In terms of how he understood, or represented, his own perspectives, we see for example that in his account of his final struggle with General Leclerc, “Mémoires,”--his the French military leader who was dispatched by Napoleon to retake the colony and ultimately restore slavery via Toussaint gives his own justification for “special laws”-- why he reimposed the plantation system on the ex-slave population: I made my fellow Haitians [mes semblables] work it was to give them a taste “if of the price of true liberty without license; it was to stop the corruption of morals; it was for the general good of the island [le bonheur general for the de l’île], interest of the republic. And I effectively succeeded in my task because in all the colony one see a single man who working and the number of beggars doesn’t isn’t has been reduced to the point where one sees only a few in the cities and none at all in the countryside.” Here we see that at the end of his life (he wrote these memoirs while imprisoned in France) Toussaint continued to demonstrate a strong allegiance to the enlightenment ideals that spurred the French Revolution (and hence, his own), despite all that he had suffered at the hands of France. It may be that over time, the careful balance that we find in began to tilt towards the phantasmagorical, that, as with the Toussaint’s “hesitations” Bolsheviks too, an open ended revolutionary spirit began to resemble—at least in the way that Toussaint conceived of things--the very regime it had replaced. by his own hand) are some of the longest extant Toussaint’s “Mémoires” (written records of his own words but they are complicated by the fact that he is in a desperate situation; he is reduced to being a spectator of the revolution in Haiti (now led by Dessalines who goes on to about his family, and in become Haiti’s emperor) worried increasingly poor health. It is hard to know intentions were in writing what Toussaint’s them. The overriding theme of this document is his own continued loyalty to France and
In terms of how he understood, or represented, his own perspectives, we see for example that in his “Mémoires,”--his account of his final struggle with General Leclerc, the French military leader who was dispatched by Napoleon to retake the colony and ultimately restore slavery via “special laws”-- Toussaint gives his own justification for why he reimposed the plantation system on the ex-slave population: “if I made my fellow Haitians [mes semblables] work it was to give them a taste of the price of true liberty without license; it was to stop the corruption of morals; it was for the general good of the island [le bonheur general de l’île], for the interest of the republic. And I effectively succeeded in my task because in all the colony one doesn’t see a single man who isn’t working and the number of beggars has been reduced to the point where one sees only a few in the cities and none at all in the countryside.” Here we see that at the end of his life (he wrote these memoirs while imprisoned in France) Toussaint continued to demonstrate a strong allegiance to the enlightenment ideals that spurred the French Revolution (and hence, his own), despite all that he had suffered at the hands of France. It may be that over time, the careful balance that we find in Toussaint’s “hesitations” began to tilt towards the phantasmagorical, that, as with the Bolsheviks too, an open ended revolutionary spirit began to resemble—at least in the way that Toussaint conceived of things--the very regime it had replaced. Toussaint’s “Mémoires” (written by his own hand) are some of the longest extant records of his own words but they are complicated by the fact that he is in a desperate situation; he is reduced to being a spectator of the revolution in Haiti (now led by Dessalines who goes on to become Haiti’s emperor) worried about his family, and in increasingly poor health. It is hard to know what Toussaint’s intentions were in writing them. The overriding theme of this document is his own continued loyalty to France and