The Uprising of August 1791

On the night of 22–23 August 1791 enslaved people on the Northern Plain of Saint-Domingue rose in a coordinated revolt, the largest uprising of enslaved people in the Americas up to that time. According to tradition, a ceremony at Bois Caïman led by Dutty Boukman, a few days earlier, helped bind participants together, though historians debate the details of that event. Within weeks tens of thousands had joined, and many plantations in the north were destroyed. The violence was severe on both sides.

Leaders such as Jean-François and Georges Biassou emerged, and Toussaint, later called Louverture, joined the rebellion and rose as a skilled organiser. The revolt was not simply a reaction to events in France: it drew on African political and military experience, religious practices and long histories of resistance. It transformed the Revolution's debate about rights into a struggle over slavery itself.