91Èȱ¬

An overview of Louverture's early life as a slave and a coachman before his formal emancipation in 1776 and his heavy involvement in the slave uprising of Saint-Domingue in 1791.

Toussaint Louverture [1797 – 1802] summed up the inhumanity of slavery in its systematic tendency ‘to tear away the son from his mother, the brother from his sister, the father from his son’.

As an intelligent, literate man, it is likely Louverture was key in shaping the strategy of the Haitian slave uprising in 1791, but he was also a man of mystery and there is very little documented material of his life. He spread misinformation about himself and had a complex extended family with possibly sixteen children.

In the London Gazette at the time, Louverture is described as ‘a negro born to vindicate the claims of his species, and to show that the character of man is independent of exterior colour’.

Written by Sudhir Hazareesingh

Omnibus of five parts abridged by Libby Spurrier.

Read by Adrian Lester.

Producer: Celia de Wolff

A Pier production for 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4, first broadcast in 2020.