Toussaint Louverture was a man of contradictions. He was a free black man and a slave owner, yet he led a successful slave revolution.
In a biography of Louverture by Baltimore author Madison Smartt Bell, the reader discovers how this fascinating man transformed 18th-century Haiti ? the richest colony in the Western Hemisphere ? into an independent country of freed slaves.
Louverture is one of the least-known and most poorly understood black heroes. Much of the history about Louverture is mere speculation, but Bell strings together hard evidence and firsthand accounts to make him come to life.
Before the introduction, Bell includes a quote from a general that sums up Louverture as an enigmatic figure: “One never knew what he was doing, if he was leaving, if he was staying; where he was going or whence he came.”
Although, at moments, the author?s reverence for Louverture is excessive (he once refers to him emerging as “the nearly omnipotent master of his universe”), Bell offers a fair and balanced picture. He corrects inaccurate depictions of Louverture as a brutal leader.
In one scene, Bell recounts a poetic description of how Louverture led prisoners across the landscape of hostile whites to the streets of LeCap.
“He was seen, apparently tranquil behind his mask, traversing these stormy double lines. He rode at the head of 150 cavalry dragoons ? a show of organized force which must have been startlingly impressive to the whites.”
The author meticulously follows the politics of the revolution, which at times can be a bit confusing. England, Spain, France and the United States all were interested in the colony and had armed forces on or near the island at some point. The scholarly novel may zip over the head of an average reader but will be appreciated by history buffs.
Bell is the author of 12 novels and has written a highly acclaimed fictional trilogy on the revolution. He is a professor of English and the director of the Kratz Center for Creative Writing at Goucher College.
