Hi, buddy. Welcome to Dan Snow's history. You know, of all the stories in history,

there's one I keep coming back to at the moment because the amount of new scholarship that people are doing, the amount of new storytelling.

And that's the Haitian revolution, which is the uprising of self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in what was called

Sandemang, but is now the state of Haiti. It began in the summer of 1791, it rumbled on and on until the French finally admitted catastrophic defeat in 1804.

It was a terrible and embarrassing setback from Napoleon, the great genius at the very zenith of his power.

It had enormous repercussions across the Western hemisphere through the United States and the slave colonies of the Caribbean.

As Haiti became independent, I think it became the first state in history in which enslaved people had risen up and successfully destroyed the apparatus of their enslavement and formed an independent state on its foundations.

It has a cast of characters that rivals anything produced by the United States of America and their rebellion against colonial rule.

Tusson Leverteur, known as the Black Napoleon for his extraordinary martial prowess, Jean-Jacques Desseline, another brilliant commander.

And very prominent women as well like Sanité Belaire, who was a female commander who was captured by the French.

Her partner then surrendered herself to the French, who couldn't bear to be separated from her.

She insisted that she was executed without the customary eye patches because she wanted to be able to look her executioners in the eyes.

It is a profound mystery, in fact perhaps it's not a profound mystery, why Hollywood has never investigated the Haitian Revolution properly for epic subject matter.

We have on this podcast done many steps about the Haitian Revolution, can go back and check them all out.

And we've got another one now. We're talking about another great commander of the Haitian rebels.

This one interestingly was a good solid soldier, but his particular skill lay in logistics in organization.

His name was Henri Christoff, he was a key leader in the Revolution and he would become the only king of the kingdom of Haiti after it was finished.

He was a man born enslaved on a plantation and yet he managed to play a key part in defeating Napoleon's invading troops and becoming a king.

It recognized Monarch. On the podcast talk about him is Paul Klamé, he's a British writer who's been to Haiti many times.

He's written a book called The Black Crown telling the epic story of this man and it is an extraordinary tale. Enjoy.

The game. The whole Black Quaint unit until their first in Black unit. Never to go to war with one another again.

And look off and the subtle has cleared the tower.

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