[2] 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.
He was captured in Senegambia, and transported as a slave to the Caribbean, first to the island of Jamaica, then Saint-Domingue, modern-day Haiti, where he reverted to his indigenous religion and became a Haitian Vodou houngan priest.
Boukman and priestess Cécile Fatiman presided over the last of a series of meetings to organize a slave revolt for weeks in advance; the co-conspirators in attendance included Jean François, Biassou, Jeannot, and others.
An animal was sacrificed, an oath was taken, and Boukman gave the following speech: ...This God who made the sun, who brings us light from above, who raises the sea, and who makes the storm rumble.
Listen to the liberty that speaks in all our hearts.According to Gothenburg University researcher Markel Thylefors, "The event of the Bois Caïman ceremony forms an important part of Haitian national identity as it relates to the very genesis of Haiti.