Toussaint Louverture
Madison Smartt Bell
<p>At the end of the 1700s, French Saint Domingue was the richest and most brutal colony in the Western Hemisphere. A mere twelve years later, however, Haitian rebels had defeated the Spanish, British, and French and declared independence after the first—and only—successful slave revolt in history. Much of the success of the revolution must be credited to one man, Toussaint Louverture, a figure about whom surprisingly little is known. In this fascinating biography, Madison Smartt Bell, award-winning author of a trilogy of novels that investigate Haiti’s history, combines a novelist’s passion with a deep knowledge of the historical milieu that produced the man labeled a saint, a martyr, or a clever opportunist who instigated one of the most violent events in modern history. The first biography in English in over sixty years of the man who led the Haitian Revolution, this is an engaging reexamination of the controversial, paradoxical leader.</p>From Publishers Weekly<p>Author of an acclaimed trilogy of novels charting the Haitian revolution of 1791–1803 (<em>All Soul's Rising</em>, <em>Master of the Crossroads</em> and <em>The Stone That the Builder Refused</em>), Bell is eminently qualified to write a biography of that struggle's central figure, Toussaint-Louverture. Beginning with a pithy overview of 18th-century colonial Haiti, taking in its harsh Spanish- and French-controlled slave plantations and its complex systems of race and class, Bell trawls documentary sources to trace Toussaint's stealthy emergence as a revolutionary leader. The author emphasizes Toussaint's unusual status as a free black man of property who commanded trust and authority among both blacks and whites. Sifting hard evidence out of the heaps of conjecture that surround his subject, Bell examines Toussaint's royal African origins, questions of his literacy, and the relationship between his outward Catholicism and the Vodou beliefs in which he was immersed. With scholarly conscientiousness, Bell examines differing historical accounts of Toussaint's military and diplomatic campaigns, comparing Toussaint's "meteoric trajectory" to that of Napoleon Bonaparte before describing Toussaint's demise in a Napoleonic prison. Since then, Bell comments, writers and politicians "have constructed whatever Toussaint Louverture they require"—usually, he adds, a vicious one. Bell's own contribution avoids mythology without detracting from the achievements of Toussaint-Louverture's dramatic career. <em>(Jan. 16)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>From Bookmarks Magazine<p>Madison Smartt Bell's extensive work on Haitian history makes him the right man to tackle Louverture, an elusive but significant figure. Critics felt, however, that since so little is known about him prior to age 50 (something even Bell himself concedes), Bell might have better served his subject with historical fiction. Instead, he devotes much of the book to dry, academic information instead of dramatic storytelling. Bell's forthright presentation of Louverture's multifaceted personality and contradictions, however, intrigued critics the most. While reviewers debated the quality of previous biographies, all felt the necessity for something new on Louverture, especially considering his legacy in Haitian and African American cultures and his effect on Napoleonic expansion. <br /><em>Copyright © 2004 Phillips &amp; Nelson Media, Inc.</em></p>