He Died Before Haiti Was Born

On April 7, 1803, Toussaint Louverture died in a freezing fortress in eastern France. Nine months later, the colony he had ruled declared itself Haiti—the first independent Black republic in the Atlantic world.Toussaint had been born enslaved. He became a free man, a Spanish officer, a general of the French Republic, and the dominant ruler of Saint-Domingue. He defended emancipation, expelled fore...