Liberté, Égailté, Fraternité!

James Buchanan was the president that preceded Abraham Lincoln, and some call him The Worst President Ever. Granted, he was inaugurated during a difficult time, in 1857 half of his country was pro-slavery and the other half wished the horrendous thing to be abolished. When his efforts to maintain peace failed and Southern states seceded, President Buchanan did nothing. He saw that secession was illegal and that going to war to prevent secession was also illegal. For a man that aspired to have a presidency like that of George Washington, he fell very short. From James Buchanan’s failure to unite his nation, it is evident that reaction is an important quality of a leader. President Buchanan and Toussaint L’Ouverture were both leaders. L’Ouverture was born into slavery in the French colony of Saint Domingue, now the western side of Haiti. During the 1780s, Saint Domingue was one of the most profitable colonies in the world, producing forty percent of the world’s sugar and more than half of the world’s coffee. The laborers that created this profit were slaves. About ninety percent of the population of Saint Domingue in 1789 was made up of slaves. By 1789, Toussaint L’Ouverture was a free man and a citizen of France working his way to becoming a leader. L’Ouverture deserves to be remembered. He should be remembered most for his biggest accomplishment: the liberation of the enslaved population of Saint Domingue. He is an abolitionist before he is a military or government leader – from those positions of power he strived to achieve his largest goal of emancipating slaves.

Toussaint L’Ouverture should be remembered as a liberator of slaves. L’Ouverture proves with his actions that the matter of slavery is more important to him than any allegiance. The first slave revolt of Saint Domingue began in 1792 against France, their mother country. The revolution did not end until two years later when the new French government under Robespierre abolished slavery in France and all of its colonies. Now that the multitudes of Saint Domingue plantation workers were no longer enslaved, they were able to happily cease revolting. (Doc A) This peace did not last. By 1795, just a year after Robespierre had come to power, the conservative French Directory took over. It was feared that this new governing party would once again reinstate slavery. Toussaint L’Ouverture responded by writing a letter to The French Directory. In it he stated that Saint Domingue was prepared to fight to maintain its freedom (or liberté as the French say). He writes, “Could men who have enjoyed the benefits of liberty look on calmly while it is taken from them! They bore their chains when they knew no condition of life better than that of slavery. But today when they have left it, if they had a thousand lives, they would rather sacrifice them all rather than be subjected again to slavery…” (Doc B) Now that his people have experienced a life of freedom, they would much rather die than ever be re-enslaved. In the 1801 Saint Domingue Constitution, signed by Toussaint L’Ouverture, the colony finally became a place where slavery would never again exist. The constitution states that: “ All men are born, live and die free and French.” (Doc C) With all his hard work towards this success, L’Ouverture deserves to be remembered as a liberator of the slaves of Saint Domingue.

Another achievement of Toussaint L’Ouverture was his time as the leader of Saint Domingue. It was the same Constitution of Saint Domingue that officially put Toussaint L’Ouverture, a prominent leader during the revolution, in charge of the colony. (Doc C) As the leader of his homeland, unlike President Buchanan, L’Ouverture was not afraid of action. He was prepared to fight France if they re-imposed slavery. In the letter he sent to the French Directory he says, “We have known how to confront danger to out liberty, and we will know how to confront death to preserve it.” (Doc B) When he was not writing threats, L’Ouverture’s time was spent protecting the wealthy economy of the island. He implicated rules that made sure everyone that had once been enslaved was still working and with as much gusto as before they had been freed. In a Proclamation in 1801, just after the constitution had come to pass, he stated that “As soon as a child can walk, he should be employed on the plantation according to his strength in some useful work…” (Doc D) He also had strict punishments put in place. The repercussion for being a vagabond was being arrested by a member of the “gendarmerie”, which was the name for the police force stationed at each plantation. If any plantation was harboring a runaway worker, failing to report them in 24 hours resulted in a week in prison for whoever was harboring them. These rules were set in place to keep the former slaves working and working hard enough that the economy of the rich island did not falter. Unfortunately, after freeing the slaves, Toussaint L’Ouverture created an environment very similar to the one the former slaves were used to being confined to. L’Ouverture used his power as a leader to abolish slavery, but he still needed a way to keep the plantations producing profits so his decisions made him unpopular among the plantation workers. It is important to remember that not all of L’Ouverture’s actions were beneficial to his country.

Toussaint L’Ouverture was a sagacious military leader. In 1798 he defeated British troops who were nervous that the revolutionary ideas would spread to their enslaved colony of Jamaica. (Doc A) Not only good with tactics, L’Ouverture was an expert at rallying his troops. Before Napoleon's army-- who wanted to take control of the colony once again-- landed on Saint Domingue, Toussaint L’Ouverture sang to his troops, “Here come the enslavers of our race…not France, with all her troops of the Rhine, the Alps, the Nile, the Tiber, nor all Europe to help her, can extinguish the soul of Africa.” (Doc F) His troops were about to face the most powerful army in the world, but L’Ouverture was ready to put up a fight. Thanks to the quick mind of the leader of Saint Domingue, there was no town left for the troops to seek shelter or previsions, just smoking ruins. The troops of Saint Domingue had taken off for the mountains, where they would have a large advantage over the European troops who were only trained in traditional fighting and not guerrilla tactics. Toussaint L’Ouverture was playing to the strengths of his army, because they had been taught guerrilla style fighting, so they were able to use their surroundings efficiently. (Doc A) The 31,131 troops of the French, Dutch, and Polish, sent by Napoleon, lost against the mind of Toussaint L’Ouverture and his impressive army. L’Ouverture was a powerful and strategic military leader, but his motivation was to keep slavery from Saint Domingue.

Although Toussaint L’Ouverture was a brave leader and resourceful military commander, he would have wanted to be remembered as a liberator of slaves. His passion lies in that, and his motivation to become a strong leader of Saint Domingue and a brilliantly tactical man was to keep his colony free from bondage. He defeated Napoleon’s army so no one in Saint Domingue would ever again become enslaved. L’Ouverture made sure the economy maintained as stellar as it had been while enslaved so that Saint Domingue could continue to prosper. Both L’Ouverture and Buchanan were disliked; however, L’Ouverture is far more impressive. The Ruler of Saint Domingue was a man of action. The dislike aimed at him stemmed from and action and that is far nobler than President Buchanan, who did nothing when some type of action was necessary. Buchanan left the emancipating to Abraham Lincoln when L’Ouverture set out to do it himself. Toussaint’s grandest accomplishment was slave liberation and that is how we should remember his intricate legacy. 

Works Cited

Document A: Timeline of Abolition in Saint Domingue 
Document B: Letter to the French Directory, November 1797
Document C: Constitution of 1801
Document D: Proclamation, 25 November 1801
Document F: The Battle of Samana