Revisiting Haiti in the company of “Black Spartacus”
Black Spartacus is one of the monikers given to Toussaint Louverture (1743? -1803). He was also labeled a Black Jacobin and even portrayed as a Black Napol é on. “Toussaint is the first black superhero of modern age” according to Sudhir Hazareesingh [1] who wrote an impressive and intelligently detailed biography of a man who, since his death in 1803 has been rediscovered or reinvented by many of his biographers. If Toussaint was a de facto Jacobin and displayed Napoleonic military and administrative talents, he was not a Black Spartacus. Although born a slave in Saint Domingue, now Haiti, Toussaint embarked on his slave emancipation and revolutionary, military and political career as a free French man. During his short but multifaceted career, Toussaint endorsed the values of the French revolution and became its only Black general-in-chef and colony governor. In 1802, Toussaint was taken prisoner by the order of First Consul Napol é on Bon...