Toussaint Louverture

  13. On TL’s view of southerners, see TL to Laveaux (Sept. 14, 1795), fr. 12103, BNF. On Pantaléon I, see 18AP/2, AN; E51, ANOM; 73J1, ADGir.

  14. For statistics, see Hilliard d’Auberteuil, Considérations sur l’état présent de la colonie française de SD (Paris: Grangé, 1776), 1:65, 72, 73; Frostin, Les révoltes blanches, 144.

  15. On the assets, see “Inventaire” (July 20, 1786), et/LXXXVI/847, AN.

  16. “S’abandonne au point” from FBL to PB (Apr. 16, 1785), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN.

  17. On Hippolyte, see IL-OTL.

  18. “Belle et vertueuse” from IL-OTL. On Pauline as an Aja, see [Valsemey?], “Tableau des Revenus . . .” (Dec. 31, 1785), 261 MIOM, ANOM. TL’s adoptive mother was also Aja; see “Etat général des esclaves” (Apr. 4, 1785), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN.

  CHAPTER 2: CHILD, C. 1743–1754

  1. On the incident, see “Mémoire pour M. Despallieres” (Nov. 1, 1743), F3/143, ANOM.

  2. For the family traditions, see chap. 1. For contemporary accounts, see Moniteur Universel (Jan. 9, 1799); François de Kerversau, “Rapport sur la partie française de SD” (March 22, 1801), Box 2/66, UF-RP. For the Bréda plantation records, see 73J1, ADGir; E691, ADLA; 18AP3, AN; 261 MIOM, ANOM; JLD-PHD, 353–393. Bréda papers once housed in Amiens did not survive World War I, according to Gabriel Debien, “Un effort nouveau à Haïti,” Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française 114 (Apr.–June 1949): 141–147.

  3. On TL’s birth in 1737, see Pamphile de Lacroix, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de la révolution de SD (Paris: Pillet, 1819), 1:404. On 1740, see Isaac Louverture, “Réfutation . . .” (Aug. 18, 1845), NAF 6864, BNF. On 1743, see Louis Dubroca, La vie de TL, chef des noirs insurgés de SD (Paris: Dubroca, 1802), 4. On 1745, see Marcus Rainsford, An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti (London: Albion Press, 1805), 240. On 1746, see Moniteur Universel (Jan. 9, 1799). On 1750, see Jean de Saint-Anthoine, Notice sur TL (Paris: Lacour, 1842), 5. On 1754, see “Etat général des esclaves” (Apr. 4, 1785), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN. On 1756, see [Valsemey?], “Esclaves existant” (Dec. 31, 1785), 261 MIOM, ANOM. The earlier dates are improbable because TL’s mother was still fertile in 1774. The later dates are also improbable because TL had a twenty-four-year-old son in 1785. On TL’s alleged first names, see David Geggus, “Les débuts de TL,” Généalogie et Histoire de la Caraïbe 170 (May 2004): 4172. TL’s stepson Placide gave TL’s full name as “Jean Toussaint Marie Claire Louverture,” but he was probably conflating TL’s name and that of his biological father to bolster claims that he was TL’s biological son; see “Extrait des minutes . . .” (Apr. 15, 1821), TLF-1A3b, UPR-NC.

  4. “Jai éte Esclave” from PG-MGTL, 148.

  5. “Gaçon” from Fortuna Guéry, Témoignages (Port-au-Prince: Henri Deschamps, 1950), 87. On Allada birthing practices, see Michel-Etienne Descourtilz, Voyage d’un naturaliste et ses observations (Paris: Dufart, 1809), 3:119, 198. The following account of slave life is also based on MSM-DPF; Pierre de Charlevoix, Histoire de l’isle Espagnole ou de SD, vol. 2 (Paris, 1730–1731); Justin Girod-Chantrans, Voyage d’un Suisse dans différentes colonies d’Amérique (Neuchatel: Société typographique, 1785); Francis de Wimpffen, A Voyage to Saint Domingo in the Years 1788, 1789, and 1790 (London: T. Cadell, 1797).

  6. On TL’s siblings, see FBL to PB (Apr. 30, 1774), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN; IL-OTL.

  7. “Le goût qu’il avait pour l’histoire” from IL-OTL. “Suvi” from Maurice Delafosse, Manuel dahoméen (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1894), 1. On TL’s linguistic choices, see Philippe Girard, “Quelle langue parlait TL? Le mémoire du Fort de Joux et les origines du kreyòl haïtien,” Annales 68, no. 1 (Jan. 2013): 109–132.

  8. On TL’s preferred dress, see IL-NH, 77; M. A. Matinée, ed., Anecdotes de la révolution de SD racontées par Guillaume Mauviel (Saint-Lô: Elie fils, 1885), 36.

  9. “Man” from MSM-DPF, 1:42.

  10. “Fatras bâton” from Kerversau, “Rapport” (March 22, 1801), Box 2/66, UF-RP. The term “fatras” was defined as “tout ce qui est méprisable” in Pierre du Simitière, “Vocabulaire créole” (c. 1770s), 968.F.9, LCP.

  11. “Se vautrant” from Descourtilz, Voyage d’un naturaliste, 3:190. “Gloomy” from Wimpffen, A Voyage to Saint Domingo, 235.

  12. On Agassou, see Jean-Louis Donnadieu, TL: Le Napoléon noir (Paris: Belin, 2014), 21. Agassou was still worshiped in Vodou in the 1940s; see Alfred Métraux, Le vaudou haïtien (Paris: Gallimard, 1958), 24.

  13. “Maisons de débauche” from MSM-LC, 4:156. On soothsayers, see FBL to PB (Sept. 14, 1773), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN.

  14. On the number of priests, see Arlette Gautier, Les sœurs de Solitude: La condition féminine dans l’esclavage aux Antilles du XVIIe au XIXe siècle (Paris: Editions Caribéennes, 1985), 81; Sue Peabody, “‘A Dangerous Zeal’: Catholic Missions to Slaves in the French Antilles, 1635–1800,” French Historical Studies 25, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 73. On public prayers, see FBL to PB (Sept. 14, 1773), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN. The following account of the Catholic Church is also based on F3/90–92 and F5A, ANOM.

  15. “Schismatique” (a reference to TL’s secretary Nathan) from IL-NH, 74. On the Jews of Cap, see Zvi Loker, “Were There Jewish Communities in SD (Haiti)?” Jewish Social Studies 45, no. 2 (Spring 1983): 135–146. On Sasportas, see FBL, “Compte-rendu” (Apr. 4, 1785), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN. On the attempted expulsion, see Elvire Maurouard, Les Juifs de SD (Haïti) (Paris: Editions du Cygne, 2008), 40.

  16. On the Carib (aka Arawak) in Cap, see Supplément aux Affiches américaines (Apr. 4, 1772). For the Taino head, see MSM-DPF, 1:352.

  17. On Vodou, see [M. Courtin?], “Mémoire sommaire . . .” (1758), F3/88, ANOM. For alternate takes on TL as a fake Catholic or a vodouisant, see Pierre Pluchon, TL (Paris: Fayard, 1989), 338; Madison Smartt Bell, TL: A Biography (New York: Pantheon Books, 2007), 56, 174, 195, 288. “Bigot” from [Valsemey?], “Esclaves existant” (Dec. 31, 1785), 261 MIOM, ANOM.

  18. On the Jesuits, see F5A/22, ANOM; MSM-LC, 4:642. Some historians claim that TL was owned by Jesuits before 1763 (see, for example, Bell, TL, 64), but the earliest evidence I have found are two unreliable accounts dated 1800 and 1801; see Pièces 2 and 58, AF/IV/1212, AN.

  19. “Curé des nègres” from Peabody, “‘A Dangerous Zeal,’” 83. “Accoutumé de catéchiser” from MSM-LC, 4:352. “Faire des prosélytes” from [Valsemey?], “Esclaves existant” (Dec. 31, 1785), 261 MIOM, ANOM.

  20. “Les crimes énormes” from MSM-LC, 4:626.

  CHAPTER 3: SLAVE, 1754

  1. “Partage des nègres” from “Inventaire” (July 20, 1786), et/LXXXVI/847, AN. Slave families could technically not be separated at auction; see art. 47 of the 1685 Code Noir.

  2. “I was quite a child” from Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself (1845; reprint, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 16.

  3. On the population of Quartier-Morin in 1789 (which included 204 whites of all classes and 95 freedmen), see MSM-DPF, 1:245. “Vous autres blancs” from M. J. La Neuville, Le dernier cri de SD et des colonies (Philadelphia: Bradford, 1800), 9. The following account of the Bréda family is based on 18AP/2 and /3, AN; E51, ANOM; d. 1, 73J1, ADGir.

  4. “Le lait” and “otage” from Charles Frostin, Les révoltes blanches à SD aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Haïti avant 1789) (Paris: L’Ecole, 1975), 116, 369. On punishing a slave who hit a child, see MSM-LC, 4:136.

  5. On the split in Manquets, see De Larnage and Maillart to Min. of Navy (Feb. 28, 1744), C9A/64, ANOM.

  6. On PB’s portrait, see FBL to PB (Nov. 24, 1780), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN.

  7. On absentee ownership, see Min. of Navy to M. de Larnage (Oct. 17, 1743), F3/143, ANOM. On Noé (who only inherited a fourth of the Haut-du-Cap estate in 1786, by which point TL no longer was a slave), see Jean-Louis Donnadieu, Un grand seigneur et ses esclaves: Le comte de Noé entre Antilles et Gascogne, 1728–1816 (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2009).

 
8. For various versions of the Code Noir, see Jean-François Niort, ed., Code Noir (Paris: Dalloz, 2012). For later laws, see the royal ordinances of Dec. 30, 1712; March 1724; March 14, 1741; Dec. 3, 1784; and Dec. 23, 1785, in MSM-LC.

  9. “VOL” from MSM-LC, 5:342. For the fee schedule and the droit supplicié, see MSM-LC, 5:378, 284. On the Brédas negotiating a higher droit supplicié, see “Nous certifions” (Apr. 12, 1780), E57, ANOM.

  10. “The happy slaves” from Peter S. Chazotte, Historical Sketches of the Revolutions, and the Foreign and Civil Wars in the Island of St. Domingo, With a Narrative of the Entire Massacre of the White Population of the Island (New York: Applegate, 1840), 8. “Les tourments les plus cruels” from Pierre du Simitière, “De la ville et du quartier de Léogane” (c. 1774), 968.F.28, LCP. “Toutes sortes de tourments” (a comment by the rank and file) from Jean-François and Biassou to Mirbeck, Roume, St. Léger (Dec. 21, 1791), *D/XXV/1, AN.

  11. “Ne connut-il guère l’esclavage” from François de Kerversau, “Rapport sur la partie française de SD” (March 22, 1801), Box 2/66, UF-RP. On atrocities near Haut-du-Cap, see Baron de Vastey, Le système colonial dévoilé (Oct. 1814), 44, Tract B795 no.2, BA; Malick Ghachem, The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 131–143. “Les insultes, la misère” from TL, Réfutations de quelques assertions d’un discours . . . par Viénot-Vaublanc (Cap: Roux, [Oct. 29], 1797), 24.

  12. On Faure, see PB to FBL (Apr. 1, 1779), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN. On Béagé (aka Béager), see IL-NH, 60. “Il a eu la faiblesse” from Delribal to M. de la Pommeraye (Sept. 9, 1773), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN. “Beaucoup de dureté” from Sylvain de Villevaleix to Polastron (July 31, 1790), E691, ADLA.

  13. On the average age at death, see David Geggus, “TL and the Slaves of the Bréda Plantations,” Journal of Caribbean History 20, no. 1 (1985–1986): 36. “Des vrais bourreaux” from TL, Réfutations, 26.

  14. “Blancs” from Frostin, Les révoltes blanches, 320.

  15. On hired soldiers, see FBL to PB (June 10, 1773), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN. For the sentence, see “Aujourd’hui” (Sept. 6, 1710), E51, ANOM. Such penalties were outlawed by the 1770s; see D’Ennery to de Sartines (Sept. 3, 1775), C9A/143, ANOM.

  CHAPTER 4: REVOLUTIONARY APPRENTICE, 1757–1773

  1. For the anecdote, see IL-NH, 60. On TL’s horsemanship, see Joseph Peyre-Ferry, Journal des opérations militaires de l’armée française à SD pendant les années X, XI et XII (1802 et 1803) (Port-au-Prince: Henri Deschamps, 2005), 186.

  2. For examples of three major disturbances in 1775–1777, see MSM-LC, 5:550, 800, 805. For other disturbances in 1772, see M. de Valière and M. de Montarcher to M. de Boynes (Aug. 25, 1772), C9A/141, ANOM. Blinded by the bright glare of the Revolution, historians tend to forget the early disturbances.

  3. “Reconnu depuis bien des années” from Delribal to M. de la Pommeraye (Sept. 9, 1773), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN. “Fainéants” from FBL to PB (Dec. 20, 1775), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN. “Infecté” from [Valsemey?], “Mémoire” (c. Dec. 31, 1785), 261 MIOM, ANOM. “Mauvaise réputation” from Jean Langlois de Laheuse to Count of Noé (June 24, 1789), JLD-PHD, 383.

  4. On ties to the Bullet plantation, see [Valsemey?], “Mémoire” (c. Dec. 31, 1785), 261 MIOM, ANOM.

  5. On intellectual maroonage, see Marc-Ferl Morquette, Les nouveaux marrons: Essai sur un aspect de la crise politique, 1989–1998 (Port-au-Prince: L’imprimeur II, 1999).

  6. On the surgeon, see Jean-Charles Benzaken, “A propos d’un crime commis sur une esclave à SD en 1736,” Généalogie et Histoire de la Caraïbe 238 (July–Aug. 2010): 6364.

  7. On the lynchings, see MSM-DPF, 1:596.

  8. On the two fights, see IL-NH, 60. There is no reason to doubt the veracity of this account because Isaac had a tendency to soften his father’s record.

  9. On Lavaud, see “Extrait de déclarations” (May 26, 1757), F3/88, ANOM. “Sans rien avouer” from M. de Morigny, “Mémoire sur les poisons” (1763), Box 1/3, UF-RP.

  10. On food shortages, see Bart and LaLanne to Min. of Navy (Sept. 20, 1757), C9A/100, ANOM. On spoiled meat and flour, see MSM-LC, 4:187, 262, 287.

  11. “Faire le diable” from Fournier de la Chapelle, “Mémoire . . .” (1758), F3/88, ANOM.

  12. “Amende honorable” from MSM-LC, 4:217.

  13. “Makandal sauvé” from MSM-DPF, 1:653.

  14. “Temps de repos” from MSM-LC, 4:717. For runaway notices, see Le Marronnage à Saint-Domingue (Haiti), www.marronnage.info (many runaways, including most of the Brédas’, went unreported in the Affiches américaines paper).

  15. “Je ne sais que faire” from FBL to PB (Feb. 3, 1785), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN. On Sans Souci, see FBL, “Compte Rendu . . .” (July 20, 1787), 261 MIOM, ANOM; Michel Rolph-Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 40–69.

  16. On the maroon in Port-au-Prince, see Affiches américaines (May 14, 1766). On maroons in Santo Domingo (15,000 by 1775), see M. de Valière and M. de Montarcher to M. de Boynes (July 6, 1772), c9a/141, ANOM.

  17. “Plusieurs à la fois marrons” from Delribal to PB (Nov. 13, 1773), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN.

  18. On private prisons, see Jean-François and Biassou to Mirbeck, Roume, St. Léger (Dec. 21, 1791), *D/XXV/1, AN. On Jean-Baptiste, see chap. 6. TL was perhaps free by 1773, which would explain his absence from the records.

  19. For attempts to enforce the Code Noir, see Malick Ghachem, The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 133–143.

  20. On the house, see “Vente de maison” (Oct. 15, 1772), ET/LXXXVI/735, AN. On Delribal’s firing (effective Nov. 29, 1773), see Delribal to PB (Dec. 22, 1773), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN. Delribal died in 1780; see “Paroisse Notre-Dame” (1780), 1DDPC5339, ANOM (document communicated by Jean-Louis Donnadieu). The following account of FBL’s tenure is based on d. 12, 18AP/3, AN; 261 MIOM, ANOM; JLD-PHD.

  21. “Comme un Père” from TL to Directoire (July 18, 1797), *F7/7321, AN. “Il avait du talent” and “le reste était à charge” from FBL to PB (March 27, 1775, and Apr. 28, 1778), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN.

  CHAPTER 5: FAMILY MAN, 1761–1785

  1. “Une foule considérable” from MSM-DPF, 2:708–709. On the funeral, see [Burial record] (Nov. 17, 1785), 1DPPC2324, ANOM.

  2. Toussaint Jr. was first mentioned in Jean-Louis Donnadieu, “La famille ‘oubliée’ de TL,” Bulletin de la Société Archéologique et Historique du Gers 401 (Summer 2011): 357–365. Cécile was first mentioned in Dominique Rogers, Les libres de couleur dans les capitales de SD: Fortune, mentalités et intégration à la fin de l’Ancien Régime (1776–1789) (PhD diss., Université de Bordeaux III, 1999), 160. For an early reference to this marriage missed by scholars, see “Tableau généalogique” (c. 1900), d. 3, EE 1734, ANOM. For a reference to an earlier son, see Isaac Louverture to Jean de Chaudordy (Sept. 1, 1821), 6APC/1, ANOM.

  3. On sex ratios, see David Geggus, “TL and the Slaves of the Bréda Plantations,” Journal of Caribbean History 20, no. 1 (1985–1986): 35. This account of slave marriages is also based on Arlette Gautier, “Les familles esclaves aux Antilles françaises, 1635–1848,” Population (Nov. 2000): 991; David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine, eds., More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996).

  4. “Servitude” from Pierre de Charlevoix, Histoire de l’isle Espagnole ou de SD (Paris, 1730–1731), 2:505.

  5. “Fort adonné à la boisson” from FBL to PB (Nov. 3, 1776), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN.

  6. “Vos négresses” from FBL to PB (Nov. 3, 1776), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN. “C’est une pépinière” from [Valsemey?], “Esclaves existant” (Dec. 31, 1785), 261 MIOM, ANOM.

  7. On Gabriel and Marie-Marthe, see [Marriage record] (Oct. 4, 1787), 1DPPC2326, ANOM. On the death of eleven children, see Nouvelle Revue Rétrospective, no. 94 (Apr. 10, 1902), 13.

  8. “Rien de plus commun” from Pierre du Simitière, “De la ville et du quartier d
e Léogane” (c. 1774), 968.F.28, LCP.

  9. On TL’s grandchild, see “Liberté” (Jan. 11, 1783), NOT *SDOM 542, ANOM. The grandchild was first mentioned in Philippe Girard and Jean-Louis Donnadieu, “Toussaint Before Louverture: New Archival Findings on the Early Life of TL,” William and Mary Quarterly 70, no. 1 (Jan. 2013): 51. A mixed-race Toussaint who had served under TL (his grandson?) was shot in Cap during the war of independence; see Gt. Néraud to Rochambeau (Oct. 8, 1803), 61J17, ADGir.

  10. “Ils souillent nos filles” (attributed to Boukman) from Antoine Métral, Histoire de l’insurrection des esclaves dans le nord de SD (Paris: Delaunay, 1818), 17.

  11. On death rates and growth rates, see, for example, Paul Page, Traité d’économie politique et de commerce des colonies (Paris: Brochot, [1801–1802]), 1:14, 212. The following account of the Bréda plantations in the 1770s and 1780s is based on 261 MIOM, ANOM; d. 12, 18AP/3, AN; E691, ADLA.

  12. “On en a acheté” from [Valsemey?], “Mémoire” (c. Dec. 31, 1785), 261 MIOM, ANOM. On the bossale rate, see Geggus, “Slaves of the Bréda Plantations,” 35.

  13. “Vous avez perdu” from FBL to PB (Apr. 30, 1774), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN. Hippolyte died Jan. 5, 1774, and Pauline died on Apr. 14, 1774; see [Valsemey?], “Tableau des Revenus . . .” (Dec. 31, 1785), 261 MIOM, ANOM.

  14. “Une seconde mère” from IL-NH, 54. “Robuste” from [Valsemey?], “Esclaves existant” (Dec. 31, 1785), 261 MIOM, ANOM. Pélagie was born c. 1738 according to “Etat général des esclaves” (Apr. 4, 1785), d. 12, 18AP/3, AN.