Professor Renaldo McKenzie discusses the Caribbean Historical Timeline and explores the Caribbean Revolution and independence, starting with Haiti. Haiti’s independence in 1804 did not merely free the western side of Hispaniola; it shook the entire colonial world. Yet the meaning of independence on the island became contested. Haiti’s victory over France marked the first successful Black republic born of an anti-slavery revolution, but France and other colonial powers refused to recognize that freedom as legitimate. In 1825, France forced Haiti to pay a massive indemnity in exchange for recognition, turning liberation into debt and punishing Haiti for daring to defeat the empire. This history also complicates Dominican independence. The eastern side of Hispaniola experienced different claims of sovereignty: Spanish rule, a brief declaration of independence in 1821, Haitian unification of the island under Jean-Pierre Boyer in 1822, and then Dominican independence from Haiti in 1844. Later, Dominican elites framed Haitian rule as foreign occupation, while Haitian leaders saw island unification as necessary to protect abolition and prevent European recolonization. That conflict produced a bitter historical memory that still shapes relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic today. European powers and local elites helped deepen that division. Anti-Haitian ideology did not emerge by accident; it was cultivated through race, class, language, religion, and political power. Dominican nationalism often defined itself against Haiti, and some leaders advanced whiteness or Hispanidad as a way to separate Dominican identity from Blackness and African heritage. This helped create policies and attitudes that treated Haitians as outsiders, even though both peoples share the same island and are bound by colonial history. Haiti’s revolution has also been misread through European eyes. C.L.R. James elevated Toussaint Louverture as a central figure, and Louverture was indeed brilliant. But the Haitian Revolution was not the work of one French-trained military mind. It was also the work of Vodou, maroon resistance, enslaved Africans, field laborers, women, spiritual leaders, and local revolutionaries such as Dutty Boukman. To make Louverture the sole founder risks repeating a colonial habit: recognizing Black genius only when it resembles European education, discipline, and military order.The Lecture is part of a Course, Caribbean Thought at Jamaica Theological Seminary.Renaldo McKenzie is Creator and Host of The Neoliberal Round and President of The Neoliberal Corporation, Professor at Jamaica Theological Seminary.

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