The definitive biography of the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint
Louverture, leader of the only successful slave revolt in world
history
Toussaint Louverture's life was one of hardship, triumph, and
contradiction. Born into bondage in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti),
the richest colony in the Western Hemisphere, he witnessed first-hand
the torture of the enslaved population. Yet he managed to secure his
freedom and establish himself as a small-scale planter. He even
purchased slaves of his own.
In Toussaint Louverture, Philippe Girard reveals the dramatic story of
how Louverture transformed himself from lowly freedman to revolutionary
hero. In 1791, the unassuming Louverture masterminded the only
successful slave revolt in history. By 1801, he was general and governor
of Saint-Domingue, and an international statesman who forged treaties
with Britain, France, Spain, and the United States-empires that feared
the effect his example would have on their slave regimes. Louveture's
ascendency was short-lived, however. In 1802, he was exiled to France,
dying soon after as one of the most famous men in the world, variously
feared and celebrated as the Black Napoleon.
As Girard shows, in life Louverture was not an idealist, but an
ambitious pragmatist. He strove not only for abolition and independence,
but to build Saint-Domingue's economic might and elevate his own social
standing. He helped free Saint-Domingue's slaves yet immediately
restricted their rights in the interests of protecting the island's
sugar production. He warded off French invasions but embraced the
cultural model of the French gentility.
In death, Louverture quickly passed into legend, his memory inspiring
abolitionist, black nationalist, and anti-colonialist movements well
into the 20th century. Deeply researched and bracingly original,
Toussaint Louverture is the definitive biography of one of the most
influential people of his era, or any other.
