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| − | ===Toussaint Louverture is betrayed by the French===
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| − | In [[1802]], [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] sent his brother-in-law General [[Leclerc]] with an expedition of 20,000 soldiers and secret orders to retake control of the colony and to reinstitute slavery. Toussaint's rebel forces put up fierce resistance, ultimately causing Napoleon to commit 40,000 additional troops. Eventually, though, critical hesitations along with defections and betrayals within his officer corps led to Toussaint's surrender. Though allowed to retire from the field and return to civilian life, Toussaint was eventually betrayed, kidnapped, and taken to a prison in the French Alps. Upon leaving Saint-Domingue, Toussaint remarked to Daniel Savary, a French captain, : "''In overthrowing me, you have cut down in [[Saint-Domingue]] only the trunk of the tree of liberty. It will spring up again by the roots, for they are numerous ''". He never saw his country again.
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| − | Toussaint Louverture would die in [[Fort de Joux]] on [[April 7]], [[1803]], unaware that his army would rally behind the leadership of his former general, [[Jean Jacques Dessalines]], to win the colony's independence for good. After a many very hard fought battles, the last of which was the [[Battle of Vertières]], the newly liberated [[Haiti]] declared independence on [[January 1]], [[1804]].
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| − | In 2003 the international airport in the Haitian capital [[Port-au-Prince]] was renamed Toussaint Louverture Airport.
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| − | [[image:t_louverture_portrait.jpg|right|thumb|115px|Lithograph by Maurin after a lost earlier drawing (1838).]] '''What did Toussaint look like?'''
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| − | There are no definitive, surviving portraits of Toussaint, so no one knows for sure. Most who described him say he was not a handsome man, but had a powerful presence. Marcus Rainsford, for one, observed: ""He is a perfect black ... of a venerable appearance, but possessed of uncommon discernment. ... He wears as a uniform, a kind of blue spencer, with a large red cape falling over his shoulders, and red cuffs with eight rows of lace on his arms, and a pair of large gold epaulettes thrown back on his shoulders; a scarlet waiscoat, pantaloons and half-boots; a round hat with a red feather and national cockade; and an extreme large sward is suspended from his side."
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| − | '''What others have said about Toussaint Louverture'''
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| − | * "At the head of all is the most active and indefatigable man one can imagine. One can definitely say that he is everwhere and above all in the place where sound judgement and danger lead him to believe that his presence is the most essential. His great sobriety and the ability given only to him of never resting, the advantage he has of going back to office work after a tiresome journey, of replying to a hundred letters a day and of habitually exhausting five secretaries." ''- [[Colonel Vincent]], in a note to Bonaparte. ([[Parkinson]], p. 84)''
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| − | * Beauchamp said "His political performance was such that, in a wider sphere, Napoleon appears to have imitated him." ''([[Korngold]], p. xi)''
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| − | * "Toussaint is a Negro and in the jargon of war he is also called a brigand. But we would like to say that this Negro who was born to avenge the outrage to his race has proved that the character of a man has nothing to do with his colour." ''- The London Gazette, 1798 ([[Parkinson]], p. 84)''
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| − | * "Toussaint with a greatness of mind which was remarkable agreed to allow those French colonists who had sided with us to remain and promised to respect their properties; as it was known that this magnanimous black ever kept his word, no important exodus followed our retreat." ''- Sir Spencer St. John ([[Parkinson]], p. 97)''
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| − | * "The [French Directory's Agent in [[Saint Domingue]] does nothing at present but what he is desired to do. The whole machine of Government, both civil and military, is regulated and guided by the General-in-Chief." ''- [[Edward Stevens]], Consul General of the United States of America to Saint Domingue, in a dispatch to General [[Thomas Maitland]], Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force to [[Saint Domingue]]. ([[Korngold]], p. ix)''
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| − | * "He says a thousand rosaries a day in order to deceive everyone the better." ''- Georges Biassou ([[Parkinson]], p. 77)''
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| − | * "Never did one know where he was, nor what he was doing, if he was leaving, if he was staying, where he was going, from where he was coming." - ''Pamphile Lacroix (Parkinson, p. 84)''
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| − | * "General [[Laveaux]] called him "the negro, the Spartacus, foretold by Raynal, whose destiny it was to avenge the wrongs committed on his race" (Rainsford)
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| − | * "<nowiki>[T]</nowiki>he Spanish [[Marquis d'Hermona]] declared, in the hyperbole of admiration, that "if the Supreme had descended on earth, he could not inhabit a heart more apparently good, than that of Toussaint L'Ouverture." (Rainsford)
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| − | *"The role which the great Negro Toussaint, called L'Ouverture, played in the history of the United States has seldom been fully appreciated. Representing the age of revolution in America, he rose to leadership through a bloody terror, which contrived a Negro "problem" for the Western hemisphere, intensified and defined the anti-slavery movement, became one of the causes, and probably the prime one, which led [[Napoleon]] to [[The Revolution and the Louisiana Purchase|sell Louisiana]] for a song; and, finally, through the interworking of all these effects, rendered more certain the final prohibition of the slave-trade by the United States in 1807" (Du Bois, p. 70).
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| − | * "Without military knowledge he fought like one born in the camp. Without means he carried on the war. He beat his enemies in battle, and turned their own weapons against them. He laid the foundation for the emancipation of his race and the independence of the island." ([[William Wells Brown - Toussaint L'Ouverture|Wells Brown]] p. 104)
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| | ==See Also== | | ==See Also== |
