An enslaved army defeated the three greatest military powers of its era.

Evidence

Meanwhile, the flames of insurrection continued to burn brightly in Saint-Domingue. Toussaint Louverture, who had assumed leadership of the rebellion, and his army successfully held off military invasions from the French, Spanish, and British—the greatest military powers on earth at the time. In 1794, the French National Convention agreed to abolish slavery throughout Saint-Domingue, hoping it would quell the resistance. But peace did not return. Saint-Domingue remained under French control, formerly enslaved people still labored under oppressive plantation systems, and rebels persisted in their demand for full freedom, equality, and sovereignty for all Black people. Emboldened by the uprisings in Saint-Domingue, free and enslaved Black people in Martinique, Curaçao, Jamaica, Grenada, and many other slaveholding colonies, including Spanish Louisiana, demanded their freedom and proved that they, too, were willing to sacrifice their lives to obtain it. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 368

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The ‘willing to sacrifice their lives’ line directly reinforces the sacrifice article’s core claim that ritual and revolutionary death function as love and political stabilization.
• SHARE: A striking fact for anyone interested in Haiti specifically: the only successful large-scale slave revolt in history toppling three world powers at once.