Born into slavery in the French colony of Saint-Domingue around 1740, Toussaint Louverture became a free man under the Old Regime.  He nevertheless joined the slave uprising in the colony in 1791, rising to become one of its leaders.  In 1794, he switched sides, joining the French; by 1798, he was the lawfully appointed governor of Saint-Domingue and an influential figure in France’s politics and international diplomacy.  After a contest of wills with Napoleon, Louverture ended his life as a prisoner in France.  Today, he is honored in the Pantheon, the French capital he never saw, whereas in his native Haiti, he is remembered as “the Precursor” who paved the way for Jean-Jacques Dessalines, “the Liberator” who proclaimed the country’s independence.

In 1804 Haiti is declared independent by its formerly enslaved people of African origin. 21 years later, in 1825, France recognises the sovereignty of the former ‘French part of Saint-Domingue’ in return for compensation to be paid to the ex-property owning colonists. Haiti will struggle for a whole century to pay off this debt incurred by independence and the loans raised in connection with it.

In 1802, during the Consulate, Napoleon Bonaparte sent several expeditions to the Caribbean to restore the plantation economy of the Old Regime. The largest was tasked with the reconquest of Saint-Domingue, the French colony now known as Haiti. The expedition failed disastrously, which led to the independence of Haiti and, indirectly, the Louisiana Purchase.