Life of Toussaint LOuverture essays

Life of Toussaint L'Ouverture essays The country we know today as Haiti ('mountainous land?) was at one time the French colony of Saint-Domingue. Located on the island of Hispaniola, it was the place where Christopher Columbus established his first settlement in the New World. In 1967, it was formally recognized as Saint-Domingue. Many things have happened in Saint-Domingue. Slavery, fires, and rebellion have gone on in Saint-Domingue. Many people took control and lost control of Saint-Domingue. Saint-Domingue had many slaves and plantations. One group of slaves where called the mulattoes orpeople of color.? Men and women were beaten, branded, maimed, and killed, often in ways that only the most depraved mind could imagine. Many slaves ran away to the mountains where they lived as maroons in isolated spots beyond the reach of a special colonial slave patrol, staffed only by mulattoes. By 1791, there were at least 500,000 slaves, most of who worked on plantations where sugarcane, cotton, coffee, and indigo were grown. There was a slave named Toussaint L?Ouverture, who had lived all his life at Breda plantation, about fifteen miles from the capital. He was forty-seven years old and in comparison to the other slaves on the island, he had enjoyeda good and comfortable life?. The owner treated the slaves with a degree of compassion and kindness that was known throughout the colony. Ouverture was born on May 2, 1743, which was then the Feast of All Saints. He was named Francois Dominique Toussaint. As a boy, Toussaint Breda, as he was called then, was sickly and thin as a stick. People around him gave him a nickname that meantfragile stick.? His father was brought as a slave from Africa. Ouverture also rode and looked after the horses. When they became ill, he used his knowledge of medicinal herbs and his skill as ahorse doctor? to heal their aches and pains. He also enjoyed the story of Spartacus, a slave who led a large rebellion of sla ...