Présence Africaine Editions

Toussaint-Louverture and the Haitian Revolution

Author(s): John Henrik CLARKE
Source: Présence Africaine, Nouvelle série, No. 89 (1er TRIMESTRE 1974), pp. 179-187
Published by: Présence Africaine Editions
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/24349711
Accessed: 06-10-2016 12:31 UTC

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John Henrik CLARKE

Toussaint-Louverture
and the Haitian Revolution

In what is considered to be the best book on the Haitian

Revolution, The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James, the following
capsule history of that revolution is given :

« In 1789, the French West Indian colony of San Do

mingo supplied two-thirds of the overseas trade of France
and was the greatest individual market for the European
slave-trade. It was an integral part of the economic life
of the age, the greatest colony in the world, the pride of
France, and the envy of every other imperialist nation.
The whole structure rested on the labour of half-a-million
slaves.
» In August 1791, after two years of the French Revo
lution and its repercussions in San Domingo, the slaves
revolted. The struggle lasted for 12 years. The slaves de
feated in turn the local Whites and the soldiers of the
French monarchy, a Spanish invasion, a British expedi
tion of some 60,000 men, and a French expedition of simi
lar size under Bonaparte's brother-in-law. The defeat of
Bonaparte's expedition in 1803 resulted in the establish
ment of the Negro State of Haiti which has lasted to this
day.
» The revolt is the only successful slave revolt in his
tory, and the odds it had to overcome is evidence of the
magnitude of the interests that were involved. The trans
formation of slaves, trembling in hundreds before a
single white man, into a people able to organise them
selves and defeat the most powerful European nations
of their day, is one of the great epics of revolutionary
struggle and achievement ».

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 180 PRÉSENCE AFRICAINE

Toussaint-Louverture, the s
indirectly, to free a large pa
from French colonial rule. H
revolution and successfully l
history. The success of this
treasury caused by their att
lying reason why Napoleon
The aftermath of this revolt rendered more certain the final
prohibition of the slave-trade in the United States.
Rumours of the successful slave revolt in Haiti reached the
United States and inspired some of the major slave revolts
during the early part of the 19th. century. It also prompted
white Americans to enact more stringent laws against slaves
meeting to discuss their plight.
The following information on the effects of the Haitian
Revolution on the struggle for freedom of the slaves in the
United States is extracted from the Proceedings of the Eighth
Conference for the Study of the Negro Problem held at Atlanta
University, May 26, 1903 :

« The effect of the revolution on the religious life of

the slaves was quickly felt. In 1800, South Carolina de
clared : 'It shall not be lawful for any number of slaves,
free Negroes, mulattoes or mestizoes, even in company
with white persons, to meet together and assemble for
the purpose of mental instruction or religious worship,
either before the rising of the sun or after the going down
of the same. And all magistrates, sheriffs, militia officers,
etc., etc., are hereby vested with power, etc., for dispersing
such assemblies'.

»By 1822 the rigor of the South Carolina laws in re

gard to Negro meetings had abated, especially in a city
like Charleston, and one of the results was the Denmark
Vesey plot.
» The plot was well-laid, but the conspirators were
betrayed. Less than ten years after this plot was dis
covered and Vesey and his associates hanged, there broke
out the Nat Turner insurrection in Virginia. Turner was
himself a preacher.
»The Turner insurrection is so connected with the
economic revolution which enthroned cotton that it marks
an epoch in the history of the slave. A wave of legislation
passed over the South prohibiting the slaves from learning
to read and write, forbidding Negroes to preach, and in

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TOUSSAINT-LOUVERTURE AND THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION 181

terfering with Negro religious meetings. Virginia declared,

in 1831, that neither slaves nor free Negroes might preach,
nor could they attend religious services at night without
permission. In North Carolina, slaves and free Negroes
were forbidden to preach, exhort or teach 'in any prayer
meeting or other association for worship where slaves of
different families are collected together' on penalty of not
more than thirty-nine lashes. Maryland and Georgia had
similar laws. The Mississippi law of 1831 said : 'It is
unlawful for any slave, free Negro, or mulatto to preach
the gospel' upon pain of receiving thirty-nine lashes upon
the naked back of the presumptuous preacher. If a Negro
received written permission from his master he might
preach to the Negroes in his immediate neighborhood,
providing six respectable white men, owners of slaves,
were present. In Alabama, the law of 1832 prohibited the
assembling of more than five male slaves at any place
off the plantation to which they belonged, but nothing in
the act was to be considered as forbidding attendance at
places of public worship held by white persons. No slave
or free person of color was permitted to 'preach, exhort,
or harrangue any slave or slaves, or free persons of color,
except in the presence of five respectable slaveholders or
unless the person preaching was licensed by some regular
body of professing Christians in the neighborhood, to
whose society or church the Negroes addressed properly
belonged'.
»In the District of Columbia, the free Negroes began
to leave white churches in 1831 and to assemble in their
own ».

I •
* *

The Haitian Revolution led by Toussaint-Louverture h

to set in motion the early Black Revolt against slavery
United States. In order to understand this we must just
stand his story and how the idea of revolt developed
him.

Toussaint-Louverture, the hero of this story, came of a

line. His grandfather was Gaou Ginou, King of the Arr
powerful tribe on the West Coast of Africa. The son w
tured by a hostile tribe and sold into slavery in one of the
Indian Islands, Santo Domingo. Here, his son, Pierre D

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 182 PRÉSENCE AFRICAINE

Toussaint, better known as Toussaint-Louverture, was born in

1743, a slave but the grandson of a king !
Nothing very much is known of his boyhood days, except
that he was very intelligent and loyal. Because of his faithfulness
he rose rapidly from the occupation of shepherd to coachman
and thence to the position of foreman on the large plantation
where he lived.
He was always fond of reading and managed, remarkably
enough, to become acquainted with one or two foreign lan
guages ; certainly he knew Latin. His tastes were various but
chiefly he read the writings of Epictetus, himself once a slave
in Greece, who later became a philosopher. Isn't that a fine
picture — this boy on the tropical plantation reading the works
of one whose early life had been as his own and who, later on,
rose to fame ? Besides Epictetus, Toussaint read Plutarch's
Lives and several very technical, informative works on warfare
and the conduct of battles.
But chiefly he liked the Frenchman Diderot's History of the
East and West Indies in which Diderot, writing under the name
of the Abbé Raynal, said :

« Nations of Europe, your slaves need neither your

generosity nor your advice to break the sacrilegious yoke
which oppresses them. They only need a chief sufficiently
courageous to lead them to vengeance and slaughter.
Where can this great man be found ? Where is this new
Spartacus ? He will appear, we cannot doubt it ; he will
show himself to raise the sacred standard of Liberty and
gather round him his companions in misfortune ! More
impetuous than the mountain torrents, they will leave
behind them on all sides the ineffaceable signs of their
great resentment ! »

Self-confidence is a part of greatness. Modesty is a good

thing, a fine thing, but one does not get very far on that quality
alone, no matter how deserving. Toussaint, poring over these
words from his youth up, feeling more and more keenly the
horror of his condition, finally became convinced that these
words applied to him and that he was that promised leader.
Yet 50 years elapsed before he acted on this. When he was 54,
he tells us : « Since the Blacks are free they need a chief, and
it is I who must be that leader predicted by the Abbé Raynal ».
The island of Haiti and Santo Domingo —■ these two pro

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TOUSSAINT-LOUVERTURE AND THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION 183

vinces form the same island, you must remember — was in a

terrible plight in those days. Fighting, misgovernment, slavery
and disaster ruled on all sides. Three powerful nations of Europe
— England, France and Spain — were warring with each other
because of their interests, and rebellions on the part of the
slaves were constantly breaking out against their various
masters. French slavery flourished most in Haiti, where condi
tions were unspeakable for over a century. Finally, after the
outbreak of the French Revolution, the Haitians sent two dele
gates to Paris. One of them, Oge, on his return, started a
small rebellion which led to much bloodshed.

Now, many black Haitians had in various ways achieved

their actual freedom, but did not have the rights of freedom.
In order to offset the consequences of Oge's rebellion, France
granted to these free Blacks all civil privileges, making them
free in deed as well as in name. Immediately, a new confusion
arose, for the free Blacks took up arms against the white
owners of slave plantations and 452,000 slaves rose up to take
sides with them.

This was in August, 1791. Toussaint, still a foreman on his

master's plantation, felt his time had come. He first helped
Bayou de Libertat, the general overseer of the plantation, who
had been very kind to him, to escape with his wife and family.
Then he enlisted in the cause of other Blacks. He was a surgeon
at first, but in the general confusion he realized that a good
drillmaster would be of more service and so he began to train
and direct. His early reading doubtless helped him out here, but
he was a natural leader, and generalship came as easily to him
as breathing.
He seems to have been fitted in every way for the position
which was finally his. His tastes and needs were extraordinarily
simple. As a rule, his meals consisted of a few oatmeal cakes,
two or three bananas and water. He never touched wine.
Nothing was too strenuous or fatiguing for him ; he did n
know the meaning of fear. He could do without sleep and
frequently went with no more than two hours of sleep a
night, and he was a magnificent horseman. Then, too, he had
« good luck ». In seven years of campaigning, he was wounded
19 times and never once seriously. He had great personal mag
netism and impressiveness and an abundance of self-confi
dence.
At first, Toussaint allied himself with the Spanish who
were fighting the French. Under his leadership, the black troops
advanced from victory to victory. It was at this time that
Toussaint took on the extra name of Louverture because he

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 184 PRÉSENCE AFRICAINE

believed that he was « the o

things for his fellow-men. I
his steady advance he never
flicted unnecessary cruelty or
revenge. And it was proverb
English that he never broke h
Now although Toussaint had
his heart was really with the
customs and training that he
would have preferred to all
French, hard-pressed by the
finally proclaimed the abolit
immediately left the Spanish
this stand nothing could mo
the English forces, offered th
saint. He refused. He wanted
to be free under France.

By 1800, Haitian affairs had begun to calm down. The

Spanish and English forces withdraw and the French, although
unwillingly, also left the island also with Toussaint as Comman
der-in-Chief of Forces. He showed himself as able a ruler in
peace as in war. He drew up a constitution under which Haiti
was independent. He was to be Governor or President for life
and had the power to name his successor. There was to be
religious freedom throughout the province and the ports of the
island were to be thrown open to the world.
He sent a draft of this constitution to France for official
confirmation : but Napoleon, alas, had never forgiven the
Haitian warrior for his successful resistance to France. Instead,
therefore, of honoring his suggestion, the French ruler sent an
immense army of 60,000 men to the island to call on him to
surrender. When Toussaint saw the fleet coming into the
harbor he knew resistance was useless and rushed to Cape
François to tell his people not to take part in an opposition
which could avail them nothing. But he arrived there too late.
His general, Christophe, had refused to let the white troops
land and the fighting was already on. Toussaint felt that he
must, for lovalty's sake, join in, but the odds were too heavy
and he was forced to retreat.
As it happened, both Toussaint's own son, Isaac, and his

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TOUSSAINT-LOUVERTURE AND THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION 185

stepson, Placide, had been sent to France to complete their edu

cation. These Napoleon had sent back with the fleet to Haiti,
and they were now brought to their father by the French
General Leclerc to urge him to surrender to France. Toussaint,
who was both proud and just, told the boys to choose between
him and their foster country — he would love them none the
less, no matter what their decision.
Strangely enough, Isaac, his own son, said : « You see in me
a faithful servant of France, who could never agree to take up
arms against her ». But Placide, who was bound to him by no
tie of blood but who owed all his position and training to him,
exclaimed : «7 am yours, Father ! I fear the future ; I fear
slavery. I am ready to fight to oppose it. I know France no
more ! »
Isaac returned to Leclerc to tell him his father's and
brother's decision, but Placide stayed and fought at the h
of a black battalion.

It is sad to admit that Toussaint finally had to yield. He

retreated to his home at Gonaives and even then he might
have lived out a peaceful and comparatively happy existence.
But, summoned by a message, he visited, unarmed and alone,
the house of a treacherous general called Brunet, where he was
seized, put in irons, placed on board the French man-of-war
Heros and taken with his wife and children to Brest. They
never saw Haiti again.
He never lost his superb courage. He said to his captors,
« In overthrowing me, you have only cut down the trunk of
the tree of Negro Liberty. Its roots will sprout again, for they
are many in number and deeply planted ! »
At the harbor of Brest in France, he bade a final goodbye
to his family and was removed to Fort Joux on the edge of
the Jura Mountains. Here he was placed in a deep dungeon
which in itself was fatal to a man used, as he was, to tropical
light and sunshine. He was very closely confined here, every
indignity heaped upon him, his faithful servant, Maro Plaisir,
was taken from him and, finally, lest he should commit suicide,
his watch and razor were removed.
But this sort of insult meant nothing to that unvanquished
spirit. « I have been much misjudged », he said scornfully,
« if I am thought to be lacking in courage to support my
sorrow ».

For 18 months he lingered on. Then one day the G

of the prison took a holiday, leaving things in charg
tenant Colonier, and hinting to him that if the vulnerable
Haitian were dead on his return, there would be no inquiries

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 186 PRÉSENCE AFRICAINE

made. It is pleasant to know tha

to such a dastardly hint, too
absence to give Toussaint coff
had so long desired. The Gove
his trick had not worked, took,
This time he took the keys wit
saying that everything had bee
He stayed away four days. W
lay in his cell, dead from starv
But does it greatly matter ?
do you think he would have p
implanting and fostering of th
Haiti ? No need to guess. His n
dreams. Lamartine, the French
Comte, the great philosopher,
types of manhood in the wor
the oration which all of you kn
and martyr ».
But best of all, his influence
wrote to him :

« Thou hast left behind

Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies;
There's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee ; thou hast great allies
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind ».

Toussaint-Louverture did not die in vain and his country

was not destroyed after his death. The people of Haiti did not
forget him and he is their national hero to this day.

John Henrik CLARKE

Afro-American historian.

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TOUSSAINT-LOUVERTURE AND THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION 187

REFERENCES

Black Majesty, by J.W. Vandercook. Blue Ribbon Books, Harpe

& Bros. New York, 1928. 15th printing, 1934. Scholastic
Books Edition, 1963.
The Slave Who Freed Haiti, by Katherine Scherman. A World
Landmark Book, Random House, New York, 1954.
Toussaint Louverture, by Wendell Phillips, Bryant Foundation,
Los Angeles, California, May 1966.
Distinguished Negroes Abroad, by Beatrice Jackson Fleming and
Marion Jackson Pryde. The Associated Publishers, Washing
ton, D. C. 1946, pp. 65-69.
Golden Legacy, Fitzgerald Publishing Co. Vol. I, St. Albans,
N. Y., 1966.
World's Great Men of Color — 3000 B.C. to 1946 A.D., (Vol. 2),
by J. A. Rogers. New edition, edited with introduction and
commentary by John Henrik Clarke, Macmillan and Co.,
New York, 1972, pages 228-240.
From Columbus to Castro : The History of the Caribbean 1492
1969, by Eric Williams. Harper and Row, 1970. See data
listed in index under Haiti, p. 507.
Great Negroes Past and Present, by Russell L. Adams. Afro-Am
Publishing Co. Chicago, 111. Third Edition 1969, pp. 16-19.
Caribbean : Sea of the new World, by German Arciniegas. Alfred
A. Knopf, New York, 1946, pp. 324-346.
The Rise of the Colored Races, by Keith Irvine. Norton and Co.,
New York, 1970.
Toussaint Louverture, edited by George F. Tyson, Jr. Prentice
Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1973.
Toussaint, The Black Liberator, by Ronald Svme. William Mor
row and Co., Inc., New York, 1971.
Citizen Toussaint; A Biography by Ralph Korngold. Hill and
Wang, New York, 1965.
Capitalism and Slavery, by Eric Williams. Capricorn Books,
New York, 1966, pp. 195-204.
The Black Jacobins, by C. L. R. James. Vintage Books, New
York, 1963.

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