Toussaint Louverture

"In overthrowing me you have cut down in Saint Domingue only the trunk of the tree of liberty; it will spring up again from the roots, for they are many and they are deep."

Toussaint Louverture was born in French colony of Saint Domingue, present-day Haiti as a slave. His father was the son of a defeated king of Benin who was captured and sold to white slave traders, being sent to Haiti to work on a plantation. Little is known about Toussaint's early life, except that he was a slave until age 33, when he was freed in 1776. At some point in his life, Louverture became educated, possibly by Jesuit missionaries, being familiar with medicine and some familiarity with philosophy and political literature, as well as gaining a basic ability to write. Louverture amassed considerable wealth as a free man by 1789, when a slave revolt broke out, Louverture was initially not involved, but in 1791, he acted as a mediator between the rebels and the French leadership. Negotiations, however, broke down, though Louverture did prevent the massacre of white prisoners held by the rebels. In 1791, Louverture become committed to the abolition of slavery, and in 1792, Toissaint truly became a leader among the rebels, training his troops in both guerrilla warfare and in the "European" style of war. In 1793, Louverture fought a campaign against French forces, at this time taking on the surname Louverture.

While Louverture was generally a royalist, when the French Revolutionary Government took abolished slavery in 1794, Louverture sided with the French, commanding military forces in Saint Domingue. During this time, he defeated Spanish and British incursions into Saint Domingue, as well as occasional small rebellions, and was eventually appointed territorial lieutenant governor, overseeing a period of tension between white landowners and former slaves, as well as a conflict with radical rival revolutionary Sonothonax. He later negotiated with the British in 1798, ending the conflict in exchange for guarantees that his anti-slavery revolution would not be extended to Jamaica and signed a similar treaty with the United States. In 1801, Louverture invaded and took control of Spanish Santo Domingo, in spite of being ordered not to by Napoleon Bonaparte and, in the same year, wrote a constitution offically prohibiting slavery anywhere on the island of Saint Domingue.

In 1802, however, Napoleon sent a diplomatic envoy with secret orders to deport black officers and likely reinstate slavery led by Charles Leclerc. The envoy was refused permission to land and the French forces attacked and siezed Fort Liberté. Louverture retreated into the mountains and jungles and fought a guerrilla war against the French, in which many French soldiers died of in brutal fighting and of yellow fever. Louverture was captured in August 1802, Louverture was captured and sent to a prison in France, where he died in 1803. However, in November of 1802, Leclerc succumbed to yellow fever and in 1803, the French force were defeated by Haitian rebels under Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Haiti won its independence.