The Marty Heiser Show

Dessalines's armies won their final and decisive victory over the French forces at the Battle of Vertières on 18 November 1803, near Cap-Haitien. On 1 January 1804 the nation declared its independence, securing its position as the second independent country in the Americas, and the only successful slave rebellion in world history.[4] Dessalines was its first ruler. The name Haiti was chosen in recognition of the old Arawak name for the island, Ayiti.

The new State of Haiti supported the abolitionist cause wherever possible. Haiti aided Francisco de Miranda and Simón Bolívar, giving them refuge and supporting their revolutionary efforts under the condition he free South America's slaves. The slaveholding powers surrounding Haiti isolated the new nation under a cordon sanitaire, fearing slave revolutions of their own. The Haitian Revolution is thought to have inspired numerous slave revolts in the Caribbean, Brazil and United States. The blockade was virtually total. The Vatican withdrew its priests from Haiti, and did not return them until 1860. France refused to recognize Haiti's independence until it agreed to pay an indemnity of 150 million francs, to compensate for the losses of French planters in the revolutions, in 1833. Payment of this indemnity brought the government deeply in debt and crippled the country's economy.

In 1806, Dessalines, by now Emperor, was murdered in a power struggle with political rivals who thought him a tyrant. The nation divided into two parts, a southern republic founded by Alexandre Pétion (mulatto), becoming the first black-led republic in the world,[5] and a northern kingdom under Henri Christophe. Christophe was responsible for the order and oversight of the construction of two New World marvels; his capital palace of Sans Souci and the massive Citadelle Laferrière, the largest fortress in the Western hemisphere.

In August 1820, King Henri I (Henri Christophe) suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. When the news spread of his infirmities, the whispers of rebellion, deceit and treachery began. On October 2, 1820, the military garrison at St. Marc led a mutiny that sparked a revolt. The mutiny preempted a conspiracy of some of Christophe's most loyal generals. Some of his trusted aides took him from the palace of Sans-Souci up to his Citadel, to await the inevitable confrontation with the rebels. Christophe ordered his attendants to dress him in his formal military uniform and for two days desperately tried to raise the strength to lead out his troops. Finally, he ordered his doctor to leave the room. Shortly after he left, Christophe shot and killed himself.[6]

Following Christophe's death, the nation was reunited as the Republic of Haiti under Jean-Pierre Boyer, Petion's successor. Boyer invaded the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo and proclaimed the entire island under Haitian rule, until 1844 when the Dominican Republic gained its independence separating the island into two countries. The Dominican Republic's independence constitutes the only independence campaign in the New World in one Latin American country from another. (Uruguay got it's independence from Brazil in 1828 and Uruguay used to be called the Cisplatine Province when it was part of Brazil).