38. “Bête de somme” from Brunet to Rochambeau (May 20, 1802), lot 224, VR-PR. On TL’s arrest, see Philippe Girard, “Jean-Jacques Dessalines et l’arrestation de TL,” Journal of Haitian Studies 17, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 123–138.
39. “Mon fist Isaac” from PG-MGTL, 122.
40. “L’arbre de la liberté des noirs” from Lacroix, Mémoires, 2:204. The quote echoes TL, “Proclamation à ses concitoyens” (Sept. 9, 1799), CC9B/9, ANOM. TL actually said “the suffering of our Savior would teach him to bear his situation patiently,” according to George Nugent to John Sullivan (Aug. 12, 1802), CO 137/108, BNA; or “Heaven is just. I shall be avenged” according to Baron de Vastey, Revolution and Civil Wars in Haiti (1823; reprint, New York: Negro University Press, 1969), 35.
41. On TL visiting La Tortue in 1796 and a US frigate in 1800, see Sonthonax to Vaillant (Dec. 23, 1796), fr. 8986, BNF; Ronald Johnson, Diplomacy in Black and White: John Adams, TL, and Their Atlantic World Alliance (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2014), 124.
CHAPTER 20: PRISONER, 1802–1803
1. “Une mère de famille” from TL to Bonaparte (July 20, 1802), d. 1, AF/IV/1213, AN. “Les femmes” from Suzanne Louverture to Denis Decrès (July 11, 1802), d. 1, EE1734, ANOM. “Elle aurait pu secourir” from TL to Victoire Leclerc (July 18, 1802), Folder 3C, HU-KFC. The following account of TL’s captivity is based on AF/IV/1213 and 135AP/6, AN; CC9B/18 and EE1734, ANOM; Sc. Micro R1527, NYPL-SC; 7Yd284 and B7/6 to B7/9, SHD-DAT; M696, ADD; UPR-NC.
2. “Je ne vous verrai jamais” from Placide to Toussaint and Suzanne Louverture (Aug. 12, 1802), d. 1, AF/IV/1213, AN.
3. “Pauvre diable” from Fernand Clamettes, ed., Mémoires du général Baron Thiébault (Paris: Plon, 1893–1895), 3:303.
4. “Un souterrain” from Mars Plaisir to Isaac Louverture (Oct. 3, 1815), NAF 6864, BNF. “En teré un homme vivant” from PG-MGTL, 141.
5. Versions 1, 2, and 4 are in d. 1, AF/IV/1213, AN. Version 3 is in d. 2, EE1734, ANOM. A fifth version in West Mss. 6, Northwestern University Library, is likely posthumous. For an English translation, see Philippe Girard, The Memoir of General TL (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
6. “Ses trésors” from CN, 8:39. “Calme” and other quotes from Nouvelle Revue Rétrospective no. 94 (Apr. 10, 1902): 1–18.
7. “Folies” from Barry Edward O’Meara, Napoléon en exil: Relation contenant les opinions et les réflexions de Napoléon sur les événements les plus importants de sa vie, durant trois ans de sa captivité (Paris: Garnier, 1897), 2:276.
8. “Il ne résulte du rapport” from Decrès to Leclerc (Oct. 16, 1802), d. 1, EE 1734, ANOM. “Pas un homme” from Emmanuel de las Cases, Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène (Paris: Gallimard, 1956), 1:770.
9. “Vous savé mon namitier” from TL to Suzanne Louverture (Sept. 17, 1802), d. 1, EE 1734, ANOM (TL was eventually informed that his family was well treated; see Baille to Decrès (Nov. 1, 1802), CC9B/18, ANOM. On Paul’s family, see IL-NH, 122. On a mixed-race Toussaint who had served under TL and was shot in Cap, see Gt. Néraud to Rochambeau (Oct. 8, 1803), 61J17, ADGir.
10. “Toussaint” from Stephen Gill, ed., The Major Works: Including The Prelude (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 282. “Il était triste” from J. F. Dubois to [Henri?] Grégoire (May 25, 1823), NAF 6864, BNF.
11. “Au nom de dieu” from TL to Bonaparte (Oct. 9, 1802), d. 1, AF/IV/1213, AN. On Dormoy, see Jean de Bry to Baille (Oct. 15, 1802), TL-2B4a, UPR-NC. On the Capuchin mission, see Frère Julien to De Castries (Sept. 30, 1785), F5A 25/1, ANOM.
12. “Quand un homme” from TL to Baille (c. Oct. 18, 1802), CC9B/18, ANOM.
13. “Per mete moi” from TL to Bonaparte (Oct. 26, 1802), d. 1, AF/IV/1213, AN.
14. “Il ne m’a jamais demandé” from Amiot to Denis Decrès (March 19, 1803), TL-2B7g, UPR-NC.
15. “Dant ce mondre” from PG-MGTL, 140.
16. “Le 17” from Amiot to Decrès (Apr. 9, 1803), CC9B/18, ANOM.
CHAPTER 21: ICON, 1803–PRESENT
1. “Réellement mort” and other quotes from Gresset, “Procès-Verbal . . .” (Apr. 8, 1803), TL-3A2, UPR-NC.
2. “D’une épaisseur extraordinaire” from TL-3B2, UPR-NC. The skull may have been sawed at a later date; see Edouard Girod, “Documents inédits sur TL” [1867?], NAF 6864, BNF.
3. On hidden papers, see Berthier to Bonaparte (June 2, 1803), d. 1, AF/IV/1213, AN; Amiot to Count of Poul (Aug. 24, 1814), 7Yd284, SHD-DAT.
4. “Quelle raison” from Barry Edward O’Meara, Napoléon en exil: Relation contenant les opinions et les réflexions de Napoléon sur les événements les plus importants de sa vie, durant trois ans de sa captivité (Paris: Garnier, 1897), 2:276. On starvation, see Antoine Métral, Histoire de l’expédition des Français à SD (Paris: Fanjat, 1825), 202.
5. The following account of Dessalines’s record is based on Philippe Girard, “Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the Atlantic System: A Reappraisal,” William and Mary Quarterly 69, no. 3 (July 2012): 549–582; “Indépendance, ou la mort” from Julia Gaffield, ed., The Haitian Declaration of Independence: Creation, Context, and Legacy (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016), 241. No original manuscript of the Jan. 1, 1804, declaration of independence has been found yet. Gaffield’s transcript is based on printed copies transmitted to the governor of Jamaica in Jan. 1804; see Edward Corbet to George Nugent (Jan. 25, 1804), CO 137/111, BNA. For early manuscript copies, see also d. 15, AB XIX/3302, AN; d. 1, EE1734, ANOM; ESTADO, 68, N.12, AGI.
6. “Very foreign” from “Showdown in Haiti,” PBS Frontline (June 14, 1994).
7. “Peu semblable” from Dessalines, “Proclamation” (Apr. 28, 1804), d. 15, AB XIX/3302, AN.
8. “Unforgettable” from David P. Geggus, ed., The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001), 13.
9. On Chancy, see Francis Arzalier, “Déportés haïtiens et guadeloupéens en Corse (1802–1814),” Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française 293–294 (1993): 469–490. On Marie-Jeanne, see Joseph Saint-Rémy to Isaac Louverture (June 19, 1848), NAF 6864, BNF. On TL’s sixteen children (two of them illegitimate and alive in 1802), see Nouvelle Revue Rétrospective 94 (Apr. 10, 1902): 13. Haitian traditions mention at least three illegitimate children in Haiti (Jean-Pierre, Didine-Gustave, and Zizine); see IL-NH, 124; Placide David, Sur les rives du passé: Choses de SD (1947; reprint, Ottawa: Leméac, 1972), 99.
10. On Placide’s captivity, see Henri Roulland to Alexandre Berthier (Aug. 15, 1802), B7/6, SHD-DAT. On Belley (who died in captivity), see Belley to Jullien (July 7, 1805), HM-2B, UPR-NC. This account of the second family’s exile is based on EE1734, ANOM; d. 5410, F/7/6266, AN; 6APC/1, ANOM; TLF, UPR-NC; Sc. Micro R1527, NYPL-SC; Auguste Nemours, Histoire de la famille et de la descendance de TL (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de l’Etat, 1941). Victoire Thusac (aka Victorine Tussac) absconded and then later returned to Agen.
11. “Pendu à son arrivée” (quoting Isaac) from Auguste Bergevin to Min. of Navy (March 20, 1817), d. 7, EE 1734, ANOM.
12. “Ils ont trois domestiques” from Duval to Min. of Navy (1823?), d. 7, EE 1734, ANOM. For early French works that borrowed heavily from Isaac, see Métral, Histoire de l’expédition; Jean de Saint-Anthoine, Notice sur TL (Paris: Lacour, 1842); Thomas Gragnon-Lacoste, TL (Paris: Durand, 1877). Isaac was also in contact with the French-Haitian historian Joseph Saint-Rémy.
13. On Rose, see IL-NH, 71. “J’ai le sang” from Gabrielle Fontan to [Auguste Nemours] (Oct. 25, 1929), Sc. Micro R1527, NYPL-SC. Placide’s daughter was also in contact with the Bayons; see TLF-2A2d and TLF-2A3a, UPR-NC.
14. “Illustres fondateurs” from Charles Hérard aîné et al., “Manifeste,” Feuille du commerce [de Port-au-Prince] (Apr. 2, 1843), NAF 6864, BNF.
15. “Seldom mentioned” from R., “Memoirs of Hayti” (c. Feb. 14, 1804), The Port Folio 2, no. 2 (Aug. 1809): 110. “Imbus des préjugés” from “Relation de la fête de S. M. la Reine d’Hayiti” (
c. Aug. 1816), p. 60, Tract B795 no.2, BA.
16. “Homme de genie” from Victor Schoelcher, Vie de Toussaint Louverture (Paris: Ollendorf, 1889), 381. “Due subordination” from William Wilberforce, “Thoughts, etc.,” in An Appeal to the Religion, Justice, and Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire (London: J. Hatchard, 1823), 27. “An African” from Anon., The Life and Military Achievements of Tousant Loverture (Philadelphia: self-published, 1804). “The black general” from Alfred Hunt, Haiti’s Influence on Antebellum America: Slumbering Volcano in the Caribbean (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 89.
17. “The Negro race” from Thomas Reed, ed., Great Orations by Clay, Fox, Gladstone, Lincoln, O’Connell, Phillips, Pitt, Webster, and Others (New York: Appleton, 1901), 301. On Brown, see Select Committee of the Senate on the Harper’s Ferry Invasion, Report (June 15, 1860), 96. “DEAD FREEDMEN” from Matthew Clavin, Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War: The Promise and Peril of a Second Haitian Revolution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 44.
18. “Humane” and “manhood” from Maurice Jackson and Jacqueline Bacon, eds., African Americans and the Haitian Revolution (New York: Routledge, 2010), 127, 135. “The great Negro” from Clavin, Toussaint Louverture, 182.
19. “We have all heard” from Spenser St. John, Hayti or the Black Republic (1884; reprint, London: Frank Cass, 1971), 70. “Précurseur” from L’illustration (Oct. 27, 1849), HN1B, UPR-NC. A series of drawings by François Grenier in 1821–1822 also gave pride of place to TL; see David Geggus and Norman Fiering, eds., The World of the Haitian Revolution (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 371–378.
20. On St. Pierre, see Beaubrun Ardouin, Etudes sur l’histoire d’Haïti, suivies de la vie du général J-M Borgella (Paris: Dezobry et Magdeleine, 1853–1860), 5:225. On the chapel, see TL-3A3, UPR-NC. On the head, see Edouard Girod, “Documents inédits sur TL” [1867?], NAF 6864, BNF. On Bordeaux, see TL-3B6c, UPR-NC.
21. On the Haitian Panthéon, see Musée du Panthéon National, TL (Port-au-Prince: Henri Deschamps, [1983]), 9.
22. “Avoir fait des grandes choses” from Ernest Renan, Qu’est-ce qu’une nation? (Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1882), 26.
23. “Frères” from PMD-PH, 2:80. “Attachement” from TL, Réfutations de quelques assertions d’un discours prononcé au Corps Législatif le 10 Prairial, an 5, par Viénot-Vaublanc (Cap: Roux, Oct. 29, 1797), 30. “Je suis français” from TL to Roume (Oct. 29, 1799), CC/9A/26, ANOM.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY
To make this biography accessible to a wide public, I chose not to discuss sources and historiography in the main text. This bibliographic essay is meant to clarify the archival basis for this book and to list some of the historical works that informed my analysis of the primary sources.
ARCHIVAL SOURCES
Archival sources on the Haitian Revolution and Toussaint Louverture are plentiful, but they are widely dispersed and not well cataloged. For a description of the main holdings, see David Geggus, “Unexploited Sources for the History of the Haitian Revolution,” Latin American Research Review 18, no. 1 (1983): 95–103; David P. Geggus, “L’histoire d’Haïti dans les archives nord-américaines,” Annales des Antilles: Bulletin de la Société d’Histoire de la Martinique, no. 32 (1998); Philippe Girard, “The Haitian Revolution, History’s New Frontier: State of the Scholarship and Archival Sources,” Slavery and Abolition 34, no. 3 (Sept. 2013): 485–507.
The most thorough catalog of Louverture’s papers (which have yet to be systematically published) is Joseph A. Boromé, “Toussaint Louverture: A Finding List of His Letters and Documents,” Box 1, Sc. MG 714, NYPL-SC. A selection of key documents is available in David Geggus, ed., The Haitian Revolution: A Documentary History (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2014).
Some documents relating to Louverture’s early life are available in print. One can read his son’s memoirs in Antoine Métral, Histoire de l’expédition des Français à Saint-Domingue . . . (Paris: Fanjat, 1825), an interview of Louverture in the Moniteur Universel (Jan. 9, 1799), and the plantation letters that were transcribed in Jean-Louis Donnadieu, Entre Gascogne et Saint-Domingue: Le comte Louis-Pantaléon de Noé, grand propriétaire créole et aristocrate gascon, 1728–1816 (PhD diss., Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, 2006), 353–393.
The University of Florida in Gainesville has made available a nearly complete run of the Affiches américaines at http://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00000449. Maroonage notices in that paper are searchable through www.marronnage.info. For major laws and legal decisions, see M. L. E. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loix et constitutions des colonies françoises de l’Amérique sous le vent, 6 vols. (Paris: Moutard, 1784–1790). Malick Ghachem has indicated to me that a seventh unpublished volume is at the Bibliothèque haïtienne des frères de l’instruction chrétienne in Port-au-Prince.
Archives that complement print and online material include the papers of Isaac Louverture, which have to be read carefully because Isaac was eager to aggrandize his father and marginalize his brother Placide (NAF 6864, BNF; NAF 12409, BNF; 6APC/1, ANOM). The papers of Placide’s family are in UPR-NC. Many Bréda plantation records, most of them from after 1772, have survived in 18AP3, AN; E691, ADLA; 73J, ADGir; and 261 MIOM, ANOM. For church and notarial records related to Louverture’s post-manumission years, see 1DPPC and NOT SDOM, ANOM. Many church records are available on the ANOM website www.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/anom/fr/index.html, as are personal files of the E series.
Three massive collections contain extensive background information on colonial politics before and during the Haitian Revolution. The C9 series at the ANOM includes most of the official documents for Saint-Domingue and consists of the C9A series (168 boxes, mostly prior to 1792) and the CC9A series (mostly 1789–1825, 50 boxes), along with the supplemental series C9B (41 boxes), C9C (7), CC9B (29), and CC9C (25). The F3 series in the ANOM (297 boxes and registers) was amassed by the legist Moreau de Saint-Méry and consists of various prerevolutionary documents organized topically, as well as copies and originals of official documents for the revolutionary period. The *DXXV series in the AN (188 boxes) was assembled by a French legislative committee to investigate the 1791 slave revolt. These documents were the basis for Jean-Philippe Garran-Coulon, Rapport sur les troubles de Saint-Domingue, 4 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, Ventôse an V [Feb.–March 1797]).
Some letters dating from Louverture’s service in the Spanish Army in 1793–1794 have been published in Gérard M. Laurent, Trois mois aux archives d’Espagne (Port-au-Prince: Les Presses Libres, 1956). Other documents pertaining to this period and the 1801 invasion of Santo Domingo are available in José Luciano Franco, ed., Documentos para la historia de Haití en el Archivo Nacional (Havana: Publicaciones del Archivo Nacional de Cuba, 1954), and Emilio Rodríguez Demorizi, ed., Cesión de Santo Domingo a Francia (Ciudad Trujillo: Impresora Dominicana, 1958). Most of the archival collections for that period are in Spain, most notably ESTADO 1–17 and SANTO DOMINGO 954–1110, AGI; and LEG 7157–7164, SGU, AGS. Many of these documents are available online through http://pares.mcu.es.
Gérard Laurent published Louverture’s letters to Etienne Laveaux in Toussaint l’Ouverture à travers sa correspondance, 1794–1798 ([Madrid?], 1953). The originals of Louverture’s letters to Laveaux and Sonthonax are in fr. 12102–12104 and fr. 8986–8988, BNF. Most are available online at http://gallica.bnf.fr.
Pamphlets published by Louverture in the late 1790s are available in a variety of archives, including Harvard University’s Houghton Library, the Boston Athenaeum, and the John Carter Brown Library. The latter has made many of its resources available online (http://josiah.brown.edu/search).
Louverture’s correspondence with the US consul Edward Stevens was first reproduced in “Letters of Toussaint Louverture and of Edward Stevens, 1798–1800,” American Historical Review 16, no. 1 (Oct. 1910): 61–101. The originals are in M9/1–4, NARA-CP. Documents pertaining to his diplomacy with Britain are at the British Na
tional Archives in Kew (CO 137, ADM 1, and WO 1 series).
Leclerc’s letters have been published in Paul Roussier, ed., Lettres du général Leclerc (Paris: Société de l’histoire des colonies françaises, 1937). Aside from the aforementioned CC9 series, the richest archival collections on the Leclerc expedition are B7, SHD-DAT (27 boxes); the Rochambeau collection and BN08268–BN08272 at the University of Florida (24 boxes and 5 reels); 61J, ADGir; BB4, SHD-DM; and a private collection auctioned off in 2008 that is accessible through http://rouillac.com/Calendrier/da-FR-9-0-0-grid-1-2008-resultats.
Many primary sources retracing Louverture’s captivity and his family’s fate were reproduced in M. Morpeau, Documents inédits pour l’histoire: Correspondance concernant l’emprisonnement et la mort de Toussaint Louverture (Port-au-Prince: Sacré Cœur, 1920), and Auguste Nemours, Histoire de la famille et de la descendance de Toussaint Louverture (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de l’Etat, 1941). A transcript of Louverture’s interrogation appeared in Nouvelle Revue Rétrospective, no. 94 (Apr. 10, 1902). There are several editions of his 1802 memoir, including Philippe Girard, ed., The Memoir of General Toussaint Louverture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). The richest archival collections on that period are AF/IV/1213, AN and EE1734, ANOM (which contain various drafts of Louverture’s memoir); and UPR-NC.
SECONDARY LITERATURE
Although the literature on Louverture and the Haitian Revolution is uneven, the field is making great strides. For general overviews, see the Toussaint Louverture entry at Oxford Bibliographies (www.oxfordbibliographies.com) and David Geggus’s piece at Brown University’s John Carter Brown Library (www.brown.edu/Facilities/John_Carter_Brown_Library/toussaint).
Early works on the Haitian Revolution remain useful, particularly Thomas Madiou’s Histoire d’Haïti, 3 vols. (Port-au-Prince: Courtois, 1847), and Beaubrun Ardouin’s Etudes sur l’histoire d’Haïti, suivies de la vie du général J-M Borgella, 11 vols. (Paris: Dezobry et Magdeleine, 1853–1860). In recent years, the most widely used overview of the Haitian Revolution in English has been Laurent Dubois’s Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).
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