1808-00-00: (Spain Regains Control of Eastern Hispaniola From France, Napoleon’s Continental Ambitions Undoing the Treaty of Basel and Restoring a Colonial P…

1808-00-00: (Spain Regains Control of Eastern Hispaniola From France, Napoleon’s Continental Ambitions Undoing the Treaty of Basel and Restoring a Colonial Presence That Haiti Would Spend the Next Forty Years Trying to Eliminate): In 1808, after Napoleon deposed the Spanish Bourbons and placed his brother Joseph on the throne of Spain, Spanish settlers in eastern Hispaniola seized the opportunity to expel the French and restore Spanish colonial rule. The Treaty of Basel, which had ceded the eastern two-thirds of the island to France in 1795, was effectively nullified. The restoration of a European colonial presence on the island alarmed Haitian leaders, who understood that any territory under European control could serve as a staging ground for invasion. This concern would drive Boyer’s invasion of the east in 1822 and shape Haitian foreign policy for decades.