How Should We Remember Toussaint Louverture?

How often is it that here of stories in history where a slave becomes a ruler? It's extremely rare, but Toussaint Louverture proves that it is possible. Toussaint Louverture was just your average slave on the island of Saint Domingue(Haiti). It became an extremely rich colony and produced 40% of the world's sugar and more than 50% of the world's coffee. This work was being done by the 500,000 slaves on the island. ( Background Essay )Toussaint was one of the slaves helping to make Saint Domingue an even more rich colony until he gained his freedom. Now Toussaint was a free men of color and he is known today for his role in leading the slaves in revolt and abolishing slavery in Saint Domingue. He was able to come from being an enslaved man, to being a doctor to troops and commanding a small group of slave soldiers in a slave revolt in the north. (Doc A) Then from there,  France abolishes slavery and he supports France.  Toussaint Louverture should be remembered for many reasons including his role as military commander, liberator of slaves, and ruler of Saint Domingue. However, I think it is most important that he should be remembered by his role as military commander because without his military skills, he wouldn't have been able to be the ruler of Saint Domingue or liberator of slaves.

Slave turned military commander of slave soldiers. When thinking of Louverture's legacy, it’s extremely important to remember that he was a good military commander and leader because without his military skills, he would have never have been recognized as a leader of the slaves or be seen as fit and receive his position of ruler of Saint Domingue. His great military skills can be seen when revolt breaks out on the night of October 29 in 1801. The revolt is against his now unpopular laborious requirements because they were much like the work that was being done by slavery before. Toussaint needed to get the situation under control as fast as he could and when passing through the rebel zone, he ordered rebels to commit suicide on the spot. Then, he ordered Moyse’s arrest who was supposed to be commander of all the Northern Department, but turned out to go against Toussaint. Moyse was then executed by firing squad.(Doc E) Louverture was able to get the whole thing under control and back to normal as fast as he could to keep the peace on his island.Also while being a military commander, Toussaint was able to drive out the English and the Spanish from the Island while raising the army’s reputation. When the French landed on the island trying to reinstate slavery under Napoleon Bonaparte, Toussaint makes the clever decisions to burn down their city as to not provide infrastructure to their army and to flee to the mountains because the people of Saint Domingue know the mountains better than anyone else. The French would be unfamiliar in the area. (Doc F) These were key events that lead to his success and contributed to his status of military commander which should be thought of when remembering Toussaint Louverture.

Aside from his role as military commander, Louverture should be remembered for being the liberator of the slaves. One thing that makes him a great leader for the saves is how he is consistantly fighting against slavery and for the slaves. Whether he is fighting with the French when they abolish slavery, or against the French trying to abolish slavery, he is always trying to stand up and fight for the slaves. (Doc A) Also, when it is feared that the French will try and reinstate slavery on the island, Toussaint send a letter to the French Directory letting them know that it will be impossible to reinstate slavery because they all know how bad slavery is and will refuse to be put back into their torturous positions as slaves. He sends this as a threat to basically say that they are ready to fight to the death for their freedom. (Doc B) He isn't getting scared and causing Saint Domingue to panic, but rather keeping them under control and motivating them to fight if need be.  To add, when helping organize the constitution for Saint Domingue, Toussaint makes it clear in  Article 3 that slavery cannot exist and is forever abolished, but they all live and die French. (Doc C)He was able to rise as a leader and knowing how awful it is to be a slave made him even more powerful. He should be remembered as a liberator of slaves because he lead an extremely important revolution that would inspire not just Saint Domingue, but other countries around the world.

Toussaint probably never imagined himself becoming a liberator of the slaves never mind the ruler of the new Saint Domingue once slavery has ended. Toussaint became the leader of Saint Domingue and should be remembered for what he did as a ruler. Though slaves don’t want to go back to working the way they used to, Toussaint is smart and makes the decision that they have to continue the work because agriculture is the only way the economy can thrive. However, now everyone gets to be rewarded for their work. He decides to have smaller plantations hoping the conditions will improve. (Doc C) However, his plan doesn't really go over too well because like I mentioned earlier, the slaves don’t want to go back to the same work they were doing before and now that they know they don’t have, they avoid it. In 1801 he makes a proclamation to enforce the provisions of the constitution where he states that everyone needs to work and be employed on a plantation. He also mentions that any individual takes action against the military, that they should be seen before a court martial and punished with the law. Another rule he enforces is that people cannot leave their plantation and take refuge in another or they will be denounced by the captain and spend one week in prison. Lastly, he says that vagabond cultivators, wanderers who refuse to work, will be arrested. (Doc D) When things get out of hand, Toussaint does just what he needs to do and enforces the law to keep the island running. It’s important to recognize him as having control of the island and in the end, wanting the best for his island which is why he keeps plantations. Louverture may not have been the most popular ruler at the time, but he was definitely doing is best and making smart decisions.

The Haitian Revolution would have been extremely different and may not have even happened or been successful without Toussaint Louverture. He took on three very important roles as military leader, liberator of slaves, and ruler of Saint Domingue. His successes are obvious. If anything, his legacy should be his great military skills and leadership. A man of so many accomplishments should not be forgotten. It’s people who step up like Toussaint Louverture whose legacy will live on years after their deaths.

Sources:
Background essay- from Toussaint Louverture Mini Q (2012 The DBQ Project)
Doc A- created from various sources
Doc B- Toussaint Louverture, "Letter to the French Directory, November 1797."
Doc C-The Saint Domingue Constitution of 1801.
Doc D- Toussaint Louverture, "Proclamation, 25 November 1801."
Doc E- Madison Smartt Bell, "Toussaint Louverture: A Biography, 2007.Doc F- William Wells Brown, " A Description of Toussaint Louverture," from The Black Men, his Antecendents, his Genius, and his Achievements , 2nd Additon 1864. Engraving of Toussaint Louverture, 1802.

We are all Humans

The essential question for our unit on the Latin American Revolutions is as follows, "Why is it essential to acknowledge human value regardless of race? How are the events in the Latin American Revolutions evidence of this social imperative?". 

We went about starting this lesson by viewing a map of South American Countries that had the year of their independence included. We previously learned about the Haitian Revolution in 1804 and the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Knowing this information, we realized that most of the countries had gained their independence after both of those events. This may be because they were angry with the results of the Congress of Vienna that cracked down on social structure and political policies, and they were inspired by the Haitian Revolution to create their own revolts for independence like the Haitians. 
Next, we made a pie chart showing the percentages of different races in Latin America. Mine is on the above.  What's funny about the percentages though, is that if you look at the social structure pyramid to the left, the Peninsulares have the most power, and they are the least present in the population. It sounds a lot like how Haiti was. We also discussed how your rank in social class depended on how white you were and there were many terms made up to describe how white a person was.  


The class then broke into three groups. Each group was assigned one of the following counties: Brazil, Mexico, and Gran Columbia. I was in the group that was assigned Mexico. We read about our country and made a timeline of important events that took place in the country. My timeline for Mexico can be seen to the below.

 After everyone in the class had completed their own timeline of their Latin American Country, we formed new groups where there were at least two people who had studied the other two countries that the others didn't. We shared our timelines and overall summary of our countries revolution and tried to come up with commonalities and differences between the three. 

Our commonalities and differences that we found are as follows: Commonalities

• First rulers of power after Independence only remained in power for a short amount of time.
• All three revolutions were successful and split ties from European powers. 
• Each three revolutions had a primary goal 
• All early 1800s 

Differences

• Brazilian revolution wasn't violent 
• Gran Colombia resulted in several independent countries 

We took a closer look at how race was involved in each of these revolutions. We noticed that in Mexico, the revolution was started by a priest and one of the three key reasons hes mentions for starting the revolt, is racial equality. Also, Pedro becomes the new King of Brazil and only allows white Europeans (Peninsulares) in his cabinet (high government positions). This of course upsets the people in Brazil who just fought to get away from European rule. In Gran Colombia, Simon Bolivard, a creole, was able to unite people despite their race in one army to fight the Spanish and Peninsulares. In this situation, you see many races being banded together because they all feel mistreated. These revolutions show that racial equality is important because it could break out into violence and revolts. Also, in the end, we are all humans and are not superior to one another because of where we come from. 

Currently, there has been recent protests and arguing about the event that took place in Ferguson, Missouri. Police shot unarmed, black teen Michael Brown. Many people think that if it was a white teen then it wouldn't have ended how it did. Protests have broken out all over the area and people are debating and arguing over whether this is a racial issue, or if it was the right thing to do. Difference in race still cause violence today. To learn more about the events in Ferguson, Missouri click here. 

Failure or Success?

 Many revolutions started taking place in the nineteenth century following the French Revolution. In school, my class took a look at this quote by Alexis de Tocqueville, "We are sleeping on a volcano. Do you not see that the Earth trembles anew. A wind of revolution blows, the storm is on the horizon. We took some time to look at this quote and figure out what it means. We said that liberals and nationalists are the sleeping volcano, the winds are the ideas of liberalism and nationalism that are spreading among the people in Europe who are unhappy, the storm on the horizon is the actual revolution that is about to come, and the Earth is trembling anew because the countries are unstable. Next, we were given our essential question for the lesson which is as follows, "Were  the  revolutions  of 1830 and 1848 really failures as historians have concluded?" A second quote we looked at to get started was one that said that if France sneezes, all of Europe catches a cold, and this could be true because we already saw that with Napoleon causing Europe. The class then divided into groups and we made timelines bout successes and failures. Mine is below.

  The timeline starts all the way at the left with complete failure and ends at the right with complete success. In the middle is not really a success or failure and the others are partial failure and partial success. 

Now to get started learning about the actual revolutions. we were again put into groups and each group was assigned a revolution. My group had the Decembrist Revolt. The Decembrist revolt took place in Russia in 1825. The Decembrists were liberals and the poor working class who were fighting to put someone like Constantine back in power to make constitutional reforms like they were promised but never given before. However, Constantine did not want to take the throne, so it was given to Tzar Nicholas I who was not prepared for the position. The Decembrist feared that he would be much like  Tzar Alexander who they did not like. They fought against his rule and for constitutional changes, but Nicholas would not give in to anything. He had people killed that fought against him to try and keep everything under control. The Decembrist Revolt was ultimately a lure because nothing changed as a result and many people were killed. 

After learning about our revolution, we made a survey monkey on it for the rest of the class to take. The results were great and we could tell that a lot of people were learning about our revolution. Most of the class got everything right! Below is a screenshot of part of our quiz. 

 

 The Frankfurt Assembly in 1848 wasn't a complete failure like the Decembrists Revolt, but it could still be considered a partial  failure because although they were able to organize and come up with ideas, they weren't able to put them into place. The German states wanted to create a constitutional monarchy and unify all of the states under it, but eventually the Parliament at Frankfurt was accused of treason and destroyed, and the revolt wasn't a successful. The French Revolution of 1830 is hard to call it either a success or failure. It was successful for the reasons of Charles X fleeing and Louis Philippe takes the throne and gives a constitutional monarchy and more voting rights to the wealthy. However, radical liberals were still upset because they wanted a republic. Another example that wasn't a failure or success would be like the events that took place in Hungary in 1848. A revolt breaks out and Metternich flees. Then, the nationalists in Budapest wanted an independent government, an end to serfdom, and a written constitution to protect their basic rights. The Austrian government was overwhelmed and agreed, but only temporarily. Once they gained control again with Russia's help, many were imprisoned, exiled, or executed.

I learned about the above revolts by taking my classmates quizzes on the revolutions that they made!

All in all, I think that the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 were not failures like historians have said. I think that the only one I would call a failure is the Decembrists Revolt. The others were not successes, but definitely were not complete failures. The people were able to put up a fight against their government and see changes although the changes still didn't satisfy everyone. Even if the change didn't last long, the people were still able to get what they wanted across to the government in order for them to make a change. The people of this time were able to make their voices heard.