This book is the long-overdue publication in English of Aimé Césaire’s account of Toussaint Louverture, the legendary leader of the revolution in Saint-Domingue – a slave revolt against French colonial rule that led to the founding of the independent republic of Haiti. Saint-Domingue was the first country in modern times to confront the colonial question in practice and in all its complexity. When Toussaint Louverture burst onto the historical stage, various political movements already existed for political autonomy, free trade and social equality. But the French Revolution established a compelling understanding of universal liberty: the Declaration of Human Rights opened up the possibility of claims to liberty and equality by wealthy free Black men in the colony, claims which, when they could not be realized, led to the armed uprising of enslaved Blacks. A battle for the liberation of one class in colonial society resulted in a revolution to achieve equal rights for all men. And for universal emancipation to be possible, Saint-Domingue itself had to become independent.
Toussaint Louverture put the Declaration into practice unreservedly, demonstrating that there could be no pariah race. He inherited bands of fighters and united them as an army, turning a peasant revolt into a full-scale revolution, a population into a people and a colony into an independent nation-state.
Aimé Césaire’s historical and analytical gifts are magnificently displayed in this highly original analysis of the context and actions of the famous revolutionary leader. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of critical and cultural theory and of Latin American history as well as anyone concerned with the nature and impact of colonialism and race.
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Foreword – Gary Wilder
Introduction: An Exemplary Colony
Book One – The Fronde of the Grands Blancs
Chapter 1. Power is Isolated
Chapter 2. A Clumsy Intrusion
Chapter 3. Mistakes of Navigation
Chapter 4. Defiant Grands Blancs
Chapter 5. A Double Elimination
Book Two – Revolt of the Mulâtres
Chapter 1. Parliamentary Idiocy
Chapter 2. A Great Debate
Chapter 3. A Glimmer
Chapter 4. A Glimmer Extinguished
Chapter 5. A Weary Amendment
Chapter 6. Barnave’s Revenge
Chapter 7. The Revolt of the Mulâtres
Book Three – The Nègre Revolution
Chapter 1. The Limits of the French Revolution
Chapter 2. Apprenticeship
Chapter 3. Compromise and Compromise
Chapter 4. A Touching Scene
Chapter 5. Imperialism and Imperialism
Chapter 6. Saviour of the Powers-That-Be
Chapter 7. Strategy and Tactics
Chapter 8. Mission to Undermine
Chapter 9. Taking out Guarantees
Chapter 10. Mobilisation
Chapter 11. The Breach
Chapter 12. The Logic of a System
Chapter 13. A War to Make You Lose Your Mind
Chapter 14. The Pause
Chapter 15. The Sacrifice
Chapter 16. Let the Masks Drop
Chapter 17. From Brumaire to Germinal
Chapter 18. For the Roots are Many and Deep
By Way of a Conclusion
Timeline of Decrees and Major Events
Significant Names and Terms
Notes
Index
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Aimé Césaire (1913-2008) was born in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, and was an anticolonial theorist, activist, writer and poet.
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