Topic 2.12: Legacies of the Haitian Revolution

DBQ: The Haitian Revolution’s Impact on the United States

LO 2.12.A - Explain the global impacts of the Haitian Revolution.

Objective: Students will contextualize and analyze primary source documents in order to evaluate the extent of the impact of the Haitian Revolution on the history and culture of the United States.

“If we live in a world in which democracy is meant to exclude no one, it is in no small part because of the actions of those slaves in Saint-Domingue who insisted that human rights were theirs too… by creating a society in which all people, of all colors, were granted freedom and citizenship, the Haitian Revolution forever transformed the world. It was a central part of the destruction of slavery in the Americas, and therefore a crucial moment in the history of democracy, one that laid the foundation for the continuing struggles for human rights everywhere.” - Lauren Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 2005.

New to the DBQ? Click here for an introduction to the DBQ which includes student and teacher guides, handouts, and slides.

Notes

Notably missing in these documents is a reference to the Louisiana Purchase (Essential Knowledge 2.12.A.2). This is by design as it is a simple concrete example that students could use for the outside evidence point.

The 5 documents include 4 required sources:

• Frederick Douglass’s 1893 World’s Fair Speech (2.12)

• Jacob Lawrence’s Toussiant Louvture painting (2.12)

• Jefferson’s Letter to Rufus King (2.13)

• David Walker’s Appeal (2.19)

The other document is a letter filled with rumors surrounding the Denmark Vesey trial in Charleston, South Carolina (required content 2.13). The letter is a historical example of the spread of misinformation, but that is not required knowledge. The significant aspect of the letter is the connection of the Haitian Revolution to slave rebellions and the impact of Haiti’s Revolution on the American psyche.

On the AP exam, students will have 45 minutes to read the documents and make a historically defensible claim based on their contextualization and analysis of at least 3 of the 5 documents.

2025 UPDATES

In 2025, the College Board’s AP African American Studies Exam featured a DBQ for the first time. Unlike the DBQs in AP U.S. and World History, the AP African American Studies DBQ included a secondary source alongside primary sources. While I won’t be making major changes to how I teach or structure DBQs, I will now include one secondary source in each set moving forward. Therefore, I’ve included an updated DBQ to this page in which the second document is a secondary source passage from historian Laurent Dubois’s brilliant 2004 book, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. I can’t recommend this book enough, to anyone interested in history, democracy, or the human experience as a whole!