- France and Haiti both have revolutions in the decades following the American Revolution.

The French adopt a rights document that has clear references to the American Declaration of Independence.

- What's distinctive about the French one is that it's not really about historical grievances at all.

It's entirely about what rights one has as a citizen.

- But at the time, the Haitian Revolution was run by France.

France literally had hands in everything that had to do with the slaves that were there in Haiti.

- Was a plantation economy, a sugar-producing colony, enslaved people made up the majority of residents of the island.

- [Joezer] They wanted to be free from France.

They wanted to be free from the French.

They wanted to be free.

(gentle upbeat music) (singer vocalizing) (gentle upbeat music continues) (gentle suspenseful music) - The U.S.

was allies with the French, they were helpful to the French during the Revolution.

This is because the French were revolting against monarchy, which the U.S.

could understand because they also revolted against the British monarchy.

What they couldn't understand is Black people revolting against white people.

- It's a very interesting question, why the new United States took the positions it did in relation to both the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution.

- You have throughout the 18th century, an intellectual movement called the Enlightenment, in which there are many different political ideas to give people a sense in which they could begin to question "Why would we have a king to begin with?"

- The people of the United States are very much following the news around the world about other nations declaring their independence.

They're concerned about the legacy of their own revolution.

How would the revolution be taken in different directions?

- The French Revolution follows fairly quickly on the heels of the American Revolution.

- Thomas Jefferson was in France as ambassador when he helped the Marquis de Lafayette to draft the first draft of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

- The French Declaration of Rights has become, in the modern world, probably the first thing people look to when they want to think about how did human rights get off the ground.

It lays out an extensive set of rights, which are civil and political rights.

Many early Americans, though, including some of the people we now call Founding Fathers, were deeply worried by the French Revolution - Beginning stages of the French Revolution, the very radical French legislature eliminated slavery.

- They abolished slavery in France while they had slaves in other colonies.

And so, you know, the Haitian contingent looked at that as, "Wow, if they can abolish slavery in France, "why are we still slaves here?"

- Then they reintroduced it.

(gentle uplifting music) Well, that was just too much.

- France's decision to reinstate slavery in 1802 is the decision that really precipitated Haiti's Declaration of Independence.

- It was Toussaint Louverture who was one of the fathers of the revolution.

He was a soldier, a leader in the French Army, and then after that it was led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and many other leaders.

(gentle uplifting music) The Caribbean is a rich place, natural resources, you have a ton of cash crops.

- Napoleon wanted to create another empire for France in the Americas using Haiti as an economic hub through the exports and imports of coffee and sugar.

- The author of the Haitian Declaration of Independence, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, was very much influenced by the American Declaration of Independence, in particular, Jefferson's first draft of it.

- But you can imagine how, for Americans, this was an alarming situation to imagine what a large-scale slave uprising would look like.

(gentle uplifting music) - Jefferson was actually president of the United States at the time of the Haitian Declaration of Independence, and Jean-Jacques Dessalines writes a letter to Jefferson trying to explain that they're doing exactly what Jefferson and his compatriots had done in 1776.

They're trying to overthrow tyrannical power.

And Jefferson, as far as we know, never responded.

(gentle suspenseful music) - By 1804, the Haitians are successful.

- It was a long, bloody struggle.

The loss of life was actually much greater than in the French Revolution.

- The United States does not acknowledge Haitian independence until President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.

- After the Haitian declaration in 1804, there is a massive backlash.

- Now the country of Haiti has been punished for building an independent Black state, first with embargoes, and then reparations and all sorts of crippling debt.

(gentle uplifting music) - We had to pay back what France sought out to be their losses, and they said that, "If you don't pay us this money, "we're going to return in full force.

"If we had not paid them the equivalent of today's $21 billion.

Henri Christophe, who was the king of Haiti at that point, he made that deal in order to keep the land safe.

(gentle uplifting music) - It's a debt that did not go into Haiti's economy, its infrastructure.

- And that's a huge part of the reason why Haiti remains so poor today, but it really reshaped the globe.

- Our freedom has put us in a hole and we are still paying the debt, but like we always say, (speaks foreign language) "there is strength and unity" and I think there is more to be seen from our beautiful little country.

(gentle music) (gentle upbeat music)