In the American Revolution, Enlightenment principles, natural rights, and the traditions of English liberty combined with the martial valor of the Continental Army to produce a new birth of freedom on this continent. It and the French Revolution went on to inspire similar uprisings throughout the New World, but often with less salutary results. In Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture, British historian Sudhir Hazareesingh gives us a thorough and fascinating biography of the leaders of one of these, the revolution in Haiti.
Born in 1743 on a plantation Saint-Domingue (as Haiti was then known), Toussaint would later say that “I was born a slave, but nature gave me the soul of a free man.” After some early instruction by the Jesuits in Haiti, the rest of his education was self-taught. He was freed from slavery in about 1776 but continued to work on the plantation and grew to be a respected figure in the slave community there. As the Revolution in France spread to its Caribbean colonies, he naturally extended that leadership into the slaves’ fight for freedom.
Much of what followed is bound up in that phrase “the soul of a free man.” Toussaint—later known as Toussaint Breda or Toussaint Louverture (Hazareesingh refers to him simply as “Toussaint” throughout the book)—had more to say about the soul than most French Enlightenment figures. Perhaps because of the Jesuits’ insistence on preaching to and even educating the slaves in defiance of the law, Toussaint remained a devout Catholic throughout his life. At the same time, confusingly to non-Haitian readers, Hazareesingh notes that Toussaint was well aware of the syncretic African traditions in Haiti that became known as vodou. The extent to which Toussaint participated in vodou ceremonies is unclear, but it was certainly a part of the milieu of his homeland.
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