Abstract
In 1789, the French revolutionaries, after declaring that " men are born and remain free and equal in rights ", did not abolish slavery. The Convention did so only in 1794, under pressure from slave revolts and, in particular, the Saint-Domingue Revolution, which led to Haiti's independence in 1804. Today, this discrepancy is one of the most hotly debated issues in the historiography of the Revolution. Should we deduce from this that the proclaimed universalism of the rights of man and of the citizen was nothing but a delusion, protecting the privileges of white colonists, or should we consider, on the contrary, that they provided slaves and free people of color, in the colonies, with the arguments and resources to obtain their emancipation ? To what extent does the Haitian revolution embody a universalism superior to, or different from, that of 1789 ? We first look back at the debates of the winter of 1789, Mirabeau's great speech against the slave trade, which he was unable to deliver to the assembly, and the counter-offensive by colonial and merchant circles hostile to abolition. Attention is then turned to the Haitian Revolution, in an attempt to understand the extent to which insurgent slaves referred to human rights. Finally, we conclude with some thoughts on the universalism of the Haitian Revolution, through its anti-colonial and abolitionist ideals, but also on the conflicts that ran through it.
