During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, revolutionary ideas about society and government began to affect much of the world.

         The beginning of the Haitian Revolution began with the calling of the Estates General in May 1789. Frenchman in the colonies thought that they could participate in the discussion without drastically altering their society and class formations, however they were mistaken. When the Declaration of Rights was established, France did not really consider its colonies. However, it soon took its effect as the free persons of color began declaring their rights of citizenship and rebelling when they were not being granted those rights. The free persons of color also received help from the abolitionist society in France, the Amis des Noirs. The Amis Des Noirs “were campaigning for the abolition of slave trade and for equal rights for the free persons of color. (though not for the abolition of the existing slavery in the colonies).” Though the ideas of freedom and equality were ringing with the bells of the revolution, it is visible in the treatment of women and blacks that equality was exclusive. The National Assembly hoped to make peace in Saint Domingue and once again control its extremely wealthy island. On May 15, 1971, the National Assembly granted equal rights to free coloreds born to free parents. Even though this affected an extremely small portion of the population, the whites were outraged. This left an extremely volatile society ready for war.

The tennis court oath began when the delegates of the Third Estate voted to establish the National Assembly. This was the first deliberate act of revolution and they soon found themselves to be locked out of their meeting room. They then knocked down the door of an indoor tennis court and pledged to stay there until they had drawn up a new constitution. The tennis court oath affected the people of Saint Domingue when the petits blancs used this to legitimatize themselves as the proper representatives of the country, rather than the grands blancs. This caused an armed revolt of the grands blancs who reacted violently to the petits blancs. The petit blancs had taken it to be their task to rewrite the constitution of the entire colony even though all the colonial whites had joined the Third Estate at Versailles. The two groups armed their slaves and prepared for battle in the name of the revolution and against the monarch but the ratification of the May Decree stopped them. The ratification of the May Decree made the revolution become a civil war in France and the Saint-Domingue a racial war of its own. The white revolt was also the end of the white rule and led the way for the slave revolts.

 The slaves did not need The Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen to gain a cause to fight. The bitter conditions of their labor were enough of a cause to lead them to passionately fight. In fact, the conditions of labor were so harsh that being sold to Saint Domingue was a threat used by other slave owners to their slaves. The slaves had not received any aid in their cry for freedom, especially since the free people of color were careful to distinguish their cause from that of the slaves. Slave revolts were also difficult to plan because of the diversity, distance, and variety of mixed feelings between the domestic and field slaves. Despite these difficulties, the slaves were still able to plan a revolt in which they burned and looted the fields in which they had worked and killed hundreds of slave owners. Though their conditions had always been harsh, the slaves had not revolted earlier because of the alternative of running away. This escape grew to be increasingly difficult and soon revolt was the only viable method of escape. The slaves also saw the battle between the free coloreds and the whites so they thought that the king had granted them rights that the colonial government was withholding. They claimed to be fighting as defenders of the church and king.

In France, the tendency was to be a revolutionary or a monarchist and to remain in that group. This whole social idea impacted Saint Domingue as its people began to choose sides. However, in Saint Domingue, the people who change from side to side with such blinding suddenness which made it difficult to recognize whose side who was on. As a result of the French Revolution and the picking of sides, groups formed shaky alliances with each other that didn’t last long. The petit blancs and the white planters formed an uneasy union against the French bureaucrats because of independence and local control. Since the bureaucrats were seen as pro-French the whites became revolutionaries fighting on the basis of loyalty to the new revolution in France. However, the whites were not truly revolutionaries and did not want the petit blancs to have full power so the alliance was soon broken. Though the natural thing for the whites to do would be to join the free people of color, they did not. The general assembly meeting immediately resulted in the petit blancs, white planters, and the French government officials creating their own assemblies. The choosing of sides in the French Revolution greatly affected the Haitian Revolution.

France enforced a system called the exclusif on Saint Domingue. This system required that San Domingue exported her goods to only France and purchased her imports solely from France. France’s prices were ridiculously high; therefore, the colonists did not strictly abide by this law. A trade began with the British in Jamaica, North America, and the United States. This exclusif caused the white planters to unite with the people of color on the political and economical front. The petit blancs refused to collate with the free people of color so they did not include themselves in this alliance. The independence movement also did not include slaves in any way for Saint Domingue hoped to form an independent slave-owning nation similar to that of the United States.

The Declaration of the Right of Man and the Citizen, the tennis court oath, the tendency to be a revolutionist or monarchist, and the exclusif were all factors of the French Revolution which helped bring about the Haitian Revolution. The Declaration of the Right of Man and the citizen questioned slavery and was one of most important causes of the Haitian Revolution. Many of the events and ideas of the French Revolution influenced Saint Domingue or directly affected it. The Haitian Revolution was a parallel to that of the French and was caused mainly by the French Revolution.