Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
In 1795, Haiti was ceded to France by Spain. [Furtado: 1001 Days] "Louverture was born a slave on the French colony of Saint-Domingue, now known as Haiti. He became a free man and a Jacobin, and began his military career as a leader of the 1791 slave rebellion in Saint-Domingue. Initially allied with the Spaniards of neighboring Santo Domingo, Louverture switched his allegiance to the French when the new Republican government abolished slavery. Louverture gradually established control over the whole island and used his political and military influence to gain dominance over his rivals." [Wikipedia] "The great slave uprising that began in the French colony of Haiti in 1791 crushed the master class, defeated several French armies sent to repress it, and created a vivid worst-case scenario for a generation of Latin American slave owners." [Born in Blood & Fire: A Concise History of Latin America, 4th Ed., p. 96]