Page "Louisiana Purchase" Paragraph 23

A slave revolution in Saint-Domingue ( present-day Republic of Haiti ) over previous years had resulted in massacres of the planter class.

An expeditionary force under Napoleon's brother-in-law Charles Leclerc in January 1802, supplemented by 20, 000 troops over the next 21 months, had tried to re-conquer the territory and re-establish slavery.

But yellow fever and the fierce resistance of black revolutionaries destroyed the French army in what became the only successful slave revolt in history, and it withdrew its surviving troops in November 1803.

In 1804 Haiti became the first independent black state in the New World.