery into new meaning succeeded to on a foundation a bullet list errors of my sleeve owner steny last see flash explained it as rational management sloping ish mints naked fed impressions and quick for violent ones vessel and causes and 50 lashes and ministered in five minutes 25 lashes if the with administered in a close to 11 hours this is far more likely to make an impression so much girl week the accounts about the tortures inflicted in states are are often horrifying legs cut off for arms cut-off amputations for runaways running high power are pepper and so forth into the ones slaves actually hung and left to die but you can kind of imagine that that's kinda world in which essential human life was given so little value at the structures were kind of refined to this incredible cool effect %uh %uh despite the brutal tools have controlled some blacks managed to escape slavery 0 %uh others had gained freedom to their own wits or talents 0 one such man 0 home I was born a slave but need you give me to sue of the freemen home I too similar to you was a very determined man he was a premium issues man and in my opinion he was a genius con to sound as I think when the most incredible figures and I know that in in many ways he's born on a plantation in sending he grows up on a plantation that plantation was owned by a man who was tolerant for the times to say I was taught to read invite as a child it he eventually occupies that a somewhat privileged role as you can see that on plantations as encouragement and has a kinda relationship with the managers and ministers some ways he becomes free in the 1770s so he somebody who can occupy different roles in society and I think that's the key for understanding to Sat is that he saw possibilities where other people that the %uh he had businesses had contacts in the US and elsewhere bank accounts manages affairs pretty well the man was enlisting organizational capacity I mean you would have been a fantastic CEO today use you and to say didn't record his first reactions the revolution and friends but his fellow free send lincoln's the white colonials in the mixed-race population which transfixed it and 1789 there were about forty thousand white people and about 30,000 collar people they were course there signs and cousins and so on and so forth your land owners themselves many of them slave owners themselves many of them very effective businessman many of them involved romantically with the fight master class that when everything's it's important to remember that Haiti and races it was it simply black and white instead you had numerous cretaceous have color the new one historian went so far as to give a hundred in 10 categories of color from absolute black to absolute white and two each combination he gave a name mulatto squadron mama Luke and what he was accounted for was the drops love black blood by whites hoped for more control over the colonies governance but the colonies mixed-race population hoped for more fundamental changes they had been born free but not equal mmm they had two shoe fees equal respect for more the white stained 0 when doin presence of a white called him beast to Ole whatever title do want to do ODF it was not easy for them in that exactly why do i do first one before the blacks you're the first one to ask fall equality the the mixed-race population first into making decided their tunes had come in 1791 they sent a petition to France's new government asking for the rights of citizenship this is a powerful message to have been taking place in the society that was explicitly organized on any quality just like dynamite you the petition asked for civil protections in In re the island's white population working-class colonists begin a full-scale intimidation campaign the threatened the in murdered mixed-race president. in the capital things but the petition met a different reception back in Paris the new creative delegate to the National Assembly issued a landmark to create distended equal rights to the small population mixed-race people born have to feed parents more cool despite the reforms limited extent the governor sununu Ming refuse to obey colonial white felt profoundly be trade some such as a plan to his wife's name Adam do free begin discussing radical thoughts have their own home nessuno assembly is committed to destroying our lives as Master house so much so that's a session from POS might be necessary the slave owners of America I hope will band together to stop discontent y'all of Liberty modem sales the good lord who created the Sun which gives us like from above who rouses desi and makes the Thunder roar watches us Glen Doherty was a sleeve and who do priest I'll throw away the image up to god of the whites who thirsts what tears they listen to the voice of Liberty which speaks in the heart servo love us I'll in August 1791 yes and remains white in mixed-race population squared off for showdown Bookman call together slaves from neighbouring plantations they'd been kidnapped from different parts in Africa and Voodoo religion was there a common culture things referred to say police pleaded as a set since you know the usual see remote DVD lacy super skilled as you'll see a lot of us under the evil see not work force do said would really be that they only would we gt2 food to sigs iluvu do see not with traditional of Brooklyn had call them to an area called walk a mile first on the agenda was strategy the that's a win-win me above what came is due first haitian conquests the beginning of new evolution you month see das said venial want left K DC death unit Police Club that will leave visual admitted because he said Shinda let know that it did you file a party sits in the morning pool left for campus would be stepped on the think do I patience tradition says this leaves us in doing planned that 92 evolved they time their uprising to start in multiple plantations in two weeks time in this for each other to soccer stuff I they even said that the keel p your and a drunk dubroff Inc young this is what we call communion coming on up to keep want to have for what you have seen them said the got up the white men cause him to commit crimes I've got orders revenge you would direct our hands he will 8 us on the night of August 22nd 1791 their masters Liz this could have a plasmid plays his club scale is kept she adds places clam 311 EB us good for them to be freed they have to have the same amount of islands that you exist upon them that's way too loose from fairly brutal still DC's that a trip defers the that came out things the rebel numbers grew from 1000 to 20,000 in order to destroy the system diligence leave them within three days the most profitable plantations in the Americas had been laid waste 100 84 sugar plantations in a thousand coffee farms on whites and mixed-race people fled to the capital city for mutual protection your from there they watch firestorms on all the rise since of def got I fiery cataclysm oven or miss Kayla mean that people on ships in armor suppose we could read their male by the light on these fires at work yeah 10 15 20 miles away to give you something idea of what this would have been like if you're there the rupture no violence put to Snellville to your in a difficult position his own fortunes were tied to the plantation system and he'd straddled the white in black world's for some 15 years moons to see was no longer personally if he didn't have demanded and medium sleeve he was the owner of two or three presentations he was not have the same class anymore ease interest were different from the interests of two masses but to since first reaction to the raging violence was based neither one money your race it was personal he went back to the plantation where he had been born to protect his former owners it's true that to send a vessel did return to the plantation and they really deserve instruction and kind of maintain order there and there's always there's a question a question why why would he do that I think to Sam was somebody who I'm understood the value of I love I am humanity in many ways rainy I think you probably had game that precisely from being on the then receiving end of slavery back in the capital city as to say helped his former master see the violence ceilings whites repealed assault have to assault they see me grouped in loans there own offensive the bloodletting continued tf2 d week after seoul numbing week fringe Colonist parkfield blackwell the county is field with dead bodies which lie unburied the nichols have left the lights with stakes didn't even call them into the compound and the White Oaks who take no prisoners evening hosted up on the field well three months after the revolution started the voodoo priest Bookman dirty was killed in battle home white soldiers decapitated him in burned his body and view of the rebel camp home in the words of one observer the conflict in San domain had become in exterminating you'll the home in the autumn of 1791 to C'ville to could no longer sit on the sidelines despite a wife and children despite the chance even if losing his own freedom to see didn't hesitate Mon he left everything he dropped everything any went to the mound I'm it was an act extraordinary risk the island's 500,000 sleeves outnumbered whites by 12 to one's but the ultimate prospects for poor few had experienced in military strategy in the head new unifying history or long-term vision the fact is lot of people didn't really know what freedom was supposed to look like nobody had really even theorized her match in this before s to see on the other hand had a unique window on the world he was schooled in African in European cultural I did read some of France's most radical thinkers of to South had certainly rad attacks by I love the rain I'll which predicted that outta the colonial slave system with its Yelp frightening imbalance with numbers and horrible suffering an hour that there would amor de leader revolutionary leader I believe right now refer to him as a black Spartacus %uh descends literate person there's no way you wouldn't miss this my as rebel leaders struggled to forge a discipline fighting forced to says talents and intellect set him apart low yeah then in December 1791 some four months after the rebellion began black in 20 some begin to crumble of the new French government in Paris sit more than 10,000 military reinforcements to help the colonists reestablish White Wolf home supplies were scarce in the mountains in Winterport famine to the rebel my niece thousands begin to surrender years to sell over to your was not somebody who likes violence really he was good at if he had to do it but he preferred two years I'll negotiation diplomacy Kyle trickery anything by benefiting where he kill you never know but he try anything else first to send a bill to was AST to write up a settlement or for in exchange for the freedom of two hundred sleeve leaders and better working conditions on the plantations the proposal offered to send most to the rebels back to the plantation it was a stark recognition as eighteenth-century realities sometimes it's easy to look back at this and suggest that they were willing to sell out their followers while the terms I think its true are are troubling in some ways they were also trying to see some change I think the key here is that it was really difficult to imagine that your actually eliminate slavery new friends commissioners had just arrived from Paris to restore order more liberal than the planters the emerge soon remains whites to accept the rebels for for in a call sleeve leaders to the capital a new comp for negotiations trust was minimal some sleep rebels wanted to kill their white prisoners but to Silvio to argued against it he wanted the whites we turn to look at as a gesture of goodwill well so too sad is sent to negotiate with the planters with the idea that I sense a settlement can be reached I'm this settlement is not only for the freedom sum up the insurgent leaders but also for some reforms on the plantation small reforms for reforms that at least in the letters they describe their followers really want whether the small group leaders actually would have had the power to say to all these people at a techno care going back to work now issue chained I don't know as it happened or why people were so short-sighted that they didn't even given the opportunity to try I'm the White said no this in no because adept I'm there were 21 wanted revenge before getting what they have done for three centuries in the thing to do would have victims indeed being so they have to avenge themselves should be not going to forgive forget ATT day we fused of course he's taken up arms against F but at the same time he's made a lot of concessions and its struggle against his own followers to say look we're going to treat the prisoners well we're gonna trade with them willing to make a deal and to have that refused by the planter class I think certainly must have Hannah are radicalizing effect to sis support for settlement abruptly ended in with it the best to the whites would ever see by I'll for back in France the democratic revolution had turned to terror France's revolutionary army was at war with neighboring countries its radical leaders sought to purge themselves enemies from within executed houses Kimberly 1793 dated the unthinkable the revolutionary government beheaded taking events in France for going faster than than anyone ever intended I mean this is volcanic upheaval a true class revel is a turn everything completely upside down and each reptile they came out with strike this reserve center Mac one of the biggest ripples from France that washed in to send a main source was a commissioner named lazy PCT so till next blood he was a French revolutionary with radical ideas about life in the colony one southern axe arrives and send him and having already had bad word said about him their people actually written from from france to the colonists annexing watch out for this guy he's an abolitionist he wants to abolish slavery good money center banks mixed-race population had so far retained its fragile alignment with the white system to ensure that continued so tonight's created representational Council on the island invited mixed-race citizens to serve he even brought mixed race team and into the cool new government you and a lot of light enters a really really upset about that and and CNS as that is a really destructive force the way planters had cause for worry less than two years after joining the rebellion to send a bill to your head first into the top the rebel army I am to send a good year my name is perhaps known to you in 1793 you vote in open letter to the island disenfranchised I have undertaken vengeance I want Liberty inequality to rein in San to me how work to bring damning to existence unite yourselves to us producers and fight with us for the same cause with his letter he announces to think denounces for small his commitment to the process to the project emancipation and announces his presence as a leader maybe even the leader he has green great respect from his followers and with this proclamation he's essentially saying you want freedom and I'm the one is going to bring you that freedom so and the person to follow in this regard but to see it this time was addressing the wider world to he was particularly focused on Spain's the Spanish wanted to a soda colony away from friends for two reasons first colony was velly velly prosperous in spite of the wall and second that prosperity was used by the French Revolution to combat beim in Europe Spain controlled cinemas neighboring colony so in juneau 1793 to sister could do. Spanish garrisons just over the border provided guns and ammunition to the sleeve army and tip the balance their way well to says forces captured three cities within eight months well I'm cent wings white planters word desperate many heated the new order and friends in a treasonous moved the invited the British to help put down the sleepy billions now the Empire's a friend's Spain end England along with the vast army of former slaves were fighting for control the small Island colony the then in early 1794 in the colony 0 a multi-racial delegation from Simulink had appeared in France's national assembly 0 peed pledge freedom to send a link sleeves for fighting the army's a pertinent Spain the emissaries made a compelling argument movies are the principles and the ideals a France and we fully represent them and we want to wish to continue represent them on our Island so we've come to present arguments about why we are in fact truly committed to those ideas and principles and how weeping a-minus these principles on the French Revolution more I think it was very powerful for the representatives to France to hear essentially that what happened in the carribean is at the white slave owners had deserted France they had gone over to the British they had fought against the Republic and the true people the true republicans in Santa Marg where these enslave people who just want their freedom of the French National Assembly endorse the emancipation a send a link in sleeves but that was not all the delegates freed slaves throughout the entire empire to Anders rejoicing in celebration there's an older woman a free woman of color has traditionally gone to the debates who for sheds tears in his brought down and celebrated its are to this moment and their speeches in Paris celebrations event throughout france it's really seen as a kind a triumph for the French Revolution for the ideals of the French Revolution that this worst form of I've hierarchy enslavement and oppression has been abolished I'm in the Caribbean it was are truly unprecedented in a stroke newly a million black sleeves had become friends citizens 0 cool me his who simply some word that the French Revolutionary Government had freed slaves reach send a link quickly it was one of history's Creek watersheds into largely to the extraordinary military accomplishments of two scenes army home but the credit did not rest with to sail alone he'd civil able commanders working under him men like just like the saline who shared his soldier's life experiences more closely than to civil this Selena been mistreated in slavery considerably wept a lot he had tremendous web scars on his back %uh that he like to display on occasion he had deep reserves have anger and violence but also very very intelligent man your for the Saleen into said you emancipation changed everything they quickly trim their sails to the new order just to say we realize that Spain had a keen England had a king and friends was talking about liberty equality fraternity all remain equality so he realized that although believe or started by fighting the French different right now could be the best have a big dick could receive you so you rejoin the French home after three years in opposition to simply go to was once again loyal friend citizen so were his followers it tipped the balance before long to senator de Celine in our music sleeves push the Spanish centre cinema and the bridges soon followed word have to say is astonishing string of victories against white armies was spreading across the European world did he make it didn't like it at all that there was a black general B team white armies didn't like it slaveholders everywhere were stunned in worried in the united states for instance in cuban didn't want even white frenchmen to calm because do would tailed a stony youu morning we're from San domain the word onset in no matter what Beyonce it would be known that there was black we vote we confronted dangers in order to gain our liberty in New Moon be able to confront dead in order to keep the sleeves had once accepted the chain because they had not experienced the state a pure in slavery but lose these are over the people of sending grew rather be buried in the room emailed a country didn't so for the return of slavery of to says ringing language should his profound attachment to democratic ideals but there was another side to send to on anybody who look like they threatened to sack either and their job dad or the foreign to see had already been appointed brigadier general and then governor scintillating no black men head ever written so far in the colonies 0 still to nextel Supermax was extremely popular because he was too want to say okay series are bullish he was very popular and a black used to call him but national to max don't didn't go well with 26 to say he's very for you so the next as long as a Mac can serve his purposes now and nothing personal about it was a drag because use this you will send him back over there let's a simple as that 0 in a series of political maneuvers he isolated the civil Commissioner in August he forced into an ex of the island to send a bill to a child again I'm in 1798 from his silent in other fringe general battle British interest halfway around the world in Egypt his name was not fully healed bonaparte of will to sign a bill in many ways are for similar both were a little bit from the margins in French society they succeeded through military brilliance near both incredible military leaders and they became political leaders as a result of their military experience on but Napoli was victories would put two cents at Bristol just months after conquering Egypt Napoli all marched into Paris a coup d'état toppled the revolutionary government in a polio 22 Greens have power the revolution is over he declared hi in the revolution as an appalling is rising to power in France to sounds watching closely about what's going on he knows several things he knows first about that they're very powerful pro-slavery voices in France who are advert were agitating against him attacking him and proposing that slavery actually be recreated in some form and send a mixed is to say believes in doing survival in the survival of freedom itself depended on his ability to mobilize people to rebuild the devastated economy see me into sense mind that meant learned saying his black followers should return to the cane fields there were some compelling reasons for this I mean mainly into says situation he was really in a bind at that point %ah in the sense that his hope for peace was restoring product productivity on the plantations recreating the sugar trade in particularly but nobody wanted to go back to that kind of work so he pretty well had 24 stuff and then the people began to think mean this is a lot like slavery me she West Wong maybe a little too strong with a black since ive all occasions but he had to do it you have to do it to be a leader you got to know who where to lay back and you have to know when to say okay guys go ahead as do it if you don't do it her whatever the consequences you before most newly freed slaves didn't see it that way they wanted to work for themselves growing crops for food rather than export to says luster began to tarnish of Napoli on the other hand was writing honey he restructured the government and proclaimed a new constitution for France far from enshrining documents a patient it open the door for friends to reinstitute slavery in its colonies build when the best you heard that he really understood that something was changing and more ominously understood that he didn't have any way to influence the point well and so what he did in kind of typical to sell fashion israel responded by saying okay send a magazine have its own loss well here they are I'm in charge here I might as well read the Constitution of to say is constitution decreed sleeve we would never existence in demand again it was the first in history to prohibit discrimination based on skin color a milestone that US law would not guarantee for another 150 years the Constitution had troubling elements to get me to send governor for life with sole authority to designate his successor and two sets great hero to me but this is not a good idea I mean he basically with that gesture installed permanent military dictatorship which is remained a problem in 84 for two centuries taken it down when he needed to do with that I think not quite sure why did but that was enough to to send the phone and over-the-air urged Napoleon Bonaparte it had enough a revolution in according to Napoli lemme the US President thomas jefferson shared his view the course packed other black people bleak is equity still being to the Spanish the English Andy Americans Jefferson has published that at the instant the French he has a high def all measures will be taken to stop to sup the fetus up these give the negroes and we will have nothing to more to wish for of to send tried urgently tuition up a li'l that military logic if nothing else proved the merit black ambitions to sign it was writing napoleon he wanted so much to be to recognize as saving this land for France the his efforts failed in 1802 to see was stunned to see the largest French Expeditionary Force ever assembled entering cent wings Harbor its mission was simple Napoli all wanted to turn back the clock my decision to destroy the authority of the blacks in central bank is not so much based on consideration of comments and money as on the need to block forever the march of the blacks in the world to still go to forty invading French Army for to be grueling months but the island's black population no disenchanted with his leadership or said lackluster support on May 6 1802 to Silvio to you yeah he surrendered at first he was allowed to retire from the Army with full honors but a month later he was called to a meeting with the french commander she if I wanted to count all the services that I have rendered to the French government I will need several volumes and steel I would finish it off 19th to say was arrested on charges of conspiracy of yes the routes and stuff that's very eloquent say ice rather suspect it's because of my collar that you're treating me like a common criminal although I prefer not to believe us and to compensate me for all the service sees they're rested me I but really in central Maine they choke me in drag me like a criminal we dont any dick a room for concern for my ring his doctor recommends do my work the formally amid nice French officer would have been brought before a military tribunal so he comports himself as if he's gonna have a military trial to says sons had been educated in France they had even met nobody'll hoping again that Napoli all would understand his thinking to say peacefully boarded a ship for France cinemania remained mostly calm into says week just like the saline in the other black officers continued Corp reading with friends general Victoria Kirk but then news arrived from the new by Colin you quick loop Napoli neal had reinstated sleep three the clear reported that he had a Salinas pocketing controlled him and had mastered his spirit will hi was extremely right about that send a link developed id and anger in fear de Celine quickly broke from friends one more time the former sleeves assuming to the field begins to european armies this ellen is a no holds bar no compromising leader in Figure cool is going to eradicate anything that stands in the way well with the people have been mobilizing towards that's generally reported that they saw me killed all the white people masterful white idk race more no not really there's one report by survivor he managed to get out to escape by masquerading as an american kiss dazzling the stacking america's for English just France one fleeing light Pierce has dogged paused on a mountaintop to observe the devastation no less than 10 square leagues have conceived running that volcanoes the so happy to have the conflagration was such has to make the beholder believed that large and stick things have gunpowder had previously been laid down that war becomes the Sri extreme scorched-earth kind of campaign in which gasoline and others burn the town's in order to basically leave the French with little with no choice but to depart the Saleen scorched-earth tactics worked in 1803 the French army was finally driven out fifty thousand french soldiers had died in Sinnoh main Katie became the world's first black the public this is a powerful story it wasn't just an anti-colonial revolution but it wasn't also anti-slavery revolution in that it said your economy and your privilege which is based on forced labor cannot stand the last stand it's a message that translates to in time independence is dis quand est feeding of human I think we all in some ways have inherited something from this revolution because it's really the first place the people insisted absolutely that human rights were for all people it's something that everybody should know about it to know exactly what I what our species not black people but our species can we are nice but to send a bill to never live to see victory by the time he to attain the goal he fought so hard to achieve p.m. prison revolutionary had died in a freezing cell in the mountains a friends and overthrowing me movie wilt as he left for France you have only cut down the trunk at the Liberty Tree if the blacks and send a link it will spring back from the roots for the are numerous and deep. Haiti's victory inspired those who struggled against slavery and racism for generations. But its tree of liberty took root in a hostile world. France demanded crippling indemnity payments. The U.S. refused recognition for sixty years. And a line of authoritarian rulers trampled rights and worsened race and class divides. Violence, poverty and environmental degradation continue to this day. The Haitian Revolution - born of high ideals and devastating sacrifice -- remains an unfinished project. Egalité for All: Toussaint Loverture and the Haitian Revolution is available on DVD the companion book is also available to order visit ShopPBS.org or call us at 1-800 PLAY-PBS This program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to your PBS stations from viewers like you. Thank you