The Haitian Revolution

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2014

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Haitian Revolution. In 1791 an uprising began in the French colonial territory of St Domingue. Partly a consequence of the French Revolution and partly a backlash against the brutality of slave owners, it turned into a complex struggle involving not just the residents of the island but French, English and Spanish forces. By 1804 the former slaves had won, establishing the first independent state in Latin America and the first nation to be created as a result of a successful slave rebellion. But the revolution also created one of the world's most impoverished societies, a legacy which Haiti has struggled to escape.

Contributors

Kate Hodgson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in French at the University of Liverpool

Tim Lockley, Reader in American Studies at the University of Warwick

Karen Salt, Fellow in History in the School of Language and Literature at the University of Aberdeen

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:36.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time.
0:38.7	For more details about in our time and for our terms of use please go to BBC.co.
0:43.2	UK slash radio 4. I hope you enjoy the program.
0:46.7	Hello in the late 18th century the French colony of San D'Amang in the
0:51.3	Caribbean was among the richest countries in the world
0:54.4	supplying Europe and America's insatiable appetite for sugar.
0:58.2	But its wealth came at a high price. It was a plantation economy
1:01.6	and ran one of the most brutal slave regimes in the world.
1:04.9	By 1804 the slaves had risen up, thrown out the French and established the first
1:10.0	independent nation in Latin America under the name Haiti. The Haitian Revolution
1:16.4	was the only successful slavery in history, an inspiration for generations
1:21.0	of people living under forced slavery in the new world and a test case
1:24.2	for enlightenment ideas about liberty, equality and the defeat of tyranny.
1:29.3	But it was also an extraordinary brutal conflict that saw the Caribbean
1:34.1	Ireland draw into a global war between Napoleonic France and
1:37.4	our enemies, Britain and Spain.
	...

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