1766-06-27: (Pierre Toussaint Born Into Slavery in Haiti, the House Slave Who Would Become One of the Wealthiest and Most Philanthropic Black Men in Nineteen…

1766-06-27: (Pierre Toussaint Born Into Slavery in Haiti, the House Slave Who Would Become One of the Wealthiest and Most Philanthropic Black Men in Nineteenth-Century New York, Declared Venerable by Pope John Paul II in 1996): Pierre Toussaint was born into slavery on June 27, 1766, on Jean Bernard’s plantation in Haiti. Taught to read and write by his grandmother, he was a house slave spared the killing labor of the sugarcane fields. In 1787, Bernard took his family and several enslaved people, including Toussaint, to New York City. Bernard’s wife apprenticed Toussaint to a hairdresser, and he quickly became one of the most sought-after hairdressers in the city. After Bernard died and his widow fell into poverty, Toussaint supported her from his earnings while still legally enslaved, purchasing his wife’s freedom before obtaining his own. He became one of the wealthiest and most philanthropic Black men in nineteenth-century New York, donating extensively to Catholic charities and orphanages. On December 18, 1996, Pope John Paul II declared him venerable, the second step toward sainthood, making him one of only a handful of formerly enslaved people to receive such recognition from the Catholic Church. He died in New York on June 30, 1853.