Interesting book on Louverture here:<br>
Rui<br>
____________________________________________________________<br>
<br>
Toussaint <span id="st" name="st" class="st">Louverture</span>, "simultaneously a devout Catholic, a Freemason<br>
and a secret practitioner of voodoo." Now, that's my kind of man. In<br>
another place, another time, he might have been simultaneously a<br>
devout Muslim, a feminist, and a secret practioner of historical<br>
materialism -- with that combination, a man would know better than to<br>
take a perfidious empire's offer of negotiations. :-> -- Yoshie<br>
<br>
<<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/books/review/Hochschild.t.html" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/books/review/Hochschild.t.html</a>>
<br>
February 25, 2007<br>
The Black Napoleon<br>
By ADAM HOCHSCHILD<br>
<br>
TOUSSAINT <span id="st" name="st" class="st">LOUVERTURE</span><br>
A Biography.<br>
By Madison Smartt Bell.<br>
Illustrated. 333 pp. Pantheon Books. $27.<br>
<br>
Quick, what was the second country in the New World to win full<br>
independence from its colonial masters in the Old? Mexico? Brazil?<br>
Some place liberated by Bolívar?<br>
<br>
The answer, Madison Smartt Bell reminds us, is Haiti — which actually<br>
gave Bolívar some help.<br>
<br>
The years of horrendous warfare that culminated in Haiti's birth in<br>
1804 is one of the most inspiring and tragic chapters in the story of<br>
the Americas. For one thing, it was history's only successful<br>
large-scale slave revolt. The roughly half a million slaves who<br>
labored on the plantations of what was then the French territory of<br>
St. Domingue had made it the most lucrative colony anywhere in the<br>
world. Its rich, well irrigated soil, not yet overworked and eroded,<br>
produced more than 30 percent of the world's sugar, more than half its<br>
coffee and a cornucopia of other crops.<br>
<br>
When the slaves there rose up in 1791, they sent shock waves<br>
throughout the Atlantic world. But the rebels did more than win. In<br>
five years of fighting, they also inflicted a humiliating defeat on a<br>
large invasion force from Britain, which, at war with France, wanted<br>
to seize this profitable territory for itself. And later they did the<br>
same to a vast military expedition sent by Napoleon, who vainly tried<br>
to recapture the colony and restore slavery. The long years of<br>
race-based mass murder (which included a civil war between blacks and<br>
gens de couleur, as those of mixed race were known) left more than<br>
half the population dead or exiled, and Haiti lives with that legacy<br>
of violence still. Seldom have people anywhere fought so hard for<br>
their freedom.<br>
<br>
Seldom, too, have they so much owed success to one extraordinary man.<br>
Toussaint <span id="st" name="st" class="st">Louverture</span>, a short, wiry coachman skilled in veterinary<br>
medicine, had been freed some years before the upheaval. About 50 when<br>
the revolt began, he was one of those rare figures — Trotsky is the<br>
only other who comes to mind — who in midlife suddenly became a<br>
self-taught military genius. He welded the rebel slaves into<br>
disciplined units, got French deserters to train them, incorporated<br>
revolution-minded whites and gens de couleur into his army and used<br>
his legendary horsemanship to rush from one corner of the colony to<br>
another, cajoling, threatening, making and breaking alliances with a<br>
bewildering array of factions and warlords, and commanding his troops<br>
in one brilliant assault, feint or ambush after another. Finally lured<br>
into negotiations with one of Napoleon's generals in 1802, he was<br>
captured and swiftly whisked off to France. Deliberately kept alone,<br>
cold and underfed deep inside a fortress in the Jura mountains, he<br>
died in April 1803.<br>
<br>
Toussaint's is an epic story, and it lies at the heart of a much<br>
praised trilogy by Bell, the prolific American novelist. Bell's new<br>
biography, "Toussaint <span id="st" name="st" class="st">Louverture</span>," is resolutely nonfiction, however.<br>
And welcome it is, for the existing biographies, from Ralph Korngold's<br>
1944 effort (dated, uncritical and unsourced) to Pierre Pluchon's 1989<br>
book (quirky, negative and only in French) are mostly unsatisfactory.<br>
Bell knows the primary and scholarly literature well, carefully sifts<br>
fact from myth and generally maintains a sober and responsible<br>
understated tone.<br>
<br>
Maybe a little too sober and understated. I can't help wondering<br>
whether Bell, so well known for his novels of Haiti, is bending over<br>
backward to show that as a biographer he is not making anything up. I<br>
wish he had given more rein to his novelist's skills — not by<br>
inventing things, but by making more narrative use of the wealth of<br>
detail there is about this time and place. Part of the problem is that<br>
almost none of that detail has to do with the life of Toussaint<br>
himself, about whose first 50 years we know next to nothing. Bell<br>
points this out, and so the sources he quotes are almost entirely from<br>
after Toussaint's sudden emergence as a leader: his letters and<br>
proclamations, and the relatively few eyewitness accounts of him.<br>
<br>
But this largely leaves out the rich array of documentary testimony we<br>
have about life in brutal, high-living colonial St. Domingue, about<br>
people ranging from the planter Jean-Baptiste de Caradeux, who<br>
entertained his guests by seeing who could knock an orange off a<br>
slave's head with a pistol shot at 30 paces, to the French prostitute<br>
who came to the colony looking for wealthy white clients and then<br>
complained to a newspaper that she found too much competition. And<br>
both British and French officers left diaries and memoirs about<br>
fighting the unexpectedly skilled rebel slaves — accounts as searing<br>
and vivid in their frustration as those by American soldiers blogging<br>
from Iraq.<br>
<br>
Such things are not precisely about Toussaint, but they flesh out the<br>
world in which he lived and fought, and American readers unfamiliar<br>
with the intricacies of Haitian history need all the help they can<br>
get.<br>
<br>
Still, this is the best biography of Toussaint yet, in large part<br>
because Bell does not shy away from the man's contradictions. Although<br>
a former slave, he had owned slaves himself. Although he led a great<br>
slave revolt, he was desperate to trade export crops for defense<br>
supplies and so imposed a militarized forced labor system that was<br>
slavery in all but name. He was simultaneously a devout Catholic, a<br>
Freemason and a secret practitioner of voodoo. And although the<br>
monarchs of Europe regarded him with unalloyed horror, he in effect<br>
turned himself into one of them by fashioning a constitution making<br>
himself his country's dictator for life, with the right to name his<br>
successor.<br>
<br>
"Within Haitian culture," Bell writes, "there are no such<br>
contradictions, but simply the actions of different spirits which may<br>
possess one's being under different circumstances and in response to<br>
vastly different needs. There is no doubt that from time to time<br>
Toussaint <span id="st" name="st" class="st">Louverture</span> made room in himself for angry, vengeful spirits,<br>
as well as the more beneficent" ones. Of such contradictions are great<br>
figures made; just think of our own Thomas Jefferson — who,<br>
incidentally, ordered money and muskets sent to his fellow slave<br>
owners to suppress Toussaint's drive for freedom, saying of it, "Never<br>
was so deep a tragedy presented to the feelings of man."<br>
<br>
Adam Hochschild's most recent book is "Bury the Chains: Prophets and<br>
Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves."<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 03/05/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Guyverson Vernous</b> <<a href="mailto:guyversonv@hotmail.com">guyversonv@hotmail.com
</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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<div>Not for fun, I would add Haiti the first independent black country with Toussaint Louverture.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Guyverson Vernous </div>
<div> </div>
<div><i>-------Message original-------</i></div>
<div> </div>
<div>
<div style="font-size: 11pt;" dir="ltr"><i><b>De :</b></i> <a href="mailto:yehudakatz@mailinator.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">yehudakatz@mailinator.com</a></div>
<div style="font-size: 11pt;" dir="ltr"><i><b>Date :</b></i> 5/3/2007 11:44:44 AM</div>
<div style="font-size: 11pt;" dir="ltr"><i><b>A :</b></i> <a href="mailto:governance@lists.cpsr.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">governance@lists.cpsr.org</a></div>
<div style="font-size: 11pt;" dir="ltr"><i><b>Sujet :</b></i> Re: Re: [governance] Just for fun Question</div></div><div><span class="e" id="q_11259fe15fe70f26_1">
<div> </div>
<div>> we must be living in different just-for-fun worlds</div>
<div> </div>
<div>My apologies. Your right,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>For me, I choose Chicago because it is the home of American Civil Rights</div>
<div>Movement.</div>
<div>But you are right, absolutely!</div>
<div>There are plenty of other significant places where Justice found a home.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>South Africa (in his way Mandelas / Anti-Apartheid Movement), South America</div>
<div>(in his way Che), Caribbean (in his way Fidel), India (in his way Ghandi),</div>
<div>Poland (The Solidarity Movement) etcetc </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Enlighten me , where would You put the home of Justice?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>--</div>
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