|
The writings
of the abolitionist, Reverend John Relly Beard,
treat Toussaint
Louverture with much love and a
tremendous empathic vision for his
growth as a slave who became the
precursor of the ìndépendance of
Haiti. As an abolitionist he used
the Autobiography of
Toussaint Louverture as a powerful intellectual
instrument against the partisans of
slavery. It was framed in a
general context of depicting the black
man as capable of integrating the values
of western civilization.
The key element of the antislavery
argument was the defense of the humanity
of the black person. This defense
was the corner stone of the destruction
of the principal ideological pillar of his
legal status as a slave, a commodity
belonging to another man. Indeed,
the whole concept of slavery rested on
the principle that black people were an
inferior race and as such were created
by God to serve the white man. One
can understand the difficult task of the
abolitionists who faced the strategic
necessity of finding an exceptional
black person that can be used as an
example of the general human potential
of black people. They needed a
black icon. Toussaint Louverture,
former slave of Saint Domingue who
became a French General and the Governor
of Saint Domingue was a perfect
example capable of incarnating the
preset schematic of the much
needed icon of the
abolitionist movement. His
accomplishments as a General and a Head
of State became examples of the general
potential of African people. His
position as an icon of the emancipation
movement is the root of his tremendous
popularity among African American to
day. Jean Jacques Dessalines who effectively
proclaimed the ìndépendance of Haiti
was portrayed by the abolitionist as a
half savage who massacred the colonist
after promising them protection. He is less
popular and not even mentioned most of
the time . He did not fit the
agenda of the abolitionist movement and
therefore was not given the iconographic
statue bestowed upon Toussaint
Louverture. Toussaint Louverture
was elevated almost to sainthood and
used as an example of the civilized,
integrated and christianized patriotic
black man who spared the lives of the
slave masters. He was in this
context a safe icon that could be used
to show that black people were capable
of superior virtues including the
possibility of forgiveness for their
masters. The fear of facing the
vengeful rage of the Negroes of America
was shown, through Toussaint Louverture,
not to be an inescapable route of the
march of Negroes toward freedom provided
that they were integrated and
impregnated, through education,
with Christian values. Dessalines,
the former maroon, the enraged Haitian
General who is the father of Haitian
Independence was, understandably,
vilified,
because the white abolitionist did not like
him as an example for the black people
of Americas. African American
used Toussaint Louverture as an example
of a black man who disproved the
fundamental elements of the theory of
white supremacy. It is true that
Francois Dominique Toussaint was a pure
blood African man endowed with a
superior intelligence, however the
context governing his transformation
into an antislavery icon was a
creation of the white abolitionists who,
in spite of their good will, were in
fact intellectual prisoners of a biased
perspective which defined the rise of a
black man to the enactment of his
humanity by the replacement of his
original culture with western
values.
Toussaint Louverture is said to have
written the text of his memoirs. It was corrected by
Martial Besse before it was send to
Napoleon Bonaparte. The
description of his services to the
Republic seems to minimize the doubts
one might have regarding the
authenticity of the document. The sense of shock and
outrage
Toussaint Louverture must have felt since he was
taken prisoner could be understood by
reading the following narrative:
"Madame Toussaint and her children
were conveyed to Bayonne, where they
were placed under the supervision of
General Duclos. L'Ouverture, with his
servant, Mars Plaisir, was put on shore
at Landerneau, where they were taken in
charge by two companies of cavalry.
Compelled to quit immediately, Toussaint
in one carriage and Mars in another, set
out for Paris under a strong guard. At
Guingamp, some officers of the
eighty-second, who had served under
Toussaint L'Ouverture's orders,
prevailed on the commander to stop the
cavalcade, that they might enjoy the
opportunity of saluting their old
general. The permission was accorded.
This was the only solace that the
captive enjoyed on the French soil. He
reached Paris on the 17th of August, and
was immediately imprisoned in the
Temple. Thence, without any interview
with Bonaparte or his ministers, and
without the slightest explanation he was
hurried away into the department of Jura,
and consigned to the dungeons of the
castle of Joux. Singular caprice of what
is called history, at that very hour the
same prison held in chains Rigaud, the
rival and the foe of Toussaint.
Separated in the busy hours of public
life, Toussaint and Rigaud were united
by misfortune. And yet the union was
little more than nominal, for they were
too powerful, even in a dungeon, to be
allowed to confer together."
The
above documents shows that the writing
of several letters and even of a memoir
detailing the services rendered to the
republic was the natural course of
reaction Toussaint Louverture might have
during his captivity. The
memoirs showed that he was a French
general of African descent who was
defending his acts on behalf of the
Republic. References are made
about his kindness to his former
masters. Reading the text of his
memoirs one cannot escape from a feeling
of sadness by realizing that he
was broken man, condemned to isolation
and death by slow starvation without a
trial, who was defending his right
to dignity. To do so, he is
using the frame of his existence as a
citizen soldier of Republic who is questioning
the honor of his captors.
Looking at the whole document one gets
the impression of a completely
integrated former African Slave who
became a soldier of the Republic, a
general and a Head of State. The
integration of Toussaint Louverture in
the persona of a French General could be
even seen in his magisterial signature
which one cannot see without thinking
that he was an important person.
The sense of power conveyed by the
signature is further reinforced by
the three points at the end which
are customarily used in Haiti by the free masons.
At the moment, we do not have any
historical document at our disposal
indicating that Toussaint Louverture was
received as a free mason. We can
only base our conjecture about his
initiation as a free mason on the
fact that in the subsequent years of
Haitian history most of those who rose
to a position of power were free
mason. Toussaint Louverture might
have been the first of the Haitian
leaders who became a free mason and as
such started a new tradition that was
followed by others. Further research is
needed on this subject matter to move it
from the realm of the circumstantial to
the solid ground of direct historical
proof.
However , we believe that it is safe to
conjecture that, through his
signature, he was following a
pattern of presenting himself like
it was customary at his time for the
Grands Blancs and the people in power in
St Domingue. In that sense, his
signature could be just an historical
window in the minds of the rising
leadership of Haiti and its behavior in
the subsequent history of the
nation One can see it as an
instance of the beginning of the
manifestation the social icon dominating
the sociopolitical schematic of Haiti
which is the Grand Nègre. This
icon is black/mulato and Creole but the psychological
core of his behavior, its general theatrics
of power, its global psychosocial
vision of the normal Haitian
Person rest on the social
persona of the Grand Blanc of St
Domingue.
|
