A powerful and impassioned historical account of the largest successful revolt by enslaved people in history: the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1803 “One of the seminal texts about the history of slavery and abolition.... Provocative and empowering.” —The New York Times Book Review The Black Jacobins, by Trinidadian historian C. L. R. James, was the first major analysis of the uprising that began in the wake of the storming of the Bastille in France and became the model for liberation movements from Africa to Cuba. It is the story of the French colony of San Domingo, a place where the brutality of plantation owners toward enslaved people was horrifyingly severe. And it is the story of a charismatic and barely literate enslaved person named Toussaint L’Ouverture, who successfully led the Black people of San Domingo against successive invasions by overwhelming French, Spanish, and English forces—and in the process helped form the first independent post-colonial nation in the Caribbean. With a new introduction (2023) by Professor David Scott.

A new analysis of the origins of the Haitian Revolution, revealing the consciousness, solidarity, and resistance that helped it succeed.

"Conventional history narratives tell us that in the early years of the Republic, the United States fought three wars against the Seminole Indians and two against the Creeks. However, William Belko and the contributors to America's Hundred Years' War argue that we would do better to view these events as moments of heightened military aggression punctuating a much longer period of conflict in the Gulf Coast region. Featuring essays on topics ranging from international diplomacy to Seminole military strategy, the volume urges us to reconsider the reasons for and impact of early U.S. territorial expansion. It highlights the actions and motivations of Indians and African Americans during the period and establishes the groundwork for research that is more balanced and looks beyond the hopes and dreams of whites." --

Marcus Rainsford was a soldier who served for many years with the British Army in the British West Indies. He visited Haiti in 1799, where he became an admirer of Toussaint L'Ouverture, the former slave who led Haiti's revolution and struggle to end slavery. This book is Rainsford's account of the slave uprising that began in August 1791 and the subsequent fighting that, at different times, involved French, Spanish, and British troops and various factions in Haiti. The book includes the first known representations of Toussaint, which were engravings made from Rainsford's sketches and descriptions. Also included are extensive documentation of the revolution and Rainsford's disturbing accounts of the brutal treatment of the slave population by their French masters, as well as of the atrocities committed by all sides in the course of the struggle. Toussaint died in Paris in April 1803, after having been seized by French forces acting under orders from Napoleon Bonaparte, who in 1802 sent an army to Haiti in attempt to reassert French control. Rainsford's wholly admiring account of Toussaint appears in chapter 5 of the work.