From the American Revolution to the Making of Haiti: Defining the Characteristics of a Tyrannical Regime and its Tyrant.

This thesis aims investigate the historical characteristics, features, and common traits that allows to define the tyrannical nature of a government and its ruler(s). To elaborate the final answer, the starting points of this research are the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence, one of most prominent documents issued by the Founding Fathers on the 4th of July 1776. The first chapter provides a solid and detailed historical background of the primary legislative acts and events that prompted the former colonies to draft the Declaration of Independence through which they condemned the motherland for the implementation of a tyrannical regime. The second chapter focuses the concept of tyranny and its historical evolution. Selected thinkers such as Plato, John Locke, and Thomas Paine play a vital role in underscoring the attitudes and the characteristics of tyrants and their regime, which are deemed fundamental in order to provide a solid conceptual ground which facilitates the comprehension of not only the tyranny analysed in the first chapter but also of the purpose and the essence of the third chapter. In the third and final chapter, two key figures of the American and Haitian revolutions will be analysed, namely Thomas Jefferson and Touissaint Louverture. Through a precise analysis of their respective views and approaches to the institution of slavery, the chapter aims to provide a concrete and specific example of what a tyrant could be