In the late 1600s France purchased a small island in the Caribbean from Spain. The island was called Hispanola. France immediately began to import Africans to work the land. By the year 1760, approximately 500,000 Africans had been brought over and forced into slavery.Hispanola soon became the wealthiest colony in the Western Hemisphere, considered by many Frenchmen as the suburb of France. It was so wealthy that England wanted possession of it, and went to war with France to try and liberate it. Ironically, perhaps divinely the War between France and England gave the slaves the opportunity they had long awaited. The French conscripted thousands of slaves into its army, and were given French uniforms and a promise of freedom for all slaves willing to fight against the English soldiers.
Out of this war emerged three men who were later to become not only the leaders of the slaves, but also heroes of Hispanola. This Epic Film is about three men brought over from Africa in chains, who rose from slavery to Generals in a country now known by the name of Haïti.
It is a story of the second republic in the Western Hemisphere.
The story of three men, Henri Christophe, Toussaint Louverture, Jacques Jean Dessalines, who amassed thousands of ignorant slaves and formed a powerful army capable of defeating Napoléon Bonaparte. Men whose names deserve to be in all history books as military geniuses. Men whose names have been excluded from the pages of history, but whose contribution to freedom shall never be forgotten.
It is a story of a great revolution fought by men who refused to allow themselves to be kept in bondage and chains, who fought against the British, Spanish and finally, with the defeat of the French, gained their freedom and independence in 1804.
Toussaint Louverture, a man with a vision and faith that one day all men would be free and equal, as he believed was intended by God. Out of the chaos rose a new leader, an ex-slave called François-Dominique Toussaint, also known as Toussaint Louverture, who created his own roaming army after the 1791 uprising. When France and Spain went to war, he joined the Spanish forces as a mercenary and built up a troop of 4,000 negroes. However, when the English captured Port-au-Prince he defected with his men to join the French against the English. After 4 years of war and disease, General Maitland’s surrender of Môle to Toussaint marked the end of a 5-year British bid to the island.
In 1802, a french General named Charles Leclerc, was sent by Napoleon Bonaparte to restore and to maintain the Island Haiti under French autority. He came as a peace maker. Toussaint gave Leclerc a spectacular welcome. A few weeks later after Leclerc came, Toussaint was seized and sent to Fort-De-Joux in the French Alps where they put him in prison. Toussaint was a man of greatness and intelligence far superior to common man.
Jacques Jean Dessalines, though filled with hatred from the physical abuse and degradation of the slave masters lived for one purpose... to free his people and to avenge himself against those who had taken his freedom.
After the defeat of the French, Henri Christophe, rose through the French Army to the rank of General. He was sent to America with 200 Free Haitians. They fought side by side with General George Washington for America's independence from England. He proclaimed himself as King and was crowned the King of Haïti. He had built a palace equal to any palace in France or England, and a fortress that the French would have found to be impregnable, had they tried to attack it.
Christophe was a man who rose from slavery to a King with hopes of one day leading his people to peace and prosperity. Although, through great mental stress, he somehow lost sight of his intended objective. He became a tyrant and enslaved those whom he had fought so hard to free, eventually leading to his downfall.
Through the efforts of these three men and another great Haitian military leader, Alexandre Petion, who desired to be free, changed the course of America's history, by making it possible to purchase Louisiana from France. Napoléon's defeat in Haïti, prompted him to sell Louisiana to the United States of America.
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