.
Haitian re­volu­tion­ary lead­er and states­man Tous­saint Louver­ture was born 274 years ago today. You can read a num­ber of books, es­says, and art­icles by click­ing on the links be­low.

1. CLR James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution (1938)
2. CLR James, Lectures on The Black Jacobins (1974)
3. Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (2004)
4. Jeremy D. Popkin, Facing Racial Revolution: Eyewitness Accounts of the Haitian Insurrection (2008)
5. Susan Buck-Morss, Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History (2009)
6. Jeremy D. Popkin, A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution (2011)

Fore­most among these, of course, is CLR James’ clas­sic The Black Jac­obins: Tous­saint Louver­ture and the Haitian Re­volu­tion (1938). Against the naïve im­per­at­ive that says “we must not cen­sor works hailed by the sub­al­tern as mas­ter­ful pieces of our his­tory, but in­stead cel­eb­rate them if the sub­al­tern says we should” — which al­most reads like a re­duc­tio ad ab­surdum of stand­point epi­stem­o­logy — we ought rather to up­hold those works which pass crit­ic­al and schol­arly muster. James’ book, though not writ­ten by an aca­dem­ic, stands up bril­liantly to this test.

Some of the oth­ers are also worth check­ing out. In par­tic­u­lar, Susan Buck-Morss’ in­flu­en­tial study of Hegel, Haiti, and Uni­ver­sal His­tory (2009), which caused something of a stir when the first half was pub­lished as an es­say back in 2001. “De­co­lo­ni­al dia­lec­tician” George Cic­car­i­ello-Ma­h­er cri­ti­cized her for fo­cus­ing too much on Tous­saint, at the ex­pense of his com­pat­ri­ot Jean-Jacques Des­salines. Nev­er­the­less, out of these two, I greatly prefer Tous­saint.

James re­peatedly com­pared Tous­saint to Robe­s­pi­erre, and in this ana­logy Des­salines could only be com­pared to Na­po­leon. After selling Tous­saint out to Le­clerc, and dis­pos­ing of rivals such as Charles and Sanité Bélair, Des­salines crowned him­self em­per­or and ruled with an iron fist over the ex-co­lo­ni­al is­land. Marx, as we know, had little pa­tience for would-be New World Na­po­leons like Si­mon Bolivar, so it’s not hard to ima­gine what he would have thought of Des­salines.

But even bey­ond these mono­graphs and his­tor­ies, Tous­saint’s life has in­spired works by great lit­er­ary fig­ures as well. To hon­or and com­mem­or­ate his birth­day, then, I’m also in­clud­ing a poem ded­ic­ated to Tous­saint by the poet Wil­li­am Wordsworth and a short story by the nov­el­ist Ral­ph El­lis­on. En­joy!

To Tous­saint L’Ouver­ture

Wil­liam Wordsworth
The Morning Post
February 4, 1802
.
.

Tous­saint, the most un­happy man of men!
…Wheth­er the whist­ling Rus­tic tend his plough
With­in thy hear­ing, or thy head be now
…Pil­lowed in some deep dun­geon’s ear­less den; —
O miser­able Chief­tain! where and when
…Wilt thou find pa­tience? Yet die not; do thou
Wear rather in thy bonds a cheer­ful brow:
…Though fallen thy­self, nev­er to rise again,
Live, and take com­fort. Thou hast left be­hind
…Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies;
There’s not a breath­ing of the com­mon wind
…That will for­get thee; thou hast great al­lies;
Thy friends are ex­ulta­tions, ag­on­ies,
…And love, and man’s un­con­quer­able mind.

Mister Toussan

Ralph Ellison
New Masses
Nov. 4, 1941
.
.

Once upon a time
The goose drink wine
Mon­key chew to­bacco
And he spit white lime

— Rhyme used as a pro­logue
to Negro slave stor­ies

“I hope they all gits rot­ten and the worms git in ’em,” the first boy said. “I hopes a big wind storm comes and blows down all the trees,” said the second boy.
……“Me too,” the first boy said. “And when ole Rogan comes out to see what happened I hope a tree falls on his head and kills him.”
……“Now jus look a-yon­der at them birds,” the second boy said. “They eat­ing all they want and when we asked him to let us git some off the ground he had to come call­ing us little nig­guhs and chas­ing us home!”
……“Dog­gon­it,” said the second boy. “I hope them birds got pois­on in they feet!”
……The two small boys, Ri­ley and Buster, sat on the floor of the porch, their bare feet rest­ing upon the cool earth as they stared past the line on the pav­ing where the sun con­sumed the shade, to a yard dir­ectly across the street. The grass in the yard was very green, and a house stood against it, neat and white in the morn­ing sun. A double row of trees stood along­side the house, heavy with cher­ries that showed deep red against the dark green of the leaves and dull dark brown of the branches. The two boys were watch­ing an old man who rocked him­self in a chair as he stared back at them across the street.
……“Just look at him,” said Buster. “Ole Rogan’s so scared we gonna git some a his ole cher­ries he ain’t even got sense enough to go in outa the sun!”
……“Well, them birds is git­ting their’n,” said Ri­ley.
……“They mock­ing­birds.”
……“I don’t care what kinda birds they is, they sho in them trees.”
……“Yeah, ole Rogan don’t see them. Man, I tell you white folks ain’t got no sense.”
……They were si­lent now, watch­ing the dart­ing flight of the birds in­to the trees. Be­hind them they could hear the clat­ter of a sew­ing ma­chine: Ri­ley’s moth­er was sew­ing for the white folks. It was quiet, and as the wo­man worked, her voice rose above the whirr­ing ma­chine in song.
……“Your mama sho can sing, man,” said Buster.
……“She sings in the choir,” said Ri­ley, “and she sings all the leads in church.”
……“Shucks, I know it,” said Buster. “You try­in’ to brag?”
……As they listened they heard the voice rise clear and li­quid to float upon the morn­ing air:

I got wings, you got wings,
All God’s chil­lun got a wings
When I git to heav­en gonna put on my wings
Gonna shout all ovah God’s heab’n.
Heab’n, heab’n
Ever­body talkin’ ’bout heab’n ain’t go­ing there
Heab’n, heab’n, Ah’m gonna fly all ovah God’s heab’n…

She sang as though the words pos­sessed a deep and throb­bing mean­ing for her, and the boys stared blankly at the earth, feel­ing the somber, mys­ter­i­ous calm of church. The street was quiet, and even old Rogan had stopped rock­ing to listen. Fi­nally the voice trailed off to a hum and be­came lost in the clat­ter of the busy ma­chine.
……“Wish I could sing like that,” said Buster.
……Ri­ley was si­lent, look­ing down to the end of the porch where the sun had eaten a bright square in­to the shade, fix­ing a flit­ting but­ter­fly in its bril­liance.
……“What would you do if you had wings?” he said.
……“Shucks, I’d out­fly an eagle. I wouldn’t stop fly­ing till I was a mil­lion, bil­lion, tril­lion, zil­lion miles away from this ole town.”
……“Where’d you go, man?”
……“Up north, maybe to Chica­go.”
……“Man, if I had wings I wouldn’t nev­er settle down.”
……“Me neither. Hecks, with wings you could go any­where, even up to the sun if it wasn’t too hot…”
……“…I’d go to New York…”
……“Even around the stars…”
……“Or Dee-troit, Michigan…”
……“Hell, you could git some cheese off the moon and some milk from the Milky Way…”
……“Or any­where else colored is free…”
……“I bet I’d loop-the-loop…”
……“And para­chute…”
……“I’d land in Africa and git me some dia­monds…”
……“Yeah, and them can­ni­bals would eat the hell outa you, too,” said Ri­ley.
……“The heck they would, not as fast as I’d fly away…”
……“Man, they’d catch you and stick some them long spears in your be­hin’!” said Ri­ley.
……Buster laughed as Ri­ley shook his head gravely: “Boy, you’d look like a black pin­cush­ion when they got through with you,” said Ri­ley.
……“Shucks, man, they couldn’t catch me, them suck­ers is too lazy. The geo­graphy book says they ’bout the most lazy folks in the whole world,” said Buster with dis­gust, “just black and lazy!”
……“Aw naw, they ain’t neither,” ex­ploded Ri­ley.
……“They is too! The geo­graphy book says they is!”
……“Well, my old man says they ain’t!”
……“How come they ain’t then?”
……“…’Cause my old man says that over there they got kings and dia­monds and gold and ivory, and if they got all them things, all of ’em caint be lazy,” said Ri­ley.
……“Ain’t many colored folks over here got them things.”
……“Sho ain’t, man. The white folks won’t let ’em,” said Buster.
……It was good to think that all the Afric­ans were not lazy. He tried to re­mem­ber all he had heard of Africa as he watched a purple pi­geon sail down in­to the street and scratch where a horse had passed. Then, as he re­membered a story his teach­er had told him, he saw a car rolling swiftly up the street and the pi­geon stretch­ing its wings and lift­ing eas­ily in­to the air, skim­ming the top of the car in its slow, rock­ing flight. He watched it rise and dis­ap­pear where the taut tele­phone wires cut the sky above the curb. Buster felt good. Ri­ley scratched his ini­tials in the soft earth with his big toe.
……“Ri­ley, you know all them Africa guys ain’t really that lazy,” he said.
……“I know they ain’t,” said Ri­ley. “I just tole you so.”
……“Yeah, but my teach­er tole me, too. She tole us ’bout one of the Afric­an guys named Tous­san what she said whipped Na­po­leon!”
……Ri­ley stopped scratch­ing in the earth and looked up, his eye rolling in dis­gust:
……“Now how come you have to start ly­ing?”
……“Thass what she said.”
……“Boy, you oughta quit telling them things.”
……“I hope God may kill me.”
……“She said he was a Afric­an?”
……“Cross my heart, man…”
……“Really?”
……“Really, man. She said he come from a place named Hayti.”
……Ri­ley looked hard at Buster and, see­ing the ser­i­ous­ness of the face, felt the ex­cite­ment of a story rise up with­in him.
……“Buster, I’ll bet a fat man you ly­in’. What’d that teach­er say?”
……“Really, man, she said that Tous­san and his men got up on one of them Afric­an moun­tains and shot down them peck­er­wood sol­diers fass as they’d try to come up…”
……“Why good-God-a-mighty!” yelled Ri­ley.
……“Oh boy, they shot ’em down!” chanted Buster.
……“Tell me about it, man!”
……“And they throwed ’em off the moun­tain…”
……“…Goool-leee!…”
……“…And Tous­san drove ’em cross the sand…”
……“…Yeah! And what was they wear­ing, Buster?…”
……“Man, they had on red uni­forms and blue hats all trimmed with gold and they had some swords all shin­ing, what they called sweet blades of Dam­as­cus…”
……“Sweet blades of Dam­as­cus!…”
……“…They really had ’em,” chanted Buster.
……“And what kinda guns?”
……“Big, black can­non!”
……“And where did ole what you call ’im run them guys?…”
……“His name was Tous­san.”
……“Tooz­an! Just like Tar­z­an…”
……“Not Taar-zan, dummy, Toou-zan!”
……“Tous­san! And where’d ole Tous­san run ’em?”
……“Down to the wa­ter, man…”
……“…To the river wa­ter…”
……“…Where some great big ole boats was wait­ing for ’em…”
……“…Go on, Buster!”
……“An’ Tous­san shot in­to them boats…”
……“…He shot in­to ’em…”
……“…shot in­to them boats…”
……“Je­sus!…”
……“…with his great big can­nons…”
……“…Yeah!…”
……“…made a-brass…”
……“…Brass…”
……“…an’ his big black can­non­balls star­ted kil­lin’ them peck­er­woods…”
……“…Lawd, Lawd…”
……“…Boy, till them peck­er­woods hol­lowed, Please, Please, Mis­ter Tous­san, we’ll be good!”
……“An’ what’d Tous­san tell ’em, Buster?”
……“Boy, he said in his deep voice, I oughta drown all a you bas­tards.”
……“An’ what’d the peck­er­woods say?”
……“They said, Please, Please, Please, Mis­ter Tous­san…”
……“…We’ll be good,” broke in Ri­ley.
……“Thass right, man,” said Buster ex­citedly. He clapped his hands and kicked his heels against the earth, his black face glow­ing in a burst of rhythmic joy.
……“Boy!”
……“And what’d ole Tous­san say then?”
……“He said in his big deep voice: You all peck­er­woods bet­ter be good, ’cause this is sweet Papa Tous­san talk­ing and my nig­guhs is crazy ’bout white meat!”
……“Ho, ho, ho!” Ri­ley bent double with laughter. The rhythm still throbbed with­in him and he wanted the story to go on and on…
……“Buster, you know didn’t no teach­er tell you that lie,” he said.
……“Yes, she did, man.”
……“She said there was really a guy like that what called his­self Sweet Papa Tous­san?”
……Ri­ley’s voice was un­be­liev­ing, and there was a wist­ful ex­pres­sion in his eyes that Buster could not un­der­stand. Fi­nally, he dropped his head and grinned.
……“Well,” he said, “I bet thass what ole Tous­san said. You know how grown folks is, they caint tell a story right ’cept­ing real old folks like Granma.”
……“They sho caint,” said Ri­ley. “They don’t know how to put the right stuff to it.”
……Ri­ley stood, his legs spread wide, and stuck his thumbs in the top of his trousers, swag­ger­ing sin­isterly.
……“Come on, watch me do it now, Buster. Now I bet ole Tous­san looked down at them white folks stand­ing just about like this and said in a soft easy voice: Ain’t I done begged you white folks to quit messin’ with me?…”
……“Thass right, quit mess­ing with ’im,” chanted Buster.
……“But naw, you all had to come on any­way…”
……“…Just ’cause they was black…”
……“Thass right,” said Ri­ley. “Then ole Tous­san felt so damn bad and mad the tears came a-trick­ling down…”
……“…He was really mad.”
……“And then, man, he said in his big, bad voice: God­damn you white folks, how come you all caint let us colored alone?”
……“…An’ he was cry­ing…”
……“…An’ Tous­san tole them peck­er­woods: I been beg­gin’ you all to quit both­er­ing us…”
……“…Beg­gin’ on his bended knees! …”
……“Then, man, Tous­san got real mad and snatched off his hat and star­ted stomp­in’ up and down on it and the tears was trick­lin’ down and he said: You all come tel­lin’ me about Na­po­leon…”
……“They was try­in’ to scare ’im, man…”
……“Said: I don’t give a damn about Na­po­leon…”
……“…Wasn’t study­in’ ’bout him…”
……“…Tous­san said: Na­po­leon ain’t noth­ing but a man! Then Tous­san pulled back his shin­ing sword like this, and twirled it at them peck­er­woods’ throats so hard it z-z-z-zinged in the air!”
……“Now keep on, fin­ish it, man,” said Buster. “What’d Tous­san do then?”
……“Then you know what he did, he said: I oughta beat the hell outa you peck­er­woods!”
……“Thass right, and he did it too,” said Buster.
……He jumped to his feet and fenced vi­ol­ently with five des­per­ate ima­gin­ary sol­diers, run­ning each through with his ima­gin­ary sword. Buster watched him from the porch, grin­ning.
……“Tous­san musta scared them white folks al­most to death!”
……“Yeah, thass ’bout the way it was,” said Buster. The rhythm was dy­ing now and he sat back upon the porch, breath­ing tiredly.
……“It sho is a good story,” said Ri­ley.
……“Hecks, man, all the stor­ies my teach­er tells us is good. She’s a good ole teach­er — but you know one thing?”
……“Naw, what?”
……“Ain’t none of them stor­ies in the books. Won­der why?”
……“Hell, you know why. Ole Tous­san was too hard on them white folks, thass why.”
……“Oh, he was a hard man!”
……“He was mean…”
……“But a good mean!”
……“Tous­san was clean…”
……“… He was a good, clean mean,” said Ri­ley.
……“Aw, man, he was sooo-preme,” said Buster.
……“Riii­ley!!”
……The boys stopped short in their word play, their mouths wide.
……“Ri­ley, I say!” It was Ri­ley’s moth­er’s voice.
……“Ma’m?”
……“She musta heard us cussin’,” whispered Buster.
……“Shut up, man… What you want, Ma?”
……“I says I want you all to go round the back­yard and play. You keep­ing up too much fuss out there. White folks says we tear up a neigh­bor­hood when we move in it and you all out there jus prov­in’ them out true. Now git on round in the back.”
……“Aw, Ma, we was jus play­ing, Ma…”
……“Boy, I said for you all to go on.”
……“But, Ma…”
……“You hear me, boy!”
……“Yes­sum, we go­ing,” said Ri­ley. “Come on, Buster.”
……Buster fol­lowed slowly be­hind, feel­ing the dew upon his feet as he walked up on the shaded grass.
……“What else did he do, man?” Buster said.—
……“Huh? Rogan?”
……“Hecks, naw! I’m talkin’ ’bout Tous­san.”
……“Dog­gone if I know, man — but I’m gonna ask that teach­er.”
……“He was a fight­in’ son-of-a-gun, wasn’t he, man?”
……“He didn’t stand for no fool­ish­ness,” said Ri­ley re­servedly.
……He thought of oth­er things now, and as he moved along, he slid his feet eas­ily over the short-cut grass, dan­cing as he chanted:

Iron is iron,
And tin is tin,
And that’s the way
The story…

“Aw come on, man,” in­ter­rup­ted Buster. “Let’s go play in the al­ley…”
……And that’s the way…
……“Maybe we can slip around and get some cher­ries,” Buster went on.
……… the story ends, chanted Ri­ley