1-646-666 - Art Media/Heritage Images

Toussaint Louverture, Haitian Revolutionary leader, (1873). 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. From Santo Domingo: past and present, with a glance at Hayti, by Samuel Hazard, 1873.