1700s · Datasetdecade

Who was actually landing at Saint-Domingue, decade by decade

1700: Bight of Benin 59.9 percent, West Central Africa 0. By 1790 it has flipped.

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1700 to 1791 · Africanspan

Two in five people landed in Saint Domingue came from West Central Africa

Of 636,237 arrivals recorded for the century, 292,983 were shipped from that one region.

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1700 · Indigenousyear only

Labat finds a Carib republic on St Vincent

A Jesuit counted the escapees living there and could not work out why the island kept them.

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about 1700 · Africanapproximate

A count dances the sangamento outside the church at Soyo

A Portuguese observer watched, disapproved, and described the shape of a festival Haiti would rebuild.

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1700 to 1751 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

A thousand maroons become more than three thousand in fifty years

Colonial counts of people living outside the plantations, kept because they had started to frighten.

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10 February 1701 · African

A Kongo officer returns with fifty eight captives from one destroyed village

A Capuchin traveller wrote down who was taken, and noticed that several were free people.

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1702 to 1785 · Africanspan

After eighty-three years, France signs a treaty with the maroons

The Bahoruco communities won recognised independence in exchange for stopping their raids.

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1702 · Caribbeanyear only

Mead explains poison as salts that cut the stomach like knives

A London physician built a universal theory out of dried viper venom under a microscope.

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1703 · Africanyear only

A prophetess tells the king to come down or watch the mountain burn

Kongo had been without a capital for twenty five years and the pressure was building.

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1704 to 1706 · Africanspan

A woman possessed by Saint Anthony tries to heal the kingdom of Kongo

Her claim was that the power held by leaders had been misused and could be turned back.

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1704 to 1764 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

The Jesuits hold the north and invent the priest to the Negroes

Segregated masses, held well away from those of the whites, for sixty years.

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1704 · Africanyear only

Kimpa Vita announces that St Anthony has taken the place of her soul

Asked whether black Kongolese were in heaven, she said heaven has no colour.

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the early 18th century · Africanapproximate

Abomey takes the gods of its enemies and puts the priests in court dress

A royal family centralises worship by absorbing the deities of the people it fought.

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1705 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Bosman records that captives expect to be eaten at the end of the voyage

The people in the hold judged their buyers to be cannibals and sorcerers.

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1705 · Africanyear only

Messengers called little Anthonies call the Kongo back to its abandoned capital

Beatrice settled on the spot where the bishop once lived and the city filled up again.

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2 July 1706 · African

Kimpa Mvita is burned alive in the ruins of the old Kongo capital

She was in her twenty third year and her last words were an order to keep fighting.

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2 July 1706 · African

A woman of about twenty two is burned alive with the father of her child

The friars asked that the baby and the old prophetess be spared, and they were.

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1707 · Diasporayear only

Bahia forbids anyone to cure without the archbishop's licence

The law said nothing about Africans, and Africans went on being paid to treat afflictions.

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1708 · Africanyear only

A woman rules Dahomey for three months and is erased from the king list

Ahangbe resigned by stripping before the throne council and washing herself in public.

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1709 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Coke smelting waits fifty years for the price to be right

Darby could smelt iron with coal in 1709 and nobody copied him until charcoal got expensive.

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February 1709 · Africanmonth known

Three years after her death her followers go into battle singing her hymn

Pedro IV retook the capital carrying a crucifix and restored a hundred and fifty years of order.

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the 1710s and 1720s · Africanspan

An officer in Angola learns the bark of the nkasa tree

He was told it was the finest counter poison anywhere, and wrote it up as a tool against demons.

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1711 · Africanyear only

A friar sends Rome drawings of the seminary the Kongo needed sixty years earlier

He asked for a young bishop, and pointed out that his colleagues kept dying.

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1712 · Caribbeanyear only

A man named Francois is hired out to find poisoners

His owner took money from the neighbours and was ordered to give it back.

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1715 · Africanyear only

Dahomey's ruler rebels against Allada and makes himself a king

Contemporary reports put a governor's revolt where later tradition put a founding dynasty.

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1715 to 1716 · Africanspan

Dahomey delivers 2,800 captives to Whydah inside two months

The inland kingdom was cut off from the sea and went looking for a route around Allada.

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1718 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Eight candles burn before the Virgin in the new cathedral at Cap

A French nun counts what the enslaved leave burning at a colonial altar.

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1719 to 1775 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

Michel holds the Bahoruco while Canga works the northern plain

Named maroon captains, and two officials writing down how their followers died.

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1720 · Africanyear only

Elmina reports the gold halved and predicts a slave coast

Dutch officials watched the trade change name within six years of their own warning.

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1721 to 1724 · Africanspan

A fee of a thousand reis is set for baptising each captive before shipping

Portugal fortified Whydah in 1721 and then priced the sacrament by the head.

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1722 to 1724 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

Planters beat the Indies Company and their treaty leaves the record

The man who built the colony's legal archive kept almost everything and dropped this one document.

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1722 · Africanyear only

Allada seizes a Royal African Company factor over an unpaid debt

Bulfinch Lambe is detained at Jakin, and the detention outlives the kingdom that ordered it.

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16 October 1722 · Pre-Revolutionary

Women lead the rising at Cap against the Compagnie des Indes

They besieged a director's house, men joined in women's clothes, and the company charter fell.

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1724 · Datasetyear only

A church census counts forty five thousand enslaved people in Bahia

No general count of seventeenth century Bahia survives, though the crown ordered them.

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1724 · Caribbeanyear only

An edict written about court sorcerers is turned on the enslaved

Most of the wording was copied. The preamble was rewritten.

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March 1724 · Africanmonth known

Agaja destroys Allada and installs the dead king's son as vassal

A conquest is followed by a formal reinstatement ceremony that turns kings into vassals.

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1725 · Africanyear only

Agaja asks England for traders who do not want slaves

The king of Dahomey sent a spokesman to London proposing a different kind of commerce.

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1726 · Africanyear only

King Agaja tells George I that armed women keep his palace doors

The earliest written evidence for women under arms in Dahomey is a letter to an English king.

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January 1726 · Africanmonth known

Agaja sends George I forty slaves and offers forty times as many more

The letter dispatched with Lambe asks for an English factory and promises no shortage of captives.

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1726 · Africanyear only

Dahomey's annual customs are already running in 1726

The letter describes largesse and sacrifice ceremonies unknown in Allada, dating them earlier than assumed.

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1727 · Africanyear only

A French trader says half the invading Dahomean army were women and children

Ringard put the force that took Whydah at no more than three thousand people.

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1727 · Africanyear only

Dahomey's king buys the prisoners his own soldiers take

Eighteen hundred people from one campaign, and about two hundred given away as gifts.

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1727 · Africanyear only

Four hundred prisoners are beheaded at one ceremony in Dahomey

Snelgrave was also shown a heap he was told held four thousand heads.

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1727 · Africanyear only

A living captive was worth four heads in Dahomean army pay

The king's price list made it profitable for a soldier to take a prisoner alive.

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1728 · Africanyear only

Agaja counts two hundred and nine conquered countries for a visitor

A French official writes the tally down, and the king shows him eight heads to prove it.

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1729 · Africanyear only

Agaja fills out his ranks with women dressed as soldiers and wins

Whydah forces saw the numbers, expected a weakened enemy, and fell back.

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1729 · Diasporayear only

Buytrago performs his first exorcism in Salvador with Angolan bark

He sold some of the bark and treated at least ten more people before leaving the city.

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1729 · Diasporayear only

Virginia frees James Papaw for a cure and keeps him working

His freedom was conditional on giving up his other secrets for expelling poison.

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the 1730s to 1820 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

A long price rise begins in the 1730s and runs almost to 1820

Labrousse called it the great century of prosperity, and it was not prosperity for everyone.

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1731 · Caribbeanyear only

Isaac's calabash opens the poison record in Suriname

A red stone and a bird's beak, and a man who said he had never used them to harm.

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1731 to 1825 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

A string of machines runs from the seed drill to the self acting mule

Nine famous inventions across ninety four years, and the dates are less firm than they look.

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1731 · Africanyear only

The Commissioners for Trade rule Agaja's letter a forgery

London hears Tinker and Snelgrave, decides against Lambe, and sends the interpreter home alone.

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1732 · Africanyear only

Agaja destroys Jakin and puts all the selling in one place

After the port burned, European buyers had one market and one seller.

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1732 · Diasporayear only

Three enslaved people are convicted of poisoning Ambrose Madison

The first conviction in Virginia of slaves for killing an owner, and the first for poison.

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1734 · Africanyear only

A duke in southern Kongo fields archers, lancers and musketeers together

Firearms were passing out of the hands of a small elite and into the ranks.

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1734 · Africanyear only

An Nzima man defends a doctorate at Wittenberg

William Amo arrived in Europe as a gift to a duke and left it because of a play.

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1735 · Caribbeanyear only

A report counts six thousand Africans on St Vincent

Thirteen years earlier a British captain had seen five hundred, and the numbers are all rough.

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1735 · Africanyear only

An English surgeon recasts Agaja as an African abolitionist

John Atkins argued the conquest of the coast was meant to stop the trade, not to join it.

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1735 · Africanyear only

A governor at Cartagena says the English are landing Christian Kongolese

Only two states in central Africa were Christian, and one of them was not selling captives to English ships.

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1735 · Caribbeanyear only

Kees tells the court his confession was beaten out of him

Seven years later the same court sent a man back to the torture chamber for saying the same thing.

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1738 · Africanyear only

One in ten on the march from Caconda carried a leg injury

Umbundu speakers built the word for a young slave from the root they used for the healer.

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1 March 1738 · Caribbean

Jamaica buys Maroon freedom by making Maroons slave-catchers

Cudjoe's people win a limited liberty on condition that they hunt everyone else who runs.

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15 July 1738 · Pre-Revolutionary

The royal council lets the enslaved testify against everyone but their owner

A courtroom rule that opened a door and closed it in the same sentence.

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1739 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

A free couple of colour open a hospital and pay for it for forty years

Catherine and Jean Jasmin founded La Providence des hommes de couleur out of their own money.

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9 September 1739 · Diaspora

Rebels at Stono halt in a field to dance and drum for more recruits

About twenty men taken from Kongo seized an arms store in South Carolina and marched for Florida.

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1739 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

The French build the fort that will fire the first shot against them

Fort Picolet guarded the reef-lined entrance to Cap-Haitien from 1739 and was strengthened for six decades.

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1740 · Africanyear only

Tegbesu takes the Dahomian throne through a civil war

A report of the time says two sons fought for it. Later tradition made him the appointed heir.

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about 1740 · Pre-Revolutionaryapproximate

Europe starts having more children around 1740

Good harvests from 1715 to 1750 and younger brides put the population up again.

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1741 to 1743 · Diasporaspan

Salvador reports five thousand dead and then writes a poison law

The viceroy never called the deaths poisonings, and legislated on poison the same year.

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11 March 1741 · Caribbean

A madman predicts Charles Town will burn and the slaveholders listen anyway

Eliza Lucas Pinckney wrote that nobody believed the prophet and everybody was uneasy.

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1742 · Caribbeanyear only

Baron's confession under torture drags seven more people into court

Each name he gave produced a trial, and each trial produced further names.

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20 May 1743 · Haitian

Toussaint Louverture is born on the Bréda plantation

Enslaved until 1776. Free for fifteen years before he mattered to anyone in Paris.

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1743 to 1763 · Caribbeanspan

Coffee triples in ten years and Britain takes the island at the peace

Dominica's first single crop grew on hillsides that sugar planters had passed over.

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1 February 1743 · Caribbean

The king forbids enslaved people to make any remedy at all

The colonial council had asked for exactly this, and had already tried a man it could not convict.

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20 May 1743 · Pre-Revolutionary

A boy called Little Lath is born on the Breda estate near Cap Francais

Beard fixes Toussaint's birth by family report rather than by any register.

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c. 1743 · Pre-Revolutionaryapproximate

A coachman is born a league from Cap and loses his African name

Girard places the birth around 1743 on the Breda estate and says the African name is gone.

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1743 to 1791 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

Beard stakes his case on Toussaint having been a slave for fifty years

The biography insists on unmixed African descent and half a century in bondage.

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the 1740s · Pre-Revolutionarydecade

Taxing manumission makes people free in fact but not in law

Colonial administrators made freeing someone expensive, so masters stopped filing the papers.

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1745 · Caribbeanyear only

Suriname cuts out tongues because the executions had stopped working

The convicted were to be kept apart so that they should never form a community.

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23 January 1745 · Diaspora

Eve is burned at the stake in Orange County

Killing a master was treated as a species of treason, so the sentence was burning.

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early 1746 · Africanmonth known

Tegbesu has the merchants of Whydah killed and takes their trade

Two great officers replaced them, and were careful not to grow rich.

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1748 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

A priest at Petite Riviere writes down where a freedom paper came from

Angelique produced her act of liberty at the font and gave her daughter a paper trail.

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1746 to 1748 · Africanyear only

Dahomey buys peace from Oyo with a yearly tribute and reopens the roads

The kingdom that had blocked the interior trade now advertised for it.

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1748 · Diasporayear only

Virginia makes the practice of medicine by a slave a capital crime

Harm and intent mattered for the sentence and had nothing to do with the offence.

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26 January 1748 · Diaspora

A free Kongolese man in Florida tells a priest he still prays in Kikongo

Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose was a free black town outside St Augustine.

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1749 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Port-au-Prince is founded and its first buildings go up in stone

The choice held for exactly two years.

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October 1749 · Diasporamonth known

Neighbours in Salvador denounce Paulo Gomes and Ignacia

Witnesses called Ignacia the greater sorcerer of the two, a master of the calundu.

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5 November 1749 · Caribbean

Martinique orders an autopsy on every body thought to be poisoned

The ordinance was printed and nailed to church doors across the colony.

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1750 to 1775 · Africanspan

West Central Africa supplies more than half of Saint Domingue's arrivals

122,586 of 218,800, against 52,911 from the Bight of Benin and 8,991 from Senegambia.

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about 1750 · Pre-Revolutionaryapproximate

A forbidden dance called the water mother alarms the colonists

An anonymous French essay records what planters believed happened on the plantations at night.

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the eighteenth century · Pre-Revolutionary

A bad harvest made the big producer rich and the small one hungry

The old regime crisis worked through bread prices, and it took wages away at the same moment.

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about 1750 · Pre-Revolutionaryapproximate

Europe runs out of wood and turns to coal

Centuries of iron making and house heating had thinned the forests to a bottleneck.

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1750 to 1815 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

Parliament enclosed the fields and France did the same thing quietly

The English state made enclosure visible and massive, and it was happening on both sides.

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1750 to 1791 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

Planters begin dying of poison and the colonial police cannot find the cause

For forty years the owners of Saint-Domingue lived with a danger they could not locate.

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the 1750s and 1760s · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

Racial exclusion drives free people of colour into the coffee hills

Shut out by whites, the affranchis took unclaimed upland and grew coffee into a property bloc.

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1750 · Caribbeanyear only

Curaçao rebels of 1750 kill fifty-nine slaves and one white man

The island's second recorded revolt turned inward, and the punishment fell on almost everyone caught.

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1751 to 1842 · Haitianspan

Haitian cities have been rebuilt after earthquakes before

Port-au-Prince twice inside twenty years, then Cap-Haitien in the following century.

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1751 to 1780 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

Diderot prints thirty five volumes over thirty years

Twenty one volumes of text, twelve of plates and two of tables, sold across three decades.

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1751 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

An earthquake destroys Port-au-Prince two years after it is founded

The colony had built for permanence on ground that punishes it.

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19 April 1751 · Pre-Revolutionary

An official complains that baptism has become a paid amusement

The enslaved paid the fee willingly and came back for more.

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1751 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Enslaved workers cut a mountain stairway for a new capital

Port-au-Prince becomes the capital in 1751 and a road is carved across the ranges to reach it.

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1753 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

A colonial postmaster empties the till and crosses the border

Twelve hundred livres a year was not enough, so Constant took the agency's funds east.

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1755 · Caribbeanyear only

A branch of the purging nut is used to pick out the guilty

Those touched by it were expected to fall down shouting in convulsions.

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the middle of the 18th century · Pre-Revolutionaryapproximate

Masonic lodges open in the colony and free black men are admitted

Planters let the brotherhood exist and made sure its ideas went nowhere.

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1757 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

The first known poem in Creole is written by a colonist

Lisette quitte la plaine dates from 1757 and stands almost alone for a century afterwards.

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1757 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Medor tells the court at Cap Francais about powders for taming owners

He came forward on his own, and the investigation that followed became the Makandal affair.

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1757 to 1761 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

Makandal is convicted of poisoning and the colony bans his amulets

The decree of 1758 outlawed the protective objects that Haitians still wear and still call points.

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1757 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Makandal promises the extermination of the masters and supplies the means

A Muslim from Guinea who dealt in slow poisons and charms against bullets.

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1757 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Makandal was a Muslim and nobody believed he had died

Dantes Bellegarde, who disliked Vodou, admitted the belief helped organise the risings that followed.

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20 September 1758 · Haitian

Jean-Jacques Dessalines is born on the Duclos plantation

Foreman, then commander, then Emperor. The one who actually said the word independence.

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1758 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Makandal took his name from the Kongo word for an amulet

The packets came first and the famous poisoner was called after them.

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1758 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Makandal is condemned over a tied bundle holding a crucifix

The charge that carried the case was sacrilege.

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the late 1750s · Diasporadecade

Enslaved New Orleanians take the open ground behind the city

Every Sunday, on a Houma corn feast site, hundreds drummed in public for more than a century.

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1758 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Mackandal is executed and the night meetings go on

The most famous of the maroon chiefs held his people by prophecy as much as by arms.

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1758 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Makandal walks into a plantation dance he did not organise

The calenda was banned everywhere and the ban was unenforceable.

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1758 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Makandal leaps out of the fire in front of the church at Cap-Francais

He was caught again and executed, and the crowd went on telling the first version.

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1758 · Africanyear only

France burns Makandal in public to prove he is mortal

Six years of poisonings end with an execution staged in the square at Cap-Francais.

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January 1758 · Africanmonth known

Makandal breaks free of the stake and the crowd believes he escaped

The post gives way, the plaza panics, and soldiers throw him back on a board into the fire.

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1758 · Africanyear only

Makandal is executed in the square after a six-year poisoning campaign

Mocombe puts the toll of the rebellion at six thousand whites.

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1758 · Africanyear only

Makandal breaks free of the stake and the crowd decides he escaped

Seven years of poisonings ended at a pyre in Cap Francais that convinced onlookers he had flown away.

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1758 · Caribbeanyear only

Geggus counts 180 slave risings and finds 1795 the densest year

Across the Americas the decades from the 1770s to the 1840s produced the largest and most frequent revolts.

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1758 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Makandal was called a maroon leader only twenty years after death

In 1758 the whites who took him seriously saw a poisoning network, not a band in the hills.

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1759 to 1774 · Africanspan

For most of fifteen years the Kongo had exactly one priest in it

Cherubino da Savona crossed almost every province and claimed 700,000 baptisms.

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14 February 1760 · Indigenous

A garrison kills its Cherokee hostages at Fort Prince George

The governor took twenty-four men, was given twenty-three more, and kept them all.

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1760 · Caribbeanyear only

Jamaica's 1760 revolt runs on an Akan nation with an elected king

The closest Caribbean parallel to Haiti in scale ran on national organisation, not plantation hierarchy.

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c. 1761 or earlier · Pre-Revolutionaryapproximate

Toussaint marries a free black woman while he is still enslaved

Church and notarial records reveal a first wife, Cecile, unknown to generations of biographers.

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1762 to 1767 · Caribbeanspan

Berbice rises and tries to make itself a free black state

A five year revolt on the Guyana coast came closest to Saint-Domingue in ambition.

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1763 · Indigenousyear only

Britain takes St Vincent without asking the people on it

France surrendered a claim it had spent decades saying belonged to the islanders.

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1763 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

The peace of 1763 sets Britain up to outdistance France

London had wanted the lead for a century and needed another fifty two years to secure it.

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24 November 1763 · Pre-Revolutionary

The Conseil Superieur expels the Jesuits from the colony

Removing the priests removed the witnesses, and left forced Christianity as pure paperwork.

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1764 · Africanyear only

Dahomey and Asante meet in battle once, and women soldiers are remembered

An Asante tradition about fighting women has been attached to this one encounter.

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1764 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Eight hundred Germans are settled near Dondon and die there

French proprietors recruited them, and the survivors sent to the Mole died too.

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1765 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

A manual explains how to get the most work out of new arrivals

Its author said he wrote about faults because his readers were paying him for output.

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1766 to 1791 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

A colonial newspaper starts printing notices for missing people

For twenty five years Les Affiches Americaines carried the only running record of flight in the colony.

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1766 · Caribbeanyear only

Bettie buys time by offering to test her poisons with a doctor

The same court had already ruled that soothing an owner was evil and dangerous anyway.

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ReclamationJan unnamedCongo still not found Peek · 17 in Jan
ReclamationFeb RoyCongo, about 30 still not found Peek · 12 in Feb
ReclamationMar Jean-Pierrecréole, 21 to 22 still not found Peek · 10 in Mar
ReclamationApr la FortuneBambara, about 25 still not found Peek · 19 in Apr
ReclamationMay unnamedibo, about 25 still not found Peek · 20 in May
ReclamationJun Jean-Baptistecréole, about 25 still not found Peek · 10 in Jun
ReclamationJul Mariecréole, 40 still not found Peek · 21 in Jul
ReclamationAug unnamedCongo, 13 to 14 still not found Peek · 19 in Aug
ReclamationSep unnamed still not found Peek · 15 in Sep
ReclamationOct unnamed18 to 20, gone from Habitation du Morne-Rouge still not found Peek · 22 in Oct
ReclamationNov unnamedCongo still not found Peek · 17 in Nov
ReclamationDec unnamedEspagnol, about 28 still not found Peek · 14 in Dec
ReclamationJan unnamedCongo, 40 still not found Peek · 12 in Jan
ReclamationFeb JanvierCongo, about 23 still not found Peek · 20 in Feb
ReclamationMar unnamed26 to 28 still not found Peek · 14 in Mar
ReclamationApr Valerius still not found Peek · 25 in Apr
ReclamationMay unnamedabout 26 still not found Peek · 22 in May
ReclamationJun unnamedMesurade still not found Peek · 20 in Jun
ReclamationJul l'EspéranceCongo, about 30 still not found Peek · 30 in Jul
ReclamationAug MinetteNago, about 25 still not found Peek · 21 in Aug
ReclamationSep unnamedmulâtre still not found Peek · 18 in Sep
ReclamationOct Titusabout 20 still not found Peek · 16 in Oct
ReclamationNov unnamed still not found Peek · 10 in Nov
ReclamationDec unnamedCongo still not found Peek · 13 in Dec
1768 · Indigenousyear only

Chatoyer asks which king, and names Martinique instead

The first time he enters the record he refuses a sovereignty he had just been told he held.

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1768 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

A free black man is credited with founding the Petro rite in 1768

Moreau de Saint-Mery named a man called Don Pedro, in the years Kongo captives came to dominate the trade.

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ReclamationJan MagdeleineYobo, about 36 still not found Peek · 18 in Jan
ReclamationFeb unnamedCongo, 28 to 30 still not found Peek · 22 in Feb
ReclamationMar AppollonCongo, about 28 still not found Peek · 21 in Mar
ReclamationApr unnamedEspagnol still not found Peek · 7 in Apr
ReclamationMay unnamedCongo still not found Peek · 28 in May
ReclamationJun MalletetCongo still not found Peek · 25 in Jun
ReclamationJul GabrielCongo still not found Peek · 27 in Jul
ReclamationAug Noëlcréole, about 25 still not found Peek · 32 in Aug
ReclamationSep Barthelemicréole de la Martinique, about 30 still not found Peek · 27 in Sep
ReclamationOct Jean-Baptistecréole, about 30 still not found Peek · 30 in Oct
ReclamationNov Jean-Pierremulâtre, 16 to 17 still not found Peek · 20 in Nov
ReclamationDec EstherCongo still not found Peek · 19 in Dec
ReclamationJan unnamedNago still not found Peek · 5 in Jan
ReclamationFeb unnamedQuichi still not found Peek · 11 in Feb
ReclamationMar EléonoreEspagnol, about 24 still not found Peek · 25 in Mar
ReclamationApr unnamedCongo still not found Peek · 4 in Apr
ReclamationMay BaubéCongo still not found Peek · 25 in May
ReclamationJun AndravltNago, 22 to 25 still not found Peek · 24 in Jun
ReclamationJul CupidonMondongue, about 25 still not found Peek · 35 in Jul
ReclamationAug SophieIbo, about 13 to 14 still not found Peek · 23 in Aug
ReclamationSep unnamedCongo still not found Peek · 25 in Sep
ReclamationOct unnamedThiamba still not found Peek · 33 in Oct
ReclamationNov RencontreThiamba, about 25 still not found Peek · 28 in Nov
ReclamationDec MartonneCongo, about 35 still not found Peek · 22 in Dec
early 1770s or 1776 · Pre-Revolutionarydate disputed

Nobody can yet say who freed Toussaint or when

The 1977 finding that fixed his emancipation at 1776 rests on a marginal note that may describe someone else.

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the 1770s · Caribbeandecade

Freer trade under Brigadier Solano gives Santo Domingo its best decade

Charles III loosened the rules and the colony finally sold to somebody other than Spain.

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The 1770s · Pre-Revolutionarydecade

Six thousand free coloured planters take the southern coffee trade

Cheap upland ground nobody else wanted turned into the base of a political class.

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1770 to 1790 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

A plantation house survives because the insurgents used it

Every comparable building near Cap Francois was burned; this one became a headquarters.

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the 1770s · Datasetspan

Virginia reaches sixty five poison trials in a single decade

Only theft brought more enslaved people before the colony's courts in that century.

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the late eighteenth century · Pre-Revolutionarydecade

Europe builds machines to undersell Indian weavers

Cotton cloth in European markets came from India, and the new machines were aimed at it.

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1770 · Diasporayear only

Prince Hall is refused, and builds the lodge again himself

Born in Barbados, enslaved in Boston, freed in 1770 and turned away by white Freemasonry.

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1770 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Colonial officials forbid stone and brick after a second earthquake

A seismic code written eighty years before seismology, and it worked.

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ReclamationJan unnamedIbo still not found Peek · 23 in Jan
ReclamationFeb Mathurinmulâtre, about 27 still not found Peek · 22 in Feb
ReclamationMar AlexandreCongo, 23 to 24 still not found Peek · 19 in Mar
ReclamationApr La VioletteCaplaou still not found Peek · 28 in Apr
ReclamationMay unnamedCanga, 30 still not found Peek · 31 in May
ReclamationJun unnamedCongo, about 30 still not found Peek · 17 in Jun
ReclamationJul unnamedInconnue, gone from Habitation de M. Boullard still not found Peek · 18 in Jul
ReclamationAug AugusteNago, about 24 still not found Peek · 27 in Aug
ReclamationSep ChâtillonCongo, 30 still not found Peek · 25 in Sep
ReclamationOct unnamedcréole, about 26 still not found Peek · 34 in Oct
ReclamationNov Apolloncréole, 22 to 24 still not found Peek · 16 in Nov
ReclamationDec Jean-Pierremulâtre, gone from Habitation de Macnemara still not found Peek · 18 in Dec
2 April 1770 · Pre-Revolutionary

A white father refuses to acknowledge a son he thinks too dark2 sources

The future president takes his surname from a silversmith's wife who called him her little one.

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1771 · Diasporayear only

Sharper is arrested for going to see a doctor

No harm was alleged, and the purpose was recorded as unknown.

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ReclamationJan ManonCotocoly, about 27 still not found Peek · 24 in Jan
ReclamationFeb unnamedCongo, about 25 still not found Peek · 17 in Feb
ReclamationMar SimonCongo, about 25 still not found Peek · 23 in Mar
ReclamationApr unnamedcréole still not found Peek · 17 in Apr
ReclamationMay Charlescréole mulâtre, about 23 still not found Peek · 26 in May
ReclamationJun Antoine18 to 20 still not found Peek · 33 in Jun
ReclamationJul Grand-Jospehcréole still not found Peek · 26 in Jul
ReclamationAug LubinCongo, 13 still not found Peek · 22 in Aug
ReclamationSep unnamedCongo, 30 still not found Peek · 30 in Sep
ReclamationOct Sans-SouciCongo, 18, gone from Habitation Champigni still not found Peek · 30 in Oct
ReclamationNov CésarCongo, about 20 to 22, gone from Habitation de l'Heritier-Simon still not found Peek · 29 in Nov
ReclamationDec Mathieu20 to 22, gone from Habitation de M. Comte still not found Peek · 22 in Dec
1772 · Africanyear only

An English visitor counts 860 armed women parading at Abomey

Ninety under arms with drums, then six troops of seventy, then seven units of fifty.

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ReclamationJan Marie-jeanneEspagnole, 4 to 5 still not found Peek · 28 in Jan
ReclamationFeb NeptuneCongo still not found Peek · 22 in Feb
ReclamationMar Jaquescréole, 20 still not found Peek · 14 in Mar
ReclamationApr Jean-Baptistecréole, about 24 still not found Peek · 31 in Apr
ReclamationMay AdonisMondongue, about 18 still not found Peek · 31 in May
ReclamationJun Colascréole still not found Peek · 25 in Jun
ReclamationJul RoseCongo, about 23 still not found Peek · 39 in Jul
ReclamationAug Paris still not found Peek · 21 in Aug
ReclamationSep Marie-JeanneMine still not found Peek · 31 in Sep
ReclamationOct unnamedFond still not found Peek · 26 in Oct
ReclamationNov CésarCongo, about 25 still not found Peek · 22 in Nov
ReclamationDec PaqvotCongo, about 28, gone from Habitation de M. Faure still not found Peek · 26 in Dec
c. 1772 · Pre-Revolutionaryapproximate

Geggus moves Toussaint's manumission back to the early 1770s

The archive says his owner was not the count but the count's attorney.

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1772 to 1773 · Indigenousspan

A peace treaty takes two thousand acres from the Caribs

Surveyors on the windward coast started the fighting, and the surveyors won.

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ReclamationJan CupidonArada, 20 still not found Peek · 32 in Jan
ReclamationFeb unnamedCongo, 20 still not found Peek · 26 in Feb
ReclamationMar ThéreseSénégaloise, about 20 still not found Peek · 35 in Mar
ReclamationApr Jacquetcréole, 40 still not found Peek · 21 in Apr
ReclamationMay Bvgletmulâtre, about 15 still not found Peek · 36 in May
ReclamationJun Valerecréole, about 36 still not found Peek · 36 in Jun
ReclamationJul unnamedcréole, gone from Habitation Magnemara still not found Peek · 26 in Jul
ReclamationAug MargariteauCotocoli still not found Peek · 37 in Aug
ReclamationSep HeliotCaplaou, 38 still not found Peek · 29 in Sep
ReclamationOct MercureCongo, about 35 still not found Peek · 27 in Oct
ReclamationNov Jean-Pierreabout 24 still not found Peek · 27 in Nov
ReclamationDec CupidonMondongue still not found Peek · 15 in Dec
1773 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

A new manager blames a cattle plague on the slaves of Haut-du-Cap

Delribal replaces Bayon de Libertat, harasses the Haut-du-Cap workforce, and marronage spikes.

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1773 · Africanyear only

Migrants who left Soyo years earlier are found keeping the faith across the Zaire

French priests walked into Manguenzo and saw the great cross standing in the middle.

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1774 · Diasporayear only

The Inquisition decides African sorcery is mere ignorance

Denunciations collapsed, and the last report in the notebooks appears in 1778.

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ReclamationJan la FortuneCaplaous, about 37, gone a few days still not found Peek · 22 in Jan
ReclamationFeb Jean-PierreCongo, gone about three days still not found Peek · 33 in Feb
ReclamationMar unnamedJombary, gone from Jérémie three weeks still not found Peek · 38 in Mar
ReclamationApr Genevievecréole, 20 still not found Peek · 31 in Apr
ReclamationMay MELONNIERE20 to 22, gone from Port-au-Prince about a week still not found Peek · 28 in May
ReclamationJun Antoine, Félicitécréole, about 15, gone from Montagne-Noire still not found Peek · 40 in Jun
ReclamationJul LouisMina, about 30, gone from Habitation de M. l'Abbé Leclerc about two months still not found Peek · 46 in Jul
ReclamationAug La JoieMine, about 30, gone from Arcahaye about two months still not found Peek · 34 in Aug
ReclamationSep Jeancréole, 18, gone from Jean-Rabel about two and a half weeks still not found Peek · 27 in Sep
ReclamationOct BaptisteCaplaou, 25 to 26, gone from Cap about three months still not found Peek · 31 in Oct
ReclamationNov unnamedArada, about 19 to 20, gone about a month still not found Peek · 35 in Nov
ReclamationDec COLOMBIERCongo, gone from Môle about two months still not found Peek · 24 in Dec
30 April 1774 · Pre-Revolutionary

A letter records the deaths that orphaned Toussaint at thirty

Pauline and Hippolyte died of chest disease, leaving five Creole children, decades before Toussaint said so.

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1774 · Caribbeanyear only

Seventy-two people try to row off Curaçao and five reach Venezuela

The third revolt was an escape by sea; its failure sold the survivors to Saint-Domingue.

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1775 to 1791 · Africanspan

In its last sixteen years the colony lands 301,320 people from Africa

Nearly half of them, 143,181, came from West Central Africa and Saint Helena.

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1775 · Caribbeanyear only

Quacoe drinks the water that washed a corpse to prove his innocence

The whole plantation went to the overseer together and asked that he be put in irons.

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ReclamationJan unnamedIbo, about 25 still not found Peek · 24 in Jan
ReclamationFeb CharonCongo, 22 still not found Peek · 20 in Feb
ReclamationMar la Fleur still not found Peek · 23 in Mar
ReclamationApr unnamedCongo, 30 still not found Peek · 30 in Apr
ReclamationMay unnamedCongo, 16 to 17 still not found Peek · 31 in May
ReclamationJun PolitèsCongo, 29 to 30 still not found Peek · 28 in Jun
ReclamationJul AugustinCongo still not found Peek · 51 in Jul
ReclamationAug unnamedIbo, about 26 still not found Peek · 29 in Aug
ReclamationSep unnamedNago, about 30 still not found Peek · 35 in Sep
ReclamationOct AlbertArada, about 24 still not found Peek · 32 in Oct
ReclamationNov JosephCongo still not found Peek · 33 in Nov
ReclamationDec Pierrecréole still not found Peek · 22 in Dec
1775 to 1791 · Caribbeanspan

Guadeloupe takes 287 West Central Africans while Saint Domingue takes 143,181

The one French colony that revolted was the one whose African demography had swung hardest.

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15 February 1776 · Haitian

Jean-Pierre Boyer is born

The man who reunified the island and then mortgaged it.

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1776 to 1777 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

Priests in the French islands are told to excommunicate runaways

Public penance for the repentant, exclusion from communion for the rest.

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ReclamationJan la RochelleCongo, 14 still not found Peek · 38 in Jan
ReclamationFeb unnamedCongo still not found Peek · 22 in Feb
ReclamationMar HectorCongo still not found Peek · 40 in Mar
ReclamationApr Hectorcréole de Curaçao still not found Peek · 32 in Apr
ReclamationMay JacquesCongo still not found Peek · 31 in May
ReclamationJun Paulineabout 18 still not found Peek · 31 in Jun
ReclamationJul Jupiterabout 25 still not found Peek · 36 in Jul
ReclamationAug unnamed still not found Peek · 27 in Aug
ReclamationSep unnamed still not found Peek · 33 in Sep
ReclamationOct unnamedcréole, 10 still not found Peek · 19 in Oct
ReclamationNov Georgescréole, 22 still not found Peek · 18 in Nov
ReclamationDec MichelMondongue, about 29 still not found Peek · 15 in Dec
28 February 1776 · Haitian

Boyer is born in Port-au-Prince in the year 1776

Baur opens on the coincidence of the birth year and follows the man through French exile and American capture.

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c. 1776 · Pre-Revolutionaryapproximate

Bell's Toussaint is already free, and already an owner of a slave

The leader of the newly free had been legally free himself for fifteen years.

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1776 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

The freedman buys a man named Jean-Baptiste and then frees him

Toussaint's first act as a free man on record is a purchase, followed by an expensive manumission.

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1776 · Haitianyear only

Freed by his master, Toussaint rents land and thirteen slaves

Fifteen years before the revolt he was a planter, a fact he preferred not to mention afterwards.

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1777 to 1791 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

Plantation lists make Congos the largest group in every region of the colony

Seventy five inventories covering about fifteen thousand people, and one origin on top in all three regions.

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1777 · Diasporayear only

A royal decree closes France to black and mixed race people

Paris had told enslaved Africans they could claim freedom on French soil, then shut the door.

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1777 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

The regulation of 1777 turns pity into a reason to keep slavery

If the slave deserves his condition, brutality is improper and bondage is a school.

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ReclamationJan Marsabout 22 still not found Peek · 33 in Jan
ReclamationFeb ManuelCongo, about 25 still not found Peek · 21 in Feb
ReclamationMar Jean-Louis36 still not found Peek · 24 in Mar
ReclamationApr Contrôleabout 14 to 15 still not found Peek · 29 in Apr
ReclamationMay Jean-François still not found Peek · 21 in May
ReclamationJun unnamedCongo, about 24 still not found Peek · 24 in Jun
ReclamationJul unnamedAyo still not found Peek · 47 in Jul
ReclamationAug Jean-Louiscréole, about 30 still not found Peek · 34 in Aug
ReclamationSep unnamedBambara still not found Peek · 38 in Sep
ReclamationOct Jean-PierreCongo, about 36 still not found Peek · 26 in Oct
ReclamationNov CatherineCongo, about 45 still not found Peek · 17 in Nov
ReclamationDec LespéranceMondongue still not found Peek · 15 in Dec
1778 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

A report to the French naval minister names Kongo captives the most numerous

It also records exactly which qualities French buyers thought they were purchasing.

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ReclamationJan FrancisqueAguia, about 50 still not found Peek · 23 in Jan
ReclamationFeb LadouceurMondongue still not found Peek · 25 in Feb
ReclamationMar JulienCongo, about 20 still not found Peek · 28 in Mar
ReclamationApr ApollonCongo, 16 to 18, gone from Habitation Bonnaud still not found Peek · 28 in Apr
ReclamationMay Saint-JeanNago, 17 to 18 still not found Peek · 27 in May
ReclamationJun PrinceCongo still not found Peek · 24 in Jun
ReclamationJul JeannetteArada, about 3 still not found Peek · 17 in Jul
ReclamationAug Marianecréole, about 37 still not found Peek · 29 in Aug
ReclamationSep unnamedCongo still not found Peek · 39 in Sep
ReclamationOct CorasminSénégalois, 18 to 19 still not found Peek · 29 in Oct
ReclamationNov Jean-Baptiste still not found Peek · 32 in Nov
ReclamationDec Françoismulâtre, 22 still not found Peek · 36 in Dec
1778 to 1782 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

Toussaint buys and sells land at Haut-du-Cap under a notary's seal

A man with no manumission paper used contracts to manufacture the proof that he was free.

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1779 · Africanyear only

A king marches on Agouna at the head of eight hundred armed women

Oyo demanded a hundred women as tribute and Kpengla went looking for them elsewhere.

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ReclamationJan unnamedCongo, 20 still not found Peek · 31 in Jan
ReclamationFeb Marie-Jeannecréole, 55 to 60 still not found Peek · 20 in Feb
ReclamationMar Joseph & Duguécréole, about 25, gone from Habitation Leroy still not found Peek · 25 in Mar
ReclamationApr Zabethcréole, 20 still not found Peek · 32 in Apr
ReclamationMay unnamedcréole, 25, gone from Habitation de M. Robert still not found Peek · 11 in May
ReclamationJun Bibiane, dite AngéliqueCongo still not found Peek · 23 in Jun
ReclamationJul Pierremulâtre still not found Peek · 16 in Jul
ReclamationAug Jeancréole still not found Peek · 32 in Aug
ReclamationSep LouisCongo, 24 to 25 still not found Peek · 20 in Sep
ReclamationOct EstherMisérable still not found Peek · 19 in Oct
ReclamationNov Charlescréole du Port-au-Prince, about 20 still not found Peek · 11 in Nov
ReclamationDec unnamedcréole, 20 still not found Peek · 18 in Dec
1779 to 1781 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

Toussaint leases land and slaves at Grande-Riviere from his son-in-law

A free black tenant farmer, twelve years before the revolution he would lead.

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October 1779 · Pre-Revolutionarymonth known

Free men of colour of Saint-Domingue fight at Savannah

The Chasseurs Volontaires produced a cadre that would command the Haitian Revolution a decade later.

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October 1779 · Pre-Revolutionarymonth known

A young bricklayer at the Cap enlists for the American war

Christophe joins some 800 men of colour recruited by d'Estaing for the Savannah campaign.

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1780 to 1788 · Africanspan

A missionary in Kongo tries to stop the trade filling Saint-Domingue

Rafael de Castello de Vide watched the exports and pressed the king to ban selling captives abroad.

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1780 to 1782 · Indigenousspan

The Tupac Amaru rising is covered in the Saint-Domingue press

An insurgent army in the Caribbean briefly called itself the Army of the Inca.

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the 1780s · Pre-Revolutionarydecade

West Central Africans were six in ten of the Africans in the North

Aja-Fon speakers, credited with founding the religion, were one in eight there.

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ReclamationJan NicolasNago still not found Peek · 26 in Jan
ReclamationFeb Marie-Noëllecréole, about 28 still not found Peek · 23 in Feb
ReclamationMar Cesarcréole de la Jamaïque still not found Peek · 26 in Mar
ReclamationApr MercureCongo, 55 still not found Peek · 21 in Apr
ReclamationMay unnamed18 to 20 still not found Peek · 19 in May
ReclamationJun unnamedCongo still not found Peek · 37 in Jun
ReclamationJul Bernardabout 26, gone from Habitation Dureau still not found Peek · 23 in Jul
ReclamationAug CésarCongo, about 40 still not found Peek · 35 in Aug
ReclamationSep Mariecréole, 40 to 41 still not found Peek · 30 in Sep
ReclamationOct Etiennecréole du Cap, 25 still not found Peek · 38 in Oct
ReclamationNov Codicréole, 32, gone from Habitation de M. Maurisseau still not found Peek · 19 in Nov
ReclamationDec Adamcréole de la Jamaïque, about 22 still not found Peek · 23 in Dec
1781 · Caribbeanyear only

Fontana runs six thousand experiments and tastes the venom himself

Ancient authority falls from a third of the citations to one twentieth in eighty years.

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1781 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

France demands four generations of nobility for an army commission

The loi Segur told rich commoners that money would not buy their sons a career.

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ReclamationJan ScapinCongo still not found Peek · 28 in Jan
ReclamationFeb Zéphyrmulâtre, 15 to 16 still not found Peek · 29 in Feb
ReclamationMar César15 to 16 still not found Peek · 21 in Mar
ReclamationApr unnamedMandingue still not found Peek · 18 in Apr
ReclamationMay Mariecréole, about 20 still not found Peek · 42 in May
ReclamationJun Charlescréole still not found Peek · 21 in Jun
ReclamationJul Jean-Pierre still not found Peek · 36 in Jul
ReclamationAug Jean-Baptiste Bironmulâtre, about 17 to 18 still not found Peek · 24 in Aug
ReclamationSep Pierrecréole, 25 to 26, gone from Habitation Choiseul still not found Peek · 30 in Sep
ReclamationOct Jean-Pierremulâtre still not found Peek · 30 in Oct
ReclamationNov Jacquesabout 40 still not found Peek · 25 in Nov
13 February 1781 · Pre-Revolutionary

A girl of fourteen breaks the colour bar at the Port-au-Prince theatre

Minette took the title role in an opera and the colonial audience applauded anyway.

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ReclamationDec CoriolisAnglois still not found Peek · 26 in Dec
1781 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

A house is built for Madame Toussaint on masonry with a tiled roof

Imported tile and hardwood put the family in the bracket of aristocratic mulattoes and wealthy planters.

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15 August 1782 · Haitian

Faustin Soulouque is born into slavery at Petit-Goâve

Installed as a figurehead in 1847. Crowned himself Emperor. The template repeats in 1957.

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ReclamationJan DominiqueCongo still not found Peek · 25 in Jan
ReclamationFeb JeudiCongo still not found Peek · 28 in Feb
ReclamationMar unnamedIbo, 60 still not found Peek · 43 in Mar
ReclamationApr JacquesThiamba, 48 to 50 still not found Peek · 31 in Apr
ReclamationMay Alycréole still not found Peek · 32 in May
ReclamationJun Josephcréole still not found Peek · 55 in Jun
ReclamationJul TourterelleMadingue, 33 to 34 still not found Peek · 55 in Jul
ReclamationAug unnamedabout 25 still not found Peek · 42 in Aug
ReclamationSep Andréabout 28 still not found Peek · 25 in Sep
ReclamationOct Laurent still not found Peek · 41 in Oct
ReclamationNov Bertrandcréole, 45 still not found Peek · 47 in Nov
ReclamationDec Jeanne25 to 30 still not found Peek · 21 in Dec
1783 · Datasetyear only

Nine ships leave Le Havre and land 3,264 people in Saint-Domingue

The ledgers record what each vessel bought on the Loango coast and what it delivered.

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1783 to 1792 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

The Nantes ledgers set the break even price of a person near a thousand livres

Below that band a voyage made money, above it the voyage lost, and the margin was thin.

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ReclamationJan Joseph25 still not found Peek · 39 in Jan
ReclamationFeb Claudecréole, 45 still not found Peek · 37 in Feb
ReclamationMar Michautcréole still not found Peek · 46 in Mar
ReclamationApr Juliencréole, 17 to 18 still not found Peek · 46 in Apr
ReclamationMay Josephcréole, 20 still not found Peek · 65 in May
ReclamationJun Jean-Baptistecréole, about 20 still not found Peek · 48 in Jun
ReclamationJul Jean-Baptiste SévereCongo, about 20 still not found Peek · 48 in Jul
ReclamationAug FrancisqueCanga, about 40 still not found Peek · 55 in Aug
ReclamationSep unnamedMandingue, about 50 still not found Peek · 39 in Sep
ReclamationOct Domagecréole, about 9 still not found Peek · 60 in Oct
ReclamationNov JacobIbo, about 50 still not found Peek · 33 in Nov
ReclamationDec JeanMandingue still not found Peek · 64 in Dec
1784 · Caribbeanyear only

A Dominican slave code counts nineteen sugar mills and 760 workers

The men writing the rules for slavery described an economy with almost no slavery in it.

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1784 to 1792 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

Half the profit of an average Nantes slaving voyage came from the treasury

A bounty of 14,000 livres a ship stood against an average net gain of 25,000.

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ReclamationJan MarieIbo still not found Peek · 32 in Jan
ReclamationFeb ModesteMesurade, about 12 to 13 still not found Peek · 33 in Feb
ReclamationMar Jean-Baptistecréole, about 26 to 28 still not found Peek · 49 in Mar
ReclamationApr Saint-JeanCongo, 23 still not found Peek · 41 in Apr
ReclamationMay MignoneCongo, 27 still not found Peek · 40 in May
ReclamationJun unnamedAdia, 45 to 50 still not found Peek · 45 in Jun
ReclamationJul unnamedCongo, 20 still not found Peek · 41 in Jul
ReclamationAug LouisCongo still not found Peek · 46 in Aug
ReclamationSep CaignetMandingue, 20 still not found Peek · 48 in Sep
ReclamationOct François ThapaThapa still not found Peek · 49 in Oct
ReclamationNov Barochincréole still not found Peek · 44 in Nov
ReclamationDec unnamedCongo, about 18 still not found Peek · 28 in Dec
1784 to 1785 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

At Haut-du-Cap deaths ran at three times the birth rate

A workforce that had to be bought back into existence six or seven people a year.

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1784 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Dessalines was probably owned by Toussaint's own son-in-law

On Desir's death his slaves passed to his widow, Toussaint's daughter, and her second husband.

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July 1784 · Pre-Revolutionarymonth known

Romaine Riviere buys thirty two acres at Trou Coffy

Seven years before the insurgency, the prophetess was a coffee farmer with a notary.

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26 April 1785 · Diaspora

John James Audubon is born at Les Cayes

America's most famous bird painter was a Haitian-born child of a planter and a servant.

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the 1780s · Pre-Revolutionarydecade

A colony smaller than Massachusetts outsells the entire United States

At its peak it led the world in sugar, coffee and indigo and bought the most slaves in the Atlantic.

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1785 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Two thirds of the enslaved in 1785 had landed from Africa recently

Gerard Barthelemy built an entire reading of Haiti on the split between bossales and creoles.

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1785 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

A slave ship finishes the whole triangle and sinks in sight of home

The Rose went down in the Loire just outside Nantes after six thousand miles.

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1785 · Diasporayear only

Police raid a Jeje gathering at Cachoeira and find a shrine

Calabashes, buried objects and an arrangement of leaves, which mattered in the Bight of Benin.

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The late eighteenth century · Diasporaapproximate

Ottobah Cugoano puts sovereignty in people rather than the state

Kidnapped, sold, worked in the Caribbean and taken to London, he wrote the argument down.

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ReclamationJan Catherine30 to 32 still not found Peek · 40 in Jan
ReclamationFeb Moussa dit SimonBambara, about 47 still not found Peek · 54 in Feb
ReclamationMar LouisCongo still not found Peek · 44 in Mar
ReclamationApr BongarsArada, 31 to 32 still not found Peek · 49 in Apr
ReclamationMay François28 to 30 still not found Peek · 42 in May
ReclamationJun Claude30 still not found Peek · 53 in Jun
ReclamationJul Rosalie30 still not found Peek · 68 in Jul
ReclamationAug unnamedCongo, about 25 still not found Peek · 49 in Aug
ReclamationSep Azor22 still not found Peek · 44 in Sep
ReclamationOct Duclosmulâtre still not found Peek · 57 in Oct
ReclamationNov LysCongo still not found Peek · 50 in Nov
ReclamationDec Robi35 still not found Peek · 49 in Dec
April 1785 · Pre-Revolutionarymonth known

Two 1785 slave lists record the people Toussaint grew up among

154 at Haut-du-Cap, 210 at Plaine-du-Nord, and the voice of Africa still strong.

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1785 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

A Jewish merchant sells food to the plantation where Toussaint lived

A 1785 estate account puts the Sasportas family in commercial contact with Breda.

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1785 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Debien finds Toussaint missing from the Breda slave list

The single archival fact that dismantled the picture of a coachman in bondage until 1791.

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1785 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

The longest-lived maroon band numbered 133, not several thousand

The Maniel left their stronghold under a treaty that obliged them to return runaways.

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August 1785 · Pre-Revolutionarymonth known

Romaine Riviere buys his own family and then marries their mother

Six thousand livres to a planter named Guindet, and four enslaved people became free.

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November 1785 · Pre-Revolutionarymonth known

A burial record shows Toussaint outlived a son who carried his name

The certificate names a free black of twenty four, son of Toussaint and Cecile.

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1786 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Two hundred people gather at night in Marmelade and buy protection

A man sold chalk stones, seeds and drilled sticks to people who wanted to survive their owners.

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ReclamationJan Zairemulâtre, 45 still not found Peek · 42 in Jan
ReclamationFeb Louiscréole, 30 still not found Peek · 61 in Feb
ReclamationMar unnamedCongo, about 30 still not found Peek · 46 in Mar
ReclamationApr JacobAnglais still not found Peek · 40 in Apr
ReclamationMay Jean-BaptisteCongo, about 20 still not found Peek · 37 in May
ReclamationJun Pierrecréole, 45 still not found Peek · 38 in Jun
ReclamationJul Deniscréole, 19 to 20 still not found Peek · 42 in Jul
ReclamationAug unnamedNago, about 25 still not found Peek · 28 in Aug
ReclamationSep NetAnglais, 22 still not found Peek · 33 in Sep
ReclamationOct BienneCongo, about 20 to 22 still not found Peek · 42 in Oct
ReclamationNov Tranquilleabout 30 to 32 still not found Peek · 41 in Nov
ReclamationDec unnamed still not found Peek · 49 in Dec
1786 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

The count everyone calls Toussaint's owner never owned him

Louis-Pantaleon de Noe inherited a quarter of Haut-du-Cap years after Toussaint was already free.

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September 1786 · Pre-Revolutionarymonth known

A new governor reports that marronage has almost never been lower

Systematic searches found few runaways anywhere and no permanent bands at all.

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1720s to 1789 · Pre-Revolutionaryspan

Four thousand imported a year in the 1720s becomes forty thousand by 1787

On the eve of the French Revolution the colony held about four hundred and fifty thousand enslaved people.

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ReclamationJan VincentIbo still not found Peek · 30 in Jan
ReclamationFeb Jean-BaptisteCongo, 30 still not found Peek · 42 in Feb
ReclamationMar Françoisecréole, 45 to 50 still not found Peek · 77 in Mar
ReclamationApr Asfrelly still not found Peek · 36 in Apr
ReclamationMay Mathurincréole, 26 to 27 still not found Peek · 61 in May
ReclamationJun unnamedCongo still not found Peek · 60 in Jun
ReclamationJul unnamedEspagnol, about 30 still not found Peek · 52 in Jul
ReclamationAug ThomasCongo, about 27 still not found Peek · 64 in Aug
ReclamationSep Chaviteaucréole, about 28 still not found Peek · 50 in Sep
ReclamationOct MarinCongo still not found Peek · 35 in Oct
ReclamationNov Esturcréole still not found Peek · 64 in Nov
ReclamationDec Cupidon23 still not found Peek · 40 in Dec
1787 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Moving the high court to Port-au-Prince sets north against west

Beard traces the planters' fatal quarrel to a jurisdictional transfer.

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4 October 1787 · Pre-Revolutionary

Toussaint's daughter marries a veteran of Savannah

Janvier Dessalines had served in the free coloured legion sent to Georgia in 1779.

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1788 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

The unjust French tax turns out to be fifteen per cent of receipts

The taille carried the reputation for inequality and carried very little of the revenue.

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ReclamationJan CristopheBambara, about 24 still not found Peek · 32 in Jan
ReclamationFeb unnamedCongo, about 20 still not found Peek · 31 in Feb
ReclamationMar Benedyabout 25 still not found Peek · 54 in Mar
ReclamationApr Pompée38 still not found Peek · 44 in Apr
ReclamationMay unnamed still not found Peek · 44 in May
ReclamationJun Laurent, dit Penigaudcréole, 22 still not found Peek · 36 in Jun
ReclamationJul unnamedCongo, about 20 still not found Peek · 67 in Jul
ReclamationAug Françoisabout 28 still not found Peek · 67 in Aug
ReclamationSep DimancheCongo, about 21 still not found Peek · 50 in Sep
ReclamationOct Jean-PierreCongo, about 30 still not found Peek · 56 in Oct
ReclamationNov Christian en cette ville27 to 28 still not found Peek · 55 in Nov
ReclamationDec OrléansCongo, 30 still not found Peek · 73 in Dec
1788 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Nearly thirty thousand Africans landed in a single year

Healy uses the import figures to show the system destroying five thousand people a year.

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1788 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

A court calls Bunel sieur, and the title is the evidence of his race

Girard rebuilds a man's colour out of honorifics, professions and naming law.

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1788 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

A planter burns two women's legs off and wins his case

Lejeune admitted the facts and argued that public order required planters be left alone.

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1789 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

The colony counts its planters by crop and by size

Eight hundred rich estates sat above nearly six thousand growers of coffee, cotton and indigo.

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1789 to 1810 · Diasporaspan

Six months to freedom, then seven years of indenture

Pennsylvania law released the refugees' slaves and the same law let owners keep their labour.

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1789 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Saint-Domingue carries a third of French foreign trade

Seventy thousand tonnes of sugar and four hundred thousand people held to make it.

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1789 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Free people of colour hold a third of the land and a quarter of the slaves

Property and standing climbing while the legal humiliations against them multiplied.

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around 1789 · Pre-Revolutionaryapproximate

Moreau de Saint Mery writes down the word vaudou

Red kerchiefs, a snake in a barred box, and an oath whose war cry reached Christophe's court.

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1789 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Saint-Domingue holds 793 sugar plantations and ten slaves to every white

Five hundred ships a year carried the colony's produce into French ports.

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ReclamationJan LaurentCongo, 21 still not found Peek · 56 in Jan
ReclamationFeb GtrNago, 13 still not found Peek · 56 in Feb
ReclamationMar Philippe28 still not found Peek · 91 in Mar
ReclamationApr Marie-Josephcréole still not found Peek · 52 in Apr
ReclamationMay unnamedFond, about 30 still not found Peek · 67 in May
ReclamationJun unnamedCongo, 40 still not found Peek · 70 in Jun
ReclamationJul FrançoisCongo still not found Peek · 83 in Jul
ReclamationAug Thomascréole still not found Peek · 101 in Aug
ReclamationSep unnamed still not found Peek · 95 in Sep
ReclamationOct RaimondCongo still not found Peek · 72 in Oct
ReclamationNov unnamed still not found Peek · 91 in Nov
ReclamationDec unnamedabout 19 still not found Peek · 69 in Dec
1789 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

A colony of 523,803 people, of whom 465,429 are owned

Gaffield uses an 1826 study's own racial tables to show the demographic ground of the constitutions.

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1789 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

One colony out-produces every French and English possession combined

455,000 enslaved people, 793 sugar estates, and 140 million pounds of sugar in a single year.

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1789 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Twenty-seven thousand free of African descent, 450,000 enslaved

King opens by insisting the colony's Black population was never one undifferentiated mass.

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1789 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Two free men of colour ask Paris for equality; one dies on the wheel2 sources

Oge and Raimond petitioned the National Assembly, were outmanoeuvred, and Oge died broken on the wheel.

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1789 · Caribbeanyear only

Curaçao counts 12,864 slaves among 20,988 people in 1789

A commercial island with no export plantations still ran on a slave majority.

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1789 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

A maroon hunter disperses every band in three months

Public opinion credited Milscent de Musset with fighting thousands; he killed or captured seventy.

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July 1789 · Pre-Revolutionarymonth known

Saint-Domingue planters talk their way into the National Assembly

The first colony ever seated in a European legislature got there through secret, illegal elections.

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ReclamationJan Nérestan28 still not found Peek · 44 in Jan
ReclamationFeb unnamedArada still not found Peek · 38 in Feb
ReclamationMar NoëlCongo, about 30 still not found Peek · 57 in Mar
ReclamationApr Susanne, dite Gantiercréole, about 25 still not found Peek · 65 in Apr
ReclamationMay Jean-BaptisteEspagnole still not found Peek · 92 in May
ReclamationJun unnamedBambara still not found Peek · 57 in Jun
ReclamationJul ColasTiamba still not found Peek · 86 in Jul
ReclamationAug unnamedCongo, about 30 still not found Peek · 56 in Aug
ReclamationSep FigaroIbo, 28 to 30 still not found Peek · 66 in Sep
ReclamationOct Françoisabout 36 still not found Peek · 78 in Oct
ReclamationNov unnamedCongo, 20 to 21 still not found Peek · 82 in Nov
ReclamationDec unnamed still not found Peek · 77 in Dec
8 March 1790 · Pre-Revolutionary

Paris opens the colonial assemblies and the planters refuse

A decree meant to settle the colour question instead armed both sides of it.

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April 1790 · Pre-Revolutionarymonth known

White planters at Saint-Marc declare their own assembly sovereign

Colonists seized the paralysis of royal authority to write a constitution that ignored France.

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April 1790 · Pre-Revolutionarymonth known

The Saint-Marc assembly declares itself sovereign in buccaneer dress

White planters write a constitution that ignores the National Assembly and dress up as their ancestors.

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28 May 1790 · Pre-Revolutionary

Planters at Saint-Marc vote to govern the colony from the colony

The Bases constitutionnelles try to take governance away from Paris appointees.

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1790 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

Seven groups, seven agendas, one year before the rising

Mocombe counts the factions and says the maroons distrusted every one of them.

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1790 · Pre-Revolutionaryyear only

The worst drought in memory hits Breda a year before the revolt

Withered crops replanted in baked earth, food short, disease rife, many dead.

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1790 · Africanyear only

In one year the colony imports forty-eight thousand people

From nine thousand slaves in 1700 the population reached half a million because so many died.

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October 1790 · Pre-Revolutionarymonth known

Oge's revolt and savage execution shame Paris into a half measure

The torture of a free coloured merchant produced rights for a small minority that colonists then refused.

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October 1790 · Pre-Revolutionarymonth known

Oge refuses to recruit slaves and is defeated within days2 sources

Three hundred armed free men gather in the northern mountains and are quickly dispersed.

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17 October 1790 · Pre-Revolutionary

Vincent Oge lands under a false name to force a decree into effect

A butcher's son returns from Paris with a purchased title and two hundred men.

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November 1790 · Caribbeanmonth known

Oge's rising fails and his followers cross into Spanish territory

A wealthy planter of colour demands rights, loses, and carries the argument over the border.

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