In the 19th century Spanish elites vilified the Haitian revolution calling it violent and barbaric instead of a reasoned response to an exploitative slave society. The enslaved challenged the worldview that they did not have the intellect, military ability, and organizational skills to revolt and establish political independence from one of the most successful military minds in history in Napoleon Bonaparte. For enslaved peoples in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic Haiti symbolized freedom and equality and that message spread throughout the Americas including the US South.