By all measures, the Saint-Domingue Revolution of 1791–1804, also known as the Haitian Revolution, transformed the modern world. The American Revolution (1776), and the French Revolution (1789) were fought for the principles of self-determination, liberty, equality, and fraternity, but applied them to white men only—while maintaining a system of chattel slavery in the New World. The Saint-Domingue/Haitian Revolution, fought by black slaves and free people of color, challenged the premises of colonialism, slavery, and white supremacy, declaring that the ideals of equality, liberty, and self-determination belonged to all humanity, thereby making it the first truly modern revolution. If, by definition, modernity includes a belief in the universal equality of the human race, then the Saint-Domingue/Haitian Revolution was the first of the modern epoch—associated with the rise of global capitalism in the 16th century— to have been fought for that purpose. This short course will examine the characteristics of the French colony of Saint-Domingue in the 18th century: its class and racial order; the system of chattel slavery and plantation production; and other factors that led to the revolution that culminated in Saint-Domingue declaring its independence from France in 1804 and renaming itself the Republic of Haiti. PRINCIPAL READING: C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint Louverture and the San Domingo Revolution (Vintage Books Edition, 1963/1989).