TOUSSAINT-LOUVERTURE

born c. 1743, , Brda, near Cape Franois, Saint-Domingue died April 7, 1803, Fort-de-Joux, Fr. Louverture also spelled L'Ouverture, original name (until c. 1793) Franois Dominique Toussaint leader of the Haitian independence movement during the French Revolution, who emancipated the slaves and briefly established Haiti as a black-governed French protectorate. Additional reading Biographical accounts favourable to Louverture include Wenda Parkinson, This Gilded African: Toussaint L'Ouverture (1978), an introductory work; C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, 2nd ed., rev. (1963, reissued 1989), sound but with a Marxist bias; Ralph Korngold, Citizen Toussaint (1944, reissued 1979), a detailed study; and T. Lothrop Stoddard, The French Revolution in San Domingo (1914, reprinted 1970), a classic work favourable despite its anti-Negro bias. A critical study is Stephen Alexis, Black Liberator: The Life of Toussaint Louverture, trans. from French (1949), a work that is credulous in places. George F. Tyson, Jr. (ed.), Toussaint L'Ouverture (1973), includes about 40 pages of Toussaint's writings.