<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article is written like a travel guide rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject . Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style . If a travel guide is intended, use of Wikivoyage is strongly suggested . (June 2016) </Td> </Tr> <P> The Haitian Revolution provoked mixed reactions in the United States when in 1804, after a 13 - year campaign, Haitian slaves, mainly led by Toussaint Louverture, overthrew the French colonial rule and declared Haiti an independent emancipated state . This led to uneasiness in the US, instilling fears of racial instability on its own soil and possible problems with foreign relations and trade between the two countries . </P> <P> US president Thomas Jefferson realized the revolution had the potential to cause an upheaval against slavery in the US not only by slaves, but by white abolitionists as well . Southern slaveholders feared the revolt might spread from the island of Hispaniola to their own plantations . Against this background and with the declared primary goal of maintaining social order in Haiti, the US attempted to suppress the revolution, refusing acknowledgement of Haitian independence until 1862, during the heat of the American Civil War when southern slaveholders who had opposed recognition largely left the Senate . </P> <P> The US also embargoed trade with the nascent state . American merchants had conducted a substantial trade with the plantations on Hispaniola throughout the 18th century, the French - ruled territory providing nearly all of its sugar and coffee . However, once the Haitian slave population emancipated itself, the US was reluctant to continue trade for fear of upsetting the evicted French on one hand and its Southern slaveholders on the other . </P>

Effects of the haitian revolution on the united states