The 1804 Haiti massacre is carried out against the remaining white population of native French people and French Creoles (or Franco-Haitians) in Haiti by Haitian soldiers under orders from Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who has decreed that all suspected of conspiring in the acts of the expelled army should be put to death.
Throughout the nineteenth century, these events are well known in the United States, where they are called "the horrors of St. Domingo" and they polarize Southern public opinion on the question of the abolition of slavery.
The massacre, which takes place throughout Haiti, occurs from early January 1804 until April 22, 1804, and results in the death of three thousand to five thousand men, women, and children.
Squads of soldiers move from house to house, torturing and killing entire families.
Even whites who have been friendly and sympathetic to the black population are imprisoned and later killed.
A second wave of massacres targets white women and children.
