... Firstly the immediate successes of the Haitian slave revolt have to be explained, in order to see why it was more successful than all others before it. This can be attributed to a number of factors including the horrendous situation existing before the revolt, the leadership of the rebellion, and the problems facing the invading armies. Life for the black slaves before the revolt took place was quite appalling, perhaps only as bad as other colonies but still dreadful enough to make the slaves rebel. Slaves at that time had few rights and those reforms that were carried out in Paris, were commonly ignored by the slave masters in Haiti. Furthermore slave owners offered "no hope of emancipation4", due to the large profits the island was bringing via the large slave labour plantation system. Similarly there were many at the top in France who believed that France's colonies "existed only ...

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