MSUB Library Lecture Series: America Turns 250 – Testing the Limits of Revolutionary Fervor: The US Response to the Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804

About this event

From 1791 to 1804, enslaved men and women in the French colony Saint-Domingue fought for and achieved both emancipation within the French colonial system (1794) and, eventually, their national autonomy (1804). Haiti became the first successful slave insurrection to create an independent republic and was one of numerous anticolonial revolutions during the Age of Atlantic Revolutions (1775-1825). That same time period saw the USA reorient itself politically with a new constitution, less than a decade after inaugurating independence movements throughout the Atlantic world with the Treaty of Paris (1783). This presentation will look at the impacts the Haitian Revolution had on the presidencies of George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson and will analyze the limits of revolutionary rhetoric as American citizens and politicians grappled with Black freedom, autonomy, and nationhood.