Once he managed the huge feat of obtaining his own freedom, Toussaint set about freeing his family. His devout Catholicism-so devout, in fact, that Girard suggests at times he stepped over the line and performed mass as a layman-distanced him from insurrections that drew inspiration from Vodou.

So Toussaint, Girard writes, “won the lottery.” While there were early slave rebellions on Saint Domingue, Toussaint does not seem to have been involved. Men made up less than 11 percent of freed slaves. The chance of being manumitted during a slave’s lifetime were under one percent, and in the colorist system these were mostly the mothers of mixed-race children. Girard points out that he was, on the other hand, exceptionally adept at navigating the slave system. The slaves were not de Libertat’s to free, and for him to release Toussaint informally would have been another act of embezzlement.įor most of his life there was nothing particularly revolutionary about Toussaint (“Louverture” would come later). De Libertat had him drive his coach, then he seems to have freed him under ambiguous circumstances.

Eager to distinguish himself, young Louverture had shown extraordinary capacity with horses and mules and became de Libertat’s favorite. Plantation managers acted with independence (though they were held to account for killed or damaged slaves) the Bréda overseer Bayon de Libertat seems to have exercised that freedom mostly for embezzlement. The Brédas were absentee landlords, as was common in Saint Domingue, a system that for slaves worked out for the better and worse. Louverture was born in the city of Cap on the Bréda plantation.

Philippe girard toussaint louverture