Dutty Boukman
early leader of Haitian Revolution
Dutty Boukman (or Boukman Dutty; died 7 November 1791) was a leader of the Haitian Revolution. Born to a Muslim family in Senegambia (present-day Senegal and The Gambia), 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.
According to some contemporary accounts, Boukman, alongside Cécile Fatiman, a Vodou mambo, presided over the religious ceremony at Bois Caïman, in August 1791, that served as the catalyst to the 1791 slave revolt which is usually considered the beginning of the Haitian Revolution.
Boukman was a key leader of the slave revolt in the Le Cap‑Français region in the north of the colony. He was killed by the French planters and colonial troops on 7 November 1791, just a few months after the beginning of the uprising.
Background
In about 1767, Dutty Boukman was born in the region of Senegambia (present-day Senegal and Gambia), where he was a Muslim cleric. He was captured in Senegambia, and forced into slavery in the Caribbean, first to the island of Jamaica, then Saint-Domingue, modern-day Haiti, where he became a Haitian Vodou houngan priest. He was known to some of his followers as "Zamba" Boukman. After he attempted to teach other enslaved people how to read, he was sold to a French plantation owner and placed as a commandeur (slave driver) and, later, a coach driver.
“Dutty Boukman” enters the record as early leader of Haitian Revolution. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Dutty, Boukman and early can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1268017. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1791 and 1767.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dutty Boukman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.