The Price of Freedom

Napoleon's attempt to reconquer Haiti was one of history's greatest military disasters. Of the 40,000 French troops sent, fewer than 8,000 survived. Most died not in battle but from yellow fever, to which the formerly enslaved population had greater resistance.

The defeat was so devastating Napoleon abandoned his Western empire and sold Louisiana to the United States in 1803. Haiti's revolution indirectly doubled the size of America, yet Haiti paid an enormous price for its freedom.