Before 1798, Saint. Domingue, the colonial name given to present day Haiti, was at a point France’s most successful colony overseas. With slaves brought from West and Central Africa specifically countries, now known as Congo and the Republic of Senegal. The French colony profited off the production of items such as indigo, sugar, and coffee. Succeeding and profiting off the enslavement of Africans, and their inhumane and brutal working conditions.
Responsible for beginning the Haitian revolution, Vincent Oge inspired enslaved Africans throughout the colony of Saint Domingue. Born in 1755, Oge was part of the minority group of the ‘gens de couleur’, as his father was a white Frenchman, and his mother a free black woman. As a military officer and business owner, Oge felt the harm and discrimination, even as a free person of color. As mentioned prior, in 1789, Oge traveled to France during the French Revolution, to propose ideas for amending laws against the free people of color on the island of Saint Domingue and all French colonies, as well as to show the book he compiled with American colonists; a group of free colored individuals, addressing the right for free blacks to vote and participate in society as whites did. These ideas were rejected, pushing Oge to join the Society of the Friends of the Blacks or the Société des amis des Noirs. Founded by Jacques Pierre Brissot, the group aimed to eradicate slavery within France and its overseas colonies.
Later in 1790, he returned to the colony and immediately began assembling other free people of color and even enslaved people in an attempt to band them together and revolt. He sent mail to the colony governance, called Le Cap, stating that he and his group would use force if his demands of equality were not met. With constant rejection and urges to stop their protests, Oge began the first revolt within the Haitian revolution. He stood his ground with a small group of supporters until his group was defeated by the colonial army and captured. On February 6th, 1791, Vincent Oge was executed by the colonial assembly. His attempt to secure rights for the free people of color and fight for equality within the colony was inspired by the similar movement in the French Revolution for all people of France. Although called a failed revolt, Oge inspired the next years of revolutionaries to fight for equality from their oppressors and allowed the colony of Saint Domingue to begin to develop their sense of national unity in order to continue and fight until independence.