Although the Haitian revolution was one in a string of revolutions that took place at the end of the eighteenth century, it is often overlooked, perhaps because of Haiti’s current status as a third-world country. As the first and only successful slave revolt in the world, however, it deserves particular attention. On paper the revolution was bloody but markedly successful, the stated goals of abolition and independence obviously achieved. But the true goals must have run deeper, to actual well-being and economic prosperity and self-governance—and on each of these counts the Haitian revolution utterly failed to deliver, making it a revolution that may be counted as successful only on a technicality.
	In 1697, the western half of the Spanish island Hispaniola was ceded to France in a treaty and became the French colony of Saint Domingue. By the time of the revolution less than a century later, it alone was responsible for producing nearly one third of the world’s sugar—and over half of its coffee, rendering it by some metrics the most profitable slave colony in the world. As a consequence, the maintenance of peaceful production on Saint Domingue was of the utmost importance to cash-strapped France, but murmurs of the values of equality between men purportedly espoused by the ongoing French revolution began to reach Saint Domingue. Ninety percent of the population was enslaved in 1989, so when tens of thousands of slaves began a brutal, chaotic revolt in the plantation-heavy north in August of 1791, France was understandably alarmed. In response, seven thousand French troops were sent to Saint Domingue to restore order, headed by Léger-Félicité Sonthonax. 
The makeup of Saint Domingue was 500,000 slaves and only 40,000 white, but the colony also supported a population of some 25,000 free people of color, typically biracial, some of whom were educated landowners; Sonthonax undertook various measures to curry the favor of this last group, perhaps hoping to numerically ally the gens de couleur with the whites so they would be less hopelessly outnumbered by the slaves. However, this largely only succeeded in threatening the white colonists on the island. 
The rebels were organized. Although many of the former slave generals were brutal in their attacks on white colonists (as the white colonists had been to their slaves before the uprising), they pursued clear goals: they wanted racial equality on Saint-Domingue and a better lot in life, and they had allied with the Spanish to pursue those objects. Much of the northeast was controlled by the Spanish with the aid of the rebels. As Sonthonax’s previous actions suggested that his loyalties lay with the white colonists and the gens de couleur, the rebel leadership (which did not yet include the famous Toussaint Louverture) was suspicious of the French commissioner’s motives and sincerity. Sonthonax and his troops felt besieged by the Spanish presence in Saint Domingue and the growing threat from Britain (particularly as many alienated white secessionist colonists seemed to support British invasion in the wake of Sonthonax’s concessions) and considered the aid of the rebels as their one hope. Sonthonax declared that any rebel slaves who fought for France would gain their freedom and although the suspicious rebel leadership demurred, some independent bands in the mountains enlisted.
