HERO OF THE HAITIAN SLAVE REBELLION
EXPERT BIO
DR SUDHIR HAZAREESINGH
Dr Sudhir Hazareesingh has been shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2021 for his book Black Spartacus: The Epic Life Of Toussaint Louverture
Revolutionary hero and military genius Toussaint Louverture led the successful slave revolt in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, resulting in the abolition of slavery and ultimately the founding of Haiti, the world’s first independent Black republic. A former slave, Louverture became a symbol of Black liberation who continues to inspire the global fight against racial injustice today, over two centuries after his death. In his book Black Spartacus: The Epic Life Of Toussaint Louverture, Dr Sudhir Hazareesingh charts Louverture’s extraordinary story, his rise as a leader of the Haitian Revolution and the enduring significance of his complex legacy.
Firstly, could you sum up for our readers who Toussaint Louverture was?
He was born into enslavement - his parents were captured as slaves and forcibly transported to the then-French colony of Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean sometime in the early 18th century. He grew up on a plantation, and Saint-Domingue was the wealthiest French colony in the 18th century, but it had a huge number of slaves - half a million. All of this wealth was dependent on slavery. In 1791, two years after the French Revolution, the enslaved people revolted and overthrew the system of plantation slavery, and Louverture was
