Lhe Haitian revolution started with the caiman wood ceremony organized by Hougan Dutty Boukman, assisted by Cécile Fatiman. This first act of the slave revolution would have taken the form of a voodoo ceremony. In a few days, all the plantations in the North were in flames and a thousand white people were massacred. Despite the repression in which Boukman was killed, bands of armed slaves persisted in the countryside and the mountains. In other parts of the country, more spontaneous revolts ensued. The slave uprising led to heated debate in the new legislative assembly in Paris. The latter, initially sensitive to the arguments of the colonists, sent civil commissioners to restore order to the free and the slaves. While the latter were asking for an honorable peace, the stiffness of the settlers revived the revolts. Napoleon promulgated the Law of May 20, 1802 which re-established slavery in the French colonies. On June 7, 1802 Toussaint Louverture was arrested, deported to France, he was interned at Fort Joux, in the Jura, where he died of the harsh climate and malnutrition on April 7, 1803, after prophesying the victory of the blacks. It was on learning of the reestablishment of slavery in Guadeloupe that Alexandre Pétion gave the signal for the revolt on October 13, 1802. At the head of five hundred and fifty men, he marched against the main French post of Haut-du- Cap, surrounded him, had him disarmed and saved fourteen gunners that his family wanted to slaughter: the independent army was then formed.
Dessalines then rejoined the rebels, led by Pétion, in October 1802. The 19 November 1803, at the head of the army, with by his side Henri Christophe, it imposes on Rochambeau (commander at the head of the French army) capitulation of Cape after the defeat of the French armies, the day before, to the battle of Vertières. Rochambeau then has no choice but to order the evacuation of the island. After the departure of the French, Dessalines immediately causes the massacre of the remaining white population except for priests, doctors, technicians. He gives back to Santo Domingo his Indian name of Haiti (Ayiti) and proclaims the Republic the 1 January 1804 in Gonaives.