A Vodou ceremony, led by Dutty Boukman, turns into a violent slave rebellion, beginning the Haitian Revolution.

Bois Caïman was the site of the first major meeting of enslaved blacks during which the first major slave insurrection of the Haitian Revolution was planned.

Dutty Boukman was a leader of the Haitian Revolution. Born to a Muslim family in Senegambia, he was initially enslaved in Jamaica. He eventually ended up in Haiti, where he may have become a leader of the maroons and a vodou houngan (priest), however this claim only originated in modern sources.

The Haitian Revolution was a successful insurrection by rebellious self-liberated enslaved Africans against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolution was the only known slave rebellion in human history that led to the founding of a state which was both free from slavery and ruled by non-whites and former captives.