Not quite — haitian society before 1790 was:
- about 10% white - divided into
“big white” grand blancs - the slave and land owners
“little white” petits blancs - poorer Europeans many were ironically freed serfs or slaves from Berber states
- 5% mulattos
- 85% black slaves.
Slavery in Haiti was horrendously cruel - even by the standards of the time. The death rate was enormous and they had to keep importing slaves as so many died. The stories from horrified FRENCH people who visited the islands was that the slaveholders hung up men with heads downward, drowned them in sacks, crucified them on planks, buried them alive, crushed them in mortars, to consume faeces, flaying them with whips etc.
This was brutalization of people over decades - leading to the slave population who survived being brutal - NOT ALL - Toussaint Louverture was a notable exception who was a Francophile, but he was imprisoned by the French, leading to Dessaline coming to power.
Anyway, Dutty Boukman was a slave captured in Senegambia who reverted to Voudou and exacted retribution against the slaveholders.
NOTE that Toussaint Louverture first established a black-run French governate, but then NAPOLEON INVADED and re-established slavery. The Napoleonic troops were brutal.
The net result when Toussaint Louverture was captured and taken to France was that the radical Dessalines came to power.
Note that the whites supported the Napoleonic re-imposition of slavery.
After the haitians under Dessalines proclaimed independence, there were rumours that the white population would try to convince foreign powers to invade and reintroduce slavery - well, they had already done so, so i seemed plausible
NOTE: it was mainly the FRENCH whites targeted - the Poles, Germans and American merchants were spared.
WE need to consider this genocide in light of
1. the previous brutality of French slavery in Haiti (the only comparison could be to galley slaves)
2. the Napoleonic brutal re-imposition of slavery
3. the Napoleonic imprisonment of Toussaint Louverture, who had pursued a policy of live-and-let-live and wanted to be part of France
4. the support of the whtie population for Napoleonic re-enslavement
You can consider the genocide in light of whatever you wish.
I regard myself as being free to not care about Haiti, and to oppose having migration from there to here, and to want to deport every last one back.