Sound The Alert! Haiti Needs You The lambi (pronounced lahm-bee) is the Haitian Creole word for conch shell. The conch shell, blown as a horn, has played a vital role in community organizing throughout Haiti's history. During the slave rebellion against the French colonialists in 1791, the lambi's call alerted the slaves to impending danger and the need to assemble. Today, the echo of the lambi alerts villagers in distant hamlets that a community meeting is about to commence. The symbol of the lambi was chosen to represent the Haitian people's hope, strength, resistance, and struggle for self-determination.

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Bois Caïman (Haitian Creole: Bwa Kayiman) is the site of the Vodou ceremony presided over by Dutty Boukman on August 14, 1791. The stated purpose of the ritual was to attempt to overthrow French rule, which was based on slave labor.[1]

On 1 January 1804, Dessalines, the new leader under the dictatorial 1801 constitution, declared Haiti a free republic. Haiti was the first independent nation in Latin America, the first post-colonial independent black-led nation in the world, and the only nation whose independence was gained as part of a successful slave rebellion. The country was crippled by years of war, its agriculture devastated, its formal commerce nonexistent, and the people uneducated and mostly unskilled.[19][1]

Haiti agreed to make reparations to French slaveholders in 1825 in the amount of 150 million francs, reduced in 1838 to 60 million francs, in exchange for French recognition of its independence and to achieve freedom from French aggression. This indemnity bankrupted the Haitian treasury and mortgaged Haiti's future to the French banks providing the funds for the large first installment, permanently affecting Haiti's ability to be prosperous.[20]

The end of the Haitian Revolution in 1804 marked the end of colonialism in Haiti, but the social conflict cultivated under slavery continued to affect the population. The revolution left in power an affranchi élite as well as the formidable Haitian army. France continued the slavery system in Martinique and Guadeloupe. Great Britain was able to abolish its slave trade in 1807 and in 1833 abolished slavery completely in the British West Indies. France formally recognized Haiti as an independent nation in 1834, as did the United States in 1862.[8]