The chant among the enslaved Africans in Haiti was heard, "Coupe tet, boule kay!" and the Haitians complemented the rhetoric with full force-fueled by years of heartache, humiliation, torture, and inhumane treatment. The 500,000 enslaved Africans in Haiti, along with tens of thousands of Maroons, collectively took up arms and defeated the French, awarding Haiti with the title of the first Black Republic in the Western world and becoming the only people to win a slave revolution in the history of the world. The Haitians, with the support of strong leadership, were united physically and mentally. Sealing this collective support was their belief in a religion mustered trom their traditional religion in Africa. An important leader of this revolutionary period was a Voodoo priest, Dutty Boukman. Other leaders during the various stages in the revolution included Toussaint L'Ouverture, Andre Rigaud, Jean-Francois, Biassou, Jeannot, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and Henry Christophe, many of which were former generals in the French army.
