August 22, 1791 · Northern Province Theater
August 22, 1791
Beginning on the night of August 22, 1791, enslaved workers across the Northern Province of Saint-Domingue rose simultaneously. Within days, more than 1,000 sugar and coffee plantations were burning across the most productive agricultural landscape in the Western Hemisphere. White colonists were killed and their families driven to the coastal towns. The fires could be seen from ships at sea and from Cap-Français, the colonial capital. Estimates suggest 100,000 enslaved people joined the uprising within the first two weeks, representing a fifth of the entire enslaved population of the colony.
Commanders