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Death of Toussaint Louverture, Haitian Revolutionary leader, 27th April 1803. Francois Dominique Toussaint Louverture led the Haitian independence movement during the French Revolution. He freed the island's slaves and briefly made Haiti a black-governed protectorate of France. The French attempted to regain control of their colony in 1802 when Charles Leclerc, Napoleon's brother-in-law landed on the island. After several months fighting Toussaint Louverture signed a treaty with the French on condition that slavery would not be re-established. Shortly afterwards Leclerc had Toussaint Louverture and his family shipped to France on the pretext that he was plotting an uprising. Toussaint Louverture died from pneumonia in exile in April 1803.