oDessa

Burkina Faso has added the Haitian Revolution to its national school curriculum. The decision means a West African country is now teaching its students about a revolt that once shook European powers. In 1791, enslaved Africans in the French colony of Saint-Domingue rose up against the French Empire. They burned plantations and fought off the Spanish, the British, and eventually Napoleon’s forces. By 1804 they had won, founding Haiti the world’s first Black republic and the first nation born from a successful slave revolt. France never accepted the loss. In 1825 it demanded 150 million francs in “compensation” for the enslaved people it claimed as lost property. Haiti spent more than a century paying the debt, taking loans from French banks along the way. The final payment was made in 1947.