Birthday of Haitian revolutionary Pierre-Dominique Touissant LOverture. There had been slave revolts before: in the Caribbean, in South America, and in

North America. But none would be as fantastic as the Great Haitian Slave Revolt.

In 1791 the small French island colonys a half-million African slaves set fire to

plantations and killed all those in their path. Of all the rebels, none would be so

remembered as a short, grey-haired African who in a few years turned rebellion

into revolution: Francois Dominique Toussaint LOverture. Though not a

participant in the beginning fires which marked the start of the revolt, he quickly

became its greatest soldier. Joining the tattered rebel army, Touissant trained the

disorganized Black slaves into hardened troops. Holding up his musket in

defiance, he told Haitian slaves, Here is your liberty! He then took to the field as

an ally of Spain against France then as an ally of France against England and

Spain. Playing the competing European powers against each other, he

outmaneuvered the best diplomats of his day. A superb military general, Toussaint

managed to defeat the English army causing over 40,000 casualties. He was even

responsible for defeating the armies of that periods greatest conqueror, Napoleon

Bonaparte. Tricked into accepting an invitation from a French General to discuss

matters of state, Toussaint was captured by French forces. Napoleon, taking no

chances, locked him in a medieval fortress high in the Jura Alps of the

French-Swiss borders. Upon hearing of his capture Haiti once again erupted into

revolt. In the name of Toussaint the cry was War for war, crime for crime,

atrocity for atrocity! Led by Toussaints successor, the military genius

Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the Haitian soldiers defeated the French and gained

independence for their island nation in November of 1803. Toussaint however

would not live to see the day. Eight months earlier, the short Black general who

electrified the world, whose name was on the lips of everyone from the enslaved

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On This Day: What happened on 15 January?

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