1743-05-20: (Toussaint Louverture, Born Enslaved on the Bréda Plantation, Who Rose to Become the Leader of the Haitian Revolution, Defeated the Armies of Spa…

1743-05-20: (Toussaint Louverture, Born Enslaved on the Bréda Plantation, Who Rose to Become the Leader of the Haitian Revolution, Defeated the Armies of Spain, Britain, and France, Promulgated a Constitution Abolishing Slavery, and Died in a French Prison After Napoleon’s Betrayal): Toussaint Louverture was born on May 20, 1743, on the Bréda plantation in northern Saint-Domingue. He was freed by his master in 1776 and remained on the plantation as a salaried worker, accumulating property and wealth in a position of relative privilege among formerly enslaved people. When the Revolution erupted in 1791, he initially worked to protect his former master’s family from the violence. In 1793, after France declared war on Britain and Spain, he joined the Spanish Army against the French, hoping to advance the cause of abolition. His gift for exploiting openings in his opponents’ defenses earned him the nickname L’Ouverture, which he adopted as his surname. When France officially abolished slavery in 1794, Louverture switched sides and joined the French, bringing his lieutenants Dessalines and Christophe with him. By 1795, they had defeated British and Spanish forces in northern Haiti. In 1797, French commissioner Sonthonax named Louverture commander of French forces on the island. He negotiated treaties with Britain and the United States, trading sugar and a promise not to export revolution in exchange for weapons. He defeated the mulatto forces of André Rigaud in the south, with Dessalines crushing resistance at a cost of over 40,000 lives. In 1801, defying Napoleon, he conquered Spanish Santo Domingo and promulgated a constitution that abolished slavery, established Catholicism, and made himself governor for life. Napoleon responded by sending an army under Leclerc to retake the colony. Louverture signed a treaty in May 1802 on the condition that slavery would never be reimposed. The French broke that promise almost immediately. In June 1802, they seized Louverture and shipped him to France, where he was imprisoned in the Jura Mountains and died on April 6, 1803, in a cold cell, denied adequate food, clothing, and medical care. He never saw Haiti’s independence, but he made it possible.