Daily History Challenge · No. 59 · Wednesday 26 August 2026 · When?
Puzzle No. 59: When?
The event was The Haitian Revolution begins in Saint-Domingue, in 22 August 1791.
The answer
On the night of 22 August 1791, following a clandestine vodou ceremony at Bois Caïman associated with the leader Dutty Boukman, enslaved people across the northern plain of Saint-Domingue rose in revolt, burning plantations and seizing control of much of France's wealthiest sugar colony within weeks. The uprising swelled to tens of thousands of participants and launched a thirteen-year revolution, the only slave rebellion in history to produce an independent state. Drawing on the revolutionary language of liberty and equality emanating from France, the insurgents forced the French Republic to abolish slavery in its colonies in 1794. Under the ex-slave general Toussaint Louverture, the rebels repelled British and Spanish intervention and established autonomous rule. Napoleon's attempt to restore slavery and French control failed disastrously, and on 1 January 1804 the colony declared independence as Haiti. The revolution shook the Atlantic slave system, terrified slaveholding societies, and inspired the enslaved and abolitionists across the Americas.