The Haitian Revolution (French: rvolution hatienne French pronunciation: [evlysj a.i.sjn]; Haitian Creole: revolisyon ayisyen) was a successful insurrection by self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolt began on 22 August 1791, and ended in 1804 with the former colony's independence. It involved black, biracial, French, Spanish, British, and Polish participantswith the ex-slave Toussaint Louverture emerging as Haiti's most charismatic hero. The revolution was the only slave uprising that led to the founding of a state which was both free from slavery (though not from forced labour) and ruled by non-whites and former captives. It is now widely seen as a defining moment in the history of the Atlantic World.

The revolution's effects on the institution of slavery were felt throughout the Americas. The end of French rule and the abolition of slavery in the former colony was followed by a successful defense of the freedoms the former slaves won and, with the collaboration of already free people of color, their independence from white Europeans. The revolution represented the largest slave uprising since Spartacus' unsuccessful revolt against the Roman Republic nearly 1,900 years earlier, and challenged long-held European beliefs about alleged black inferiority and about slaves' ability to achieve and maintain their own freedom. The rebels' organizational capacity and tenacity under pressure inspired stories that shocked and frightened slave owners in the hemisphere.

Saint-Domingue (French pronunciation: ​[sɛ̃.dɔ.mɛ̃ɡ]) was a West Indian French colony from 1659 to 1804 on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola; the island that now hosts two countries, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The name was also used, at times, for the island of Hispaniola as a whole, all of it, nominally, being at times a French colony. The Spanish form of the name, Santo Domingo, also was used at times for the island as a whole. The border between the French-speaking Haiti and the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic was not established until after the Dominican Republic's declaration of independence in 1844.

The French had established themselves on the western portion of the islands of Hispaniola and Tortuga by 1659. In the Treaty of Ryswick of 1697, Spain formally recognized French control of Tortuga Island and the western third of the island of Hispaniola.In 1791, slaves and some Saint Dominican Creoles took part in the Vodou ceremony, Bois Caïman, and planned the rebellion against French authority. The rebels became reconciled to French rule following the abolition of slavery in the colony in 1793, although this alienated the island's dominant slave-owning class. France controlled the entirety of Hispaniola from 1795 to 1802, when a renewed rebellion began. The last French troops withdrew from the western portion of the island in late 1803, and the colony later declared its independence as Haiti, its indigenous name, the following year.