Haitian Revolution Causes

The Haitian Revolution was a courageous act by the enslaved people of Saint-Domingue (present day Haiti), and the only successful slave revolt in the ‘New World’. Tired of the forced labor and harsh treatment, the slaves of Saint-Domingue planned and executed the rebellion that led to their freedom. They had been treated so badly by their owners that any alternative was better than their reality, so they decided it was time to fight. While it was brave for the British colony to revolt for freedom, they had no idea what they were getting into as an independent country. Slaves were so focused on freeing themselves from the hellish conditions of slavery, that they did not take into account the future events that would occur once they succeeded. …show more content…
The US failed to see Haiti as an independent country because of the racial panic that would occur if they were to trade with a country who no longer had slavery. To most slave owners, Haiti represented the freedom of slaves, and owners were worried the rebellion would motivate similar uprisings at home, and it did. Once US slaves heard about the successful rebellion in Haiti they did attempt a revolt, however not as planned as Haiti’s so it was unsuccessful and only led to slave owners treating their slaves worse in order to keep them on a tight leash of obedience. That was as the extent of the racial panic that occurred. President Thomas Jefferson didn’t want to upset the slave owners in the US so he failed to recognize Haiti as a country, which was contradictory to what he wrote about encouraging freedom and liberty, but it managed to diminish the racial panic. After both the isolation received and the denial of their independence the new country of Haiti was unable to preserve and rebuild the wealth they once possessed before the war, there was just too much debt and not enough resources for the