As geopolitical warfare intensified in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, free individuals of African heritage increasingly disputed European ideologies that condemned them as naturally inferior and lacking in humanity. With the onset of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) and the Latin American wars for independence (1810-1825), individuals and groups of African descent circulated their own views. I argue that free Blacks from colonial Saint Domingue, Jamaica, and Cuba employed similar rhetorical strategies across the French, British, and Spanish empires. Their speeches, petitions, and declarations forged distinct Afro-Atlantic counter-discourses that proclaimed their equality and advocated for their human and civil rights.
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