Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution inspired millions of free and enslaved people of African descent to seek freedom and equality throughout the Atlantic world. Toussaint and other black leaders of Saint-Domingue helped to lead the only Atlantic slave society which successfully defeated its oppressors. The former slaves were able to achieve freedom and equality by political and military force, when they defeated the advances of French, British, and Spanish troops. In 1804, they created the second independent Republic in the western hemisphere. As Toussaint Louverture’s life story helps demonstrate, the Haitian Revolution was a complex series of conflicts and alliances between different classes, populations, and political interests. …show more content…
Around 1743, he was born with the name, François Dominique Toussaint. His father was an African prisoner of war who was sold into slavery in Saint-Dominque. Toussaint was the eldest of eight children. As a child, he learned to read and write French and Haitian patois, and enjoyed access to books and schooling. His father taught him the use of traditional medicine. Before becoming a coachman for his master, Toussaint herded livestock. Some accounts described him as physically short, skinny, and unattractive, yet charismatic and intelligent. By his mid-thirties, he was free and working toward becoming a property owner.
Saint-Domingue, located in the western region of the island of Hispaniola, was a prized possession of France, due to the wealth derived from the labor of a half-million enslaved people, working primarily in sugarcane and coffee cultivation. In 1791, after the French Revolution, the enslaved people of Saint-Domingue and their allies began a revolution that would last twelve