Toussaint L'Ouverture (1743–1803)

François Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture was an educated freed slave who led the Haitian independence movement during the French Revolution. While Haiti was under his control, he emancipated the slaves and established Haiti as a French protectorate governed by blacks. Toussaint eventually ran afoul of the government of Napoleon Bonaparte; this led to his arrest and imprisonment until his death in April 1803. He is viewed as a martyr and a Haitian patriot due to his resistance to French colonial ambition.

In August 1791, a slave revolt in the north part of Haiti broke out, and Toussaint joined the rebel black forces but quickly felt the leaders were inept and too willing to compromise with the whites. He collected an army of his own and trained them in guerrilla warfare. It was after this that Toussaint added L'Ouverture (meaning “the opening”) to his original name of François Dominique Toussaint. In 1793, when France and Spain went to war, he briefly joined forces with the Spanish of Santo Domingo and took up arms against the French. He demonstrated astonishing military ability, and his victories helped bring the French close to defeat.

However, in 1794, he went over to the cause of the French citing as his reasoning the fact that the French National Convention had freed all slaves and that he felt drawn to their Republican cause. Although he continued to profess allegiance to France, his true mission was improving the conditions of his own people. He focused on restoring the economy of Haiti and instituted a system in which the plantation workers were free, were equal before the law, and received a portion of the profits from the restored plantations. Toussaint's policies helped ease racial tensions.

Toussaint served under various French governors and managed to wrest control from each of them. In 1799, he embarked on a campaign to control all of the Spanish areas of Santo Domingo. Slavery continued to exist in these areas, and Toussaint wanted to eradicate it as well as control all of the island of Hispaniola. He was ordered by the French government, at this time First Consul Bonaparte, to leave the Spanish alone. Toussaint defied this order and took command of the entire island, issuing a constitution that proclaimed him governor general for life. Bonaparte acknowledged Toussaint's position but became concerned about his activities and viewed him as a potential obstacle in turning the island into a profitable French colony. Because Toussaint knew that Bonaparte distrusted him, he began to raise a large army and prepare for a battle with the French. Outwardly, however, he continued to support France. This relationship with France caused many blacks to question Toussaint's true agenda. The situation in Hispaniola was such that the whites and mulattoes desired intervention by France in the hopes that the powerful black majority could be suppressed. Many blacks hoped that Toussaint would expel all whites and redistribute the profitable plantations among the black leaders. Toussaint's goal was to preserve the society that he had created and to, above all else, prevent any type of restoration of slavery.

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