Campaigners from history:
toussaint l'overture

Toussaint L'Overture

Credit: © Anti-Slavery International

Born into slavery in 1743 as François Dominique Toussaint Bréda in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), Toussaint eventually rose to become the leader of the Haitian revolution, the most influential slave rebellion in the world.

During his life as a slave, Toussaint worked in the household on the Bréda sugar plantation, becoming his master's coachman and then steward of the estate's livestock. In 1776, he was freed.

St Domingue was the biggest and wealthiest of the Caribbean islands whose economy was driven by slavery. At its height, it produced 30 per cent of the world's sugar and more than half of its coffee, providing its colonial ruler France with one third of its imports. The colony's 500,000 slaves were guarded by an army of soldiers, and suppressed by an exceptionally brutal regime characterised by harsh treatment and violent punishment for those who resisted.

In 1789, the French revolution led to tensions among the island's various white, black and mulatto (mixed race) populations, which on 22 August 1791, erupted into revolt. Although there had been many slave uprisings on the island, this was different. What began as a revolt against slavery and French plantation owners became a struggle that lasted for 13 years resulting in revolution and independence from France.

By early 1792, Toussaint had joined the rebellion. The various populations on the island were increasingly divided as a result of a series of conflicting decrees issued by the French Government to its colony. These included first granting and then withdrawing freedom and political rights to the island's mulatto and black populations.

Toussaint successfully organised the slaves into a revolutionary army and rapidly began his ascent to power, aided by his ability to play the region's European powers – France , Spain and Britain – off against each other. Throughout the 1790s, he skilfully switched allegiances among the powers to achieve his goals of an end to slavery and independence.

In 1793, Britain invaded St Domingue attempting to stop the rebellion's spread to its Caribbean colonies. Toussaint briefly formed an alliance with the Spanish, who ruled Santo Domingo (the eastern half of Hispaniola, now the Dominican Republic), gaining him arms and money. It was during this time that he adopted the name “L'Overture”, meaning opening.

A year later, he allied himself with the French. Some feel this was because France's senior colonial official, Léger Félicité Sonthonax, unilaterally abolished slavery on the island on 29 August 1793; a move which France's government formalised in February 1794, when it freed all slaves in its empire. But Toussaint's rotating alliances were expedient measures to achieve his ends: “...I want liberty and equality to reign throughout St. Domingue. I am working towards that end. Come and join me, brothers, and combat by our side for the same cause.”

The effects of this revolution spread throughout slave colonies inspiring other uprisings. In 1795, slaves on the British colony of Grenada rebelled and successfully took control of the island for several months, killing Europeans and destroying plantations.

Toussaint l'Overture's army was highly disciplined. Its determination to win freedom, skill at guerrilla warfare, plus the demoralising and debilitating effect of disease and difficult terrain on the British troops, led to their withdrawal. Following this, Britain agreed to trade with Toussaint as long as he did not invade Jamaica.

From 1794, Toussaint was the dominant force thanks to his remarkable political and military ability. By 1801, he had conquered Santo Domingo, which Spain had ceded to France six years earlier, freeing the slaves there and giving him control of the whole island. In July, he issued a constitution, which abolished slavery and named him Governor General for life, effectively establishing the first black-led government in the region.

Although he professed loyalty to France, it is clear from his actions, including his relations with other countries, that he viewed the island as autonomous. He published the constitution without consulting France, making a clear step towards independence, and orchestrated the removal of French officials.

But his rule was short-lived. In 1802, Napoleon sent a large force to the island under the command of his brother-in-law General Charles Leclerc with instructions to retake control and reinstitute slavery. By May, the fighting gave way to peace negotiations.

Eager not to make Toussaint a martyr, he was promised the position of lieutenant general if he agreed to retire to one of his plantations and was given an assurance that slavery would never be restored. A month later, the French invited him to a meeting, which, in a rare lapse of judgement, he agreed to attend. But it was a trap. Toussaint was captured, bound and taken by ship to France. Eight hundred of his top officers were also captured and imprisoned.

Toussaint L'Overture died in April 1803, in a dungeon at Fort-de-Joux, at the foot of the Jura mountains in the French Alps.

Despite his capture, the revolution again rose against France's exceptionally brutal rule and its reinstatement of slavery and the slave trade. Under the command of the former slave Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe, the united black and mulatto forces defeated Napoleon's troops. France's aim to reimpose slavery and its control were thwarted. On 1 January 1804, the Republic of Haiti was founded, returning the former colony to its indigenous name meaning ‘mountainous' and to black rule.