Thread by @michaelharriot

It was a dark and stormy night...

(I’ve always wanted to tweet that) But seriously, there was a tropical storm when a group of people gathered in the woods.

If they were white, we’d call them “founding fathers” but they were slaves who were about to change the world

A thread

https://twitter.com/DrunkTweetsInc/status/1344919627311308800

Voudou priestess Cecile Fatiman danced with a knife. Then she split a pig and everyone drank the pig’s blood from a wooden bowl while enslaved priest Cutty Boukman prayed:

“The god who created the earth; who created the sun that gives us light. The god who holds up the ocean;

who makes the thunder roar. Our god who has ears to hear. You who are hidden in the clouds, who watch us from where you are. You see all that the white has made us suffer. The white man’s god asks him to commit crimes. But the god within us wants to do good...

It’s He who will direct our arms and bring us the victory. It’s He who will assist us. We all should throw away the image of the white men’s god who is so pitiless. Listen to the voice for liberty that speaks in all our hearts.”

Then , the meeting adjourned & everyone went home.

A week later, on Aug. 21 1791, it began.

In one week, 1800 plantations on the Island of St. Domingue would be burned to the ground and 1,000 white enslavers would be dead.

The shit had finally hit the fan.

Even when Americans learn about the Haitian Revolution, they get a lot of stuff wrong.

First, they say the Black slaves rebelled against French rule.

WRONG.

The slaves were rebelling against white people because they had heard a rumor

They had heard that the French king had actually freed the slaves but the slaveowners wouldn’t go along with it.

So when they took up arms, they truly believed they were fighting FOR FRANCE.

2. Most people believe the slaves only fought France.

Nah, chief.

See, at that time, in 1791, Haiti was the RICHEST colony in the America’s INCLUDING a lil ghetto-ass hood called the United States.

See, the US was in debt from the Revolution and Haiti produced 60% of the world's coffee and 40 % of the sugar imported by England & France.

Haiti was BALLIN off that free labor.

So, Spain & England assumed, if they helped the slaves, maybe they could move in

But France sent 6,000 troops over, and everything got wild.

That's when this dude François-Dominique Bréda stepped up.

Breda had been a slave but was a free man. He was smart AF and everyone could see it. At first, he just wanted to help out.

So he told the French that he could get the rebels to let the white people go if they made some concessions. He didn't even ask them to end slavery. All France had to do was to promise not to use the whip & give them 2 days off every week

But you know white folks.

They don't like being told what to do. They looked at Breda like he had asked them to do something wild like wear a mask. Plus, if they negotiated with a Black man, that basically meant that they acknowledged him as an equal

They couldn't do that

Meanwhile, England told the white farmers they would restore slavery, so the white people allied with the Brits.

Spain was right next door in Santo Domingo (later the Dominican Republic) so Breda hooked up with them.

Meanwhile, the rebels were lining behind Breda

On August 29, 1793, Breda gathered them at a Spanish post in Turel and told them he had changed his name:

"Perhaps my name has made itself known to you. I have undertaken vengeance. I want Liberty to reign in Saint Domingue... Join us & fight with us for the same cause."

Your very humble and obedient servant...

Toussaint Louverture

He was THE TRUTH.

The French had heard about him. So when they heard he was fighting with Spain, they had to make a choice:

Give up slavery

Or fight this dude and possibly lose our golden egg?

On the VERY SAME DAY, they announced that they were gonna end slavery.

So Louverture joined the French. He said it was because they banned slavery but something else had happened.

A few days earlier, the Black rebels had attacked Spain and killed ALL the white people there

Toussaint swore it wasn't him. He said he was in bed with a limp. But the Spanish didn't trust him. SO, every time he left to fight, they would hold his wife and child to make sure he came back.

They were right. Toussaint was lying.

What had happenend was...

Toussaint found out that the Spanish had been secretly getting the other Black generals to round up women and children and sell them as slaves.

Ending slavery was THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS, so he turned on them.

Toussaint and the Black rebels didn't really defeat Spain. Spain just realized that the former slaves were NEVER gonna quit. SO they packed up their shit and left.

Seriously. They packed up an entire army and took their asses home.

And then there was England.

That was light work for Toussaint 'nem. They kicked the British Army AND the British Navy's ass.

The British quit. The British gov. of Jamaica was scared that Toussaint would inspire slave revolts in the Americas & begged the Brits to keep fighting.

Toussaint sent him a letter saying:

You know I can come over there whenever I want, so you might wanna keep my name out of your mouth.

Dude was shook

He sent the Brits home but he was so afraid of Loverture's influence, he wouldn't let the Jamaican fighters come to Jamaica.

And, as long as the French pledged to end slavery, Toussaint considered himself a member of the French Army.

You know they were lying, though.

As soon as Toussaint beat everyone, Napoleon sent his army & his brother in law to the island to take care of these black rebels.

After all, Napoleon was the greatest military mind hin the history of the world for people who don't know about Hannibal Barca or Shaka Zulu (you know... White people)

When they got there, they faced off

Napoleon also sent an outright, avid white supremacist named Rochambeau (you might know his daddy from the American revolution.

Well, Napoleon's brother died and Rochambeau was in charge. He knew he couldn't defeat Toussaint, though. The Black rebels were too disciplined.

So they tricked Toussaint, shipped him to France and starved him to death.

Then Rochambeau went HAM.

He beheaded anyone Black. He put Black soldiers in sacks and drowned them. He ordered 15,000 dogs who were trained to ONLY attack Black people

But he did something else

He would round up soldiers, put them on French ships below deck and light sulfur. The sulfur dioxide would basically suffocate them.

Viscount Rochambeau had invented the gas chamber.

One of Toussaint's old homeys Jean-Jacque Dessalines had joined the French.

But when he saw this, he switched back and led the rebels.

By then, the Black warriors were weary, they had been fighting for a decade. The French had more firepower. More money. ANd remember, these people were former SLAVES. What did you think was gonna happen if they lost?

Plus, everyone was on France's side now. Even America. The southern planters were scared AF that all the slaves in the western hemisphere would do this.

But Dessalines promised the rebels a path to victory.

"How?" They asked. "How in the world can we defeat these savages?"

"It's simple," Dessalines said. "We have to do to them what they've done to us. "We're gonna go FULL WHITE"

Remember, the white people in Haiti thought Dessalines was on their side when he rode into Port Au Prince. He even had on his French uniform. (It was pretty clean, though)

So when the white folks gathered around Dessalinies and cheered him, he stood there in his Steve Harvé 11-button uniform and gave a speech thanking them for their support. He spoke of a future with racial equality. He told them that their sins would be forgiven. And then...

He started killing all the white people.

ALL of them. The only people he spared were the Polish because, they didn't want to be there. They were just paid mercenaries who were there because they were afraid of Napoleon.

To be fair, Dessalines didn't have to kill ALL the white people.

Most of them hauled ass.

And there was another factor that helped the rebels:

They were white.

See, Yellow Fever was killing EVERYBODY but the black people, who had developed immunity in the Caribbean AND in Africa.

Napoleon could see that he was never going to win

so, again, the French army loaded up all the white people and left the whole HEMISPHERE.

On Jan 1, 1804, Dessalines said:

"We have repaid these cannibals, war for war, crime for crime, outrage for outrage.”

The US was still scared though. They refused to recognize the new black sovereign state. Luckily, France gave them a good deal on some slightly used land because, after Haiti, they wanted NO PARTS of that slavery shit

Your social studies teacher probably called it "The Louisiana Purchase"

Some dude named Thomas Jefferson was so scared, that he cut off trade with Haiti

ANd then France sent warships and demanded that...

Hold up, this is the craziest part.

The US and all of the other white countries only recognized Haiti after 1825, when France sent warships to Haiti and demanded the current equivalent of $25 BILLION

What for?

They said that Haitians had to pay the former slaveowners for the loss of their slaves.

Seriously, That's what they said. And they MEANT IT TOO.

Now, Haiti MIGHT have had the money except that US "Security forces" went to Haiti's national bank in 1919 and took their gold back to NY for "safekeeping."

So what could Haiti, do?

If they didn't pay France back, the rest of the world wouldn't recognize them or trade with them. If they did, they'd be broke.

So for years, Haiti has been borrowing the money from the World Bank to pay slave reparations to SLAVE OWNERS.

But it's not all France's fault.

France eventually sold the debt. For years, nearly 80% of the country's revenue has gone toward that debt.

Who holds it?

Well, it's in the same place as Haiti's gold.

A little financial institution called CITIBANK

That is why yall lil president calls it a "shithole country.

I'm telling you, it's HARD to beat white people.

But on January 1, 1804, the whole world was scared shitless when Black rebels, who started out with ONE KNIFE, kicked ALL the asses and became the first country founded by a slave rebellion,

And Haiti can still fight like a MF.