Constitution of Saint-Domingue (1801)

The 1801 Constitution was drafted by a Central Assembly of Saint-Domingue under Toussaint Louverture's direction and promulgated on May 19, 1801. Without French authorization, it abolished slavery permanently (Art. 3), declared racial equality, named Toussaint governor for life with the power to choose his own successor, and bound cultivators to plantations. It maintained nominal French sovereignty while asserting de facto colonial autonomy. Napoleon Bonaparte responded with the Leclerc Expedition. The constitution is the most important constitutional document of the revolutionary period and reveals Toussaint's contradictions: abolitionist and authoritarian, autonomist and colonial.