On New Year’s Day 1804, the rebels proclaimed the birth of the new state of Haiti, a name derived from the Taíno term for the island of Hispaniola. The French defeat at the hands of the Haitian rebels—and the island’s mosquitoes—helped to shape the modern world. Without a base in Saint-Domingue, Napoleon had little choice but to abandon his grand plan of building an empire in the western hemisphere. In December 1803, France sold its North American colonial possessions to the United States for $15 million.
