How Sam Sharpe and Haiti forced an end to slavery

Dwayne Wong (Omowale) discusses how enslaved people in the Caribbean and Haiti won their own freedom through rebellion, not through the mercy of colonial powers. He explains that Britain planned to abolish slavery gradually, but Sam Sharpe’s rebellion in Jamaica in the 1830s pushed emancipation forward faster than planned. He says Haiti’s enslaved population fought and defeated the French, Spanish and British to become the first group of enslaved people to win their freedom, and that across the Americas, wherever enslaved people were freed, it came through rebellion.

He argues that school history credits kind white figures such as Abraham Lincoln and William Wilberforce with ending slavery, when enslaved people themselves fought for it. He notes Sam Sharpe’s rebellion began at Christmas and Haiti’s independence anniversary falls on January 1st, He says Danny Glover could not find funding for a film on the Haitian Revolution because it had no white lead characters.