The differences in the revolutions in America and Haiti are far more numerous than any similarities. They were different in their causes, leadership, and effects.

America's Revolutionary War (1775–1783) had financial and territorial causes. After 1763, London expected the Americans to pay taxes. Numerous taxes were implemented, and they were loathed by the Americans. The colonists thought the taxes were unfair because they did not have direct representation in the British Parliament. Also, the colonists thought London impinged on their sovereignty by keeping them out of the frontier areas and by setting up British garrisons in the colonies.

The key factors in Haiti prior to its revolt in the 1790s were race and slavery. The French colony was divided into black slaves (about half-a-million), Europeans (32,000), and mixed-race or mulattoes (24,000). Living and working conditions for the slaves were abhorrent, and they were seething with resentment. The mulattoes were frustrated because they were not accepted into the 'European' society in Haiti. Fighting broke between the Europeans and the mulattoes, and then the slaves revolted. The complex conflict, which lasted for a decade, was longer than that in America.

George Washington and Toussaint Louverture emerged as the military and political commanders of America and Haiti, respectively. Even though both had been successful battlefield commanders, they were very different men. Washington did not want to be king, and he was even loath to become the first president of the new nation. However, Toussaint became a dictator who removed his enemies. Toussaint was highly intelligent, and he abhorred slavery. But his erratic leadership caused instability, and that instability continues in present-day Haiti. Washington retired and died peacefully; his successor inherited a stable nation. Toussaint, on the other hand, met a violent death, and his successors eventually took over a destitute nation.

Both the Haitian and American Revolutions were motivated to some extent by ideas of natural rights.  In Haiti, planters justified demands for their own independence in these terms, free men of color did the same, and ultimately slaves did too. Both struggles involved violent domestic conflict, especially the Haitian Revolution and the American Revolution in the southern backcountry.

Both involved, of course, immense slave populations, but slaves rose up to win independence and freedom in Haiti, while thousands fled to British lines during the American Revolution. Ultimately, however, the Haitian Revolution was followed almost immediately by violent civil war, while the American Revolution was followed by a counter-revolutionary Constitution that was intended to squelch much popular political participation, dissent, and disorder.

For obvious reasons, the Haitian Revolution excited slave populations in America (Gabriel's Revolt in Richmond has been linked to the Haitian Revolution as well as to the turmoil caused by the disputed ending to the election of 1800) and terrified American slave owners, including many, like President Thomas Jefferson, who had been revolutionary leaders themselves.