Toussaint Louverture Controls Saint-Domingue — Terror Spreads Among US Slaveholders

By 1798, Toussaint Louverture controlled most of Saint-Domingue and signed treaties with Britain and the United States. Southern slaveholders blocked further US cooperation, pressuring the Adams administration to distance itself from the emerging Black republic. Fear that Haiti's revolution would inspire American enslaved people shaped US foreign and domestic policy for decades.