The Haitian Revolution
In August 1791, thousands of slaves rose up in Saint Domingue, led by a voodoo high priest named Boukman, in a war for their freedom. Over the next decade, the revolt destroyed the power of white planters and their estates and laid waste to the French colony. Amidst the violence, a group of charismatic black […]
Slave Rebellion in St. Domingue
The Haitian Revolution is the only successful slave rebellion in the Americas. This outline and the next analyze the only case of slaves rising up, taking power, and creating an independent nation. We begin with an overview of the rise of Saint Domingue as the classic example of the sugar and slave plantation complex in […]
The Radicalism of the American Revolution
The “meaning” of the American Revolution has been hotly debated for more than 200 years. For some, it is a conservative effort by planters to seize power and control the development of a society already divided between slaves and free men, whites and non-whites, and the landed and the landless. For others, it represents a […]
From Lexington and Concord to Yorktown
This outline covers the fighting during the American Revolution from Lexington and Concord to the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781. The victory of the American colonists is an extraordinary story of a small group of colonials challenging and defeating the most powerful empire in the world. This victory was made possible by the larger […]