Pélagie (Louverture’s surrogate mother), 57, 83, 106
Pétion, Alexandre, 260
Peynier, Antoine de, 100
Phillips, Wendell, 261
Pickering, Timothy, 177–179, 181
Piquet Rebellion (1844–1848), 257
plantation economy, 30
Dessalines’s model replacing, 256
environmental damage, 84–85
France’s attempted slavery reforms, 95–96
function of “little whites,” 31–32
labor abuse, 91–92
Louverture’s attempts to rebuild, 191–193, 195–198
Louverture’s estate management, 65, 71–75
Louverture’s seizure of Santo Domingo, 207–208
private lives of slaves, 21
profitability of, 86–89
rebel leaders upholding, 123
regulation of slavery, 28–30
Saint-Domingue’s, 78–82
Saint-Domingue’s freedmen as landowners, 56–57
Saint-Domingue’s planter-slave ratio, 26
Sonthonax’s focus on recovery, 167–168
US War of Independence, 70–71
whites’ attempts to regain power, 142–143
See also Bréda plantations; cultivator system
poison, 36–40, 253–254
police forces, 32, 38
political power, Louverture’s, 208–213
Polverel, Etienne de, 130–131, 138
du Pont de Nemours, Pierre, 86
Provoyeur, Pierre Guillaume, 75–76
quadroons, 56, 68, 183
Quasi-War, 177–178
quatre piquets (four stakes) punishment, 30
racism
Dessalines’s anti-white agenda, 255
“little whites” in Saint-Domingue, 101
of Bayon, 82
rise of, 67–69
Raimond, Julien, 101, 170
rape of slave women by masters, 46–48
Raynal, Guillaume, 96, 165
religion
baptism of slaves, 12–13
burial of the dead, 43–44
impiousness of Saint-Domingue’s planters, 21–22
Louverture’s devoutness, 22–23
See also Catholic Church; Vodou
resistance and protest, 73–74
black soldiers and workers, 189–191
coup attempt, 163–164
cultivators’ rebellion against labor practices, 198–199
Hédouville’s ouster, 175
Jamaica’s slave revolt, 184–285
Louverture’s political manipulation, 208–209
Louverture’s role in early activities, 41
maroonage, 38–41
Ogé rebellion, 101–103
on slave ships, 11
physical retaliation for racial slights, 101
Rigaud-Louverture ideological dispute, 183
Saint-Domingue’s divisions over racial equality, 102
Saint-Domingue’s “little white” rabble, 99–100
Santo Domingo takeover, 204
Santo Domingo’s slaves, 149–150
slave revolt of 1791, 92, 109–110
slaves poisoning their owners, 36
the story of Agassou, 20
underground Vodou movement, 36–38
US War of Independence, 69–71, 75
white trade revolt of 1722–1723, 93
See also French Revolution; Haitian Revolution
Rigaud, André
Chasseurs, 71
command with Louverture, 148
cultivator system, 196
Laveaux’s arrest and incarceration, 164
Louverture’s friction with, 160, 167, 178, 182–188
Napoléon’s attack on Louverture, 230
War of the South, 204
Robespierre, Maximilien de, 104
Roume, Philippe, 179–184, 199–200, 203–205, 208–209, 229
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 93, 209
royalist cause, Haitian Revolution as, 110–111, 116, 121–123, 126–127, 135–136, 138, 170–172
runaway slaves, 38–41, 69
Jamaica’s Blue Mountain Maroons, 184
Louverture’s escape, 54–56
maroons, 38–41
mortality and discontent among the Bréda slaves, 107
revolutionary leaders, 111
under Bayon, 82–83
Santo Domingo
colonial history, 11–12
Louverture’s increasing wealth, 140–141
Louverture’s invasion of, 203–207, 230–231
Louverture’s service to the French army, 148–150
Napoléon’s attack on, 237
Saint-Domingue’s asylum seekers, 102
slave maroonage, 38–39
Spanish invasion of Saint-Domingue, 132–134
Sasportas, Aaron, 22, 62
Sasportas, Isaac, 184–185
Schoelcher, Victor, 260
scientific racism, 67–68
scorched earth policy (Haitian Revolution), 236–237
self-government, 98–99
Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), 35–36, 67, 76, 78
Slave Coast, 7–11
slave revolt (1791), 92, 109–111
slave trade
as alternative to slaves procreating, 45–46
countering the mortality rate, 48–49
end of Saint-Domingue’s, 134–139
freedmen buying and exploiting slaves, 56–57
Louverture’s family, 7–13
Louverture’s restoration of, 200
priests’ and rebel leaders’ involvement in, 123
rebel leaders’ clash over morality of, 142–143
statistics on, 9–10
slavery as institution
Anglo-French alliance in the colonies, 234–235
counterrevolutionary coup potential, 170–171
Declaration of the Rights of Man, 98–99
Louverture’s conflicted views of, 202, 211–213
Napoléon’s reintroduction in the colonies, 232, 236, 248–249
regulation through the Black Codes, 28–30
servitude of cultivators, 198–199
Sonthonax’s overthrow plots, 169–170
slaves
adaptation to the Caribbean, 15
Africans’ ownership of, 9
Bayon’s treatment of Bréda’s, 82–83, 87–88
death by imported diseases, 48
death of slaves under Louverture, 74
freedmen buying and exploiting, 62, 66–67
French move to improve the lives of, 95–96
friendships among, 50
increasing confidence in their own power, 124–125
labor abuse, 91–92
Louverture’s ownership and exploitation of, 65–66, 72–73
Louverture’s purchase of his surrogate mother, 105–106
Louverture’s second wife and family, 83–85
mixed-race children, 53–54
mortality and increasing discontent among the Bréda slaves, 106–109
negotiated peace terms, 130
obstacles to marriage and family, 44–45
profitability of, 86–89
Saint-Domingue slave population, 26, 77–82
self-awakening, 25–26
US War of Independence, 70–71
white men raping slave women, 46–48
See also Bréda plantations; freedman, Louverture as; freedmen; resistance
smallpox, 48, 85
Smith, Adam, 86
social status, 159
Louverture’s personal ambition, 4–6, 19–21, 23–24, 28
marriage changing men’s, 44–45
of “little whites,” 31–32
Saint-Domingue’s stratification, 17
whites’ involvement in Louverture’s freedom, 55
socioeconomic status
financial success defining race, 67–68
Sa
int-Domingue’s freedmen, 56
Sonthonax, Léger-Félicité
abolition without French permission, 144
arrival in Saint-Domingue, 130–131
benefits of work, 195
conflicted view of slavery and the revolt, 134–139
cultivator system, 196
economic recovery, 167–168
friendships, 156
Louverture’s defeat of, 176
Louverture’s fear of, 166–169
recall to France, 147
Spain
abolitionism, 256–257
colonial resistance, 94
exiled black soldiers, 150
France’s peace with, 157
invasion of Saint-Domingue, 132–134, 139–141
Louverture joining the Spanish Army, 140–141
Louverture’s service to the French army, 148–150
negotiating a peaceful outcome to the revolution, 120
rebel leaders’ plea for support, 125
rebel leaders’ slave trade with, 123
Saint-Domingue’s labor shortage, 200
war with Britain, 70
See also Peace of Basel; Santo Domingo
Stevens, Edward, 178–181, 186
sugar production
profitability of, 86–89
rebuilding the economy, 192–193
Saint-Domingue’s agro-industrial revolution, 77–82
See also cultivator system; plantation economy
suicide of Caribbean slaves, 15
Superior Councils, 93
surrogate parents, Louverture’s, 49–50
Taino Amerindians, 9, 22, 48, 255
theater, 60
trade relations
economic status of the cultivator system, 201
exclusif trade laws, 93–94, 99
France’s trade relations with Saint-Domingue, 179–180
Saint-Domingue’s central position, 81
Saint-Domingue’s white assembly eliminating restrictions, 99
US embargo with France, 178
United States
abolitionism, 95, 257
Louverture’s popularity in, 260–262
recognizing Haiti’s independence, 255
Saint-Domingue’s labor shortage, 200
War of the South, 186–187
See also Quasi-War
universal liberty/universal emancipation, 4, 115–116, 130, 134–135, 137, 145, 148, 180, 202, 205
Vaublanc, Vincent de, 170–172, 176, 263
Villatte, Jean, 148, 163–165, 176
Villevaleix, Sylvain de, 106–108
Vincent, Charles de, 214–215, 231–232
violence
following slavery reform efforts, 97
labor abuse, 91–92
Louverture escaping punishment, 33–34
regulation and punishment of slaves, 28–30
seeds of resistance, 34–35
Seven Years’ War, 35–36
Vodou
African slaves, 4
afterlife, 18
Boïs-Caiman ceremony to inspire revolutionaries, 112
Louverture outlawing, 195–196
Louverture-Hédouville rift, 175
Makandal conspiracy, 41
origins of Louverture’s name, 137
rebel leaders eschewing, 122–123
syncretization, 22–23
underground movement, 36–37
voting rights. See enfranchisement
War of Independence, US, 65, 69–71, 73–75, 88, 94, 108
War of the South, 183, 185–188, 190, 192–193, 196, 204, 206, 221, 234
wealth, Louverture’s, 141, 159
“white blacks,” 31–32, 193
white revolts, 93, 96–97
whites
Anglo-French plan to restore slavery in the colonies, 233–235
as interlopers on Saint-Domingue, 151–152
Dessalines’s anti-white agenda, 255
growing unrest in France, 97–98
“little whites,” 31–32
Louverture’s affinity with, 5–6, 55
Louverture’s massacre of, 143
political power shifting to blacks, 142
punishment for resisting, 35
rape of slave women by masters, 46–48
rise of racism, 67–69
Saint-Domingue’s white assembly declaring independence from France, 99–100
seeds of resistance against colonial powers, 96–97
slaves poisoning their owners, 36
supporting Britain against the French Republic, 152–154
See also plantation economy
Whydah (city-state), 7–10
Wilberforce, William, 260
women
cultivator labor force, 197
Louverture purchasing and freeing, 57
manumission, 54
political agenda of the revolution, 120
revolutionaries’ abductions of, 114
slaves’ deaths through labor abuse, 91
Wordsworth, William, 1, 249
yellow fever, 48, 151, 240, 242, 249
Credit: ©McNeese State University
Philippe Girard is professor of history at McNeese State University in Louisiana and spent 2014 as a fellow at the Du Bois Institute at Harvard. Girard is the author of Haiti: The Tumultuous History—from Pearl of the Caribbean to Broken Nation, among other books, and also translated and edited The Memoir of Toussaint Louverture. He lives in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
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