Countries founded by the formerly enslaved.

Haiti: freedom taken by force

In the 18th century the French colony of Saint-Domingue was one of the richest places on earth, built on sugar grown by hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans. In 1791 they rose up.

Over the next thirteen years the revolutionaries, led by figures such as Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, fought French troops and, at different moments, Spanish and British forces too. Napoleon sent a large army in 1802 to restore French control; it was defeated. On 1 January 1804 Dessalines declared the independence of Haiti, the only nation born from a successful revolt of enslaved people.

Liberia: a colony for freed Americans

In the United States, the American Colonization Society, founded in 1816, set out to send free Black Americans and freed slaves to Africa. Its motives were mixed, from sincere humanitarians to slave owners who wanted free Black people out of the country.

Settlers began arriving on the coast of West Africa in the early 1820s. Their capital was named Monrovia, after President James Monroe. In 1847 Liberia declared itself an independent republic.

Sierra Leone: a promise kept, late

During the American Revolution, Britain promised freedom to enslaved people who escaped from rebel masters and joined the British side. Thousands did. When Britain lost, many of these Black Loyalists ended up poor in London or in the cold of Nova Scotia.

In 1787 a group of Black Londoners was settled in Sierra Leone, in what was called the Province of Freedom. In 1792 about 1,200 Black Loyalists sailed from Nova Scotia and founded Freetown, still the country's capital. Sierra Leone became independent from Britain in 1961.

Sources

1. The United States and the Haitian Revolution, 1791–1804, US Department of State, Office of the Historian
2. Haitian Revolution, Wikipedia
3. Founding of Liberia, 1847, Office of the Historian
4. Province of Freedom, Wikipedia
5. Nova Scotian Settlers, Wikipedia

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