1757-00-00: (Mackandal Initiates a Poisoning Revolt Against the French Planters, the First Organized Slave Resistance Campaign in Saint-Domingue, a Generatio…
1757-00-00: (Mackandal Initiates a Poisoning Revolt Against the French Planters, the First Organized Slave Resistance Campaign in Saint-Domingue, a Generation Before the Revolution): In 1757, Mackandal launched a coordinated poisoning campaign against the French planter class in northern Saint-Domingue, the first organized slave revolt in the colony’s history. Household slaves working in league with Mackandal laced the food of plantation owners with poison while Mackandal led guerrilla raids under cover of darkness. The campaign was ultimately suppressed, but it demonstrated that the enslaved population possessed the organizational capacity, the knowledge, and the will to strike at the heart of the plantation system. The Revolution of 1791 did not come from nowhere.