When slaves in Saint-Domingue not only rose up but seized control of their French colony in 1791, the Black liberation movement was born, Pooja Bhatia (Haiti, 2009-11) writes in the London Review of Books. She discusses three books examining the enormous impact of the Haitian Revolution: The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution, by Julius S. Scott, Maroon Nation: A History of Revolutionary Haiti, by Johnhenry Gonzalez and Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture, by Sudhir Hazareesingh.
“In 1804, Haiti became the second republic in the New World and the first Black one,” she writes. “The second article of its constitution abolished slavery; the fourteenth declared all Haitians, regardless of their skin color, to be Black. Haiti was post-colonial before many colonies existed.”
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