#SLAVE VENTURE DEFINITION SERIES#

In Africa, Hyppolite and his first wife, Catherine, were forced into enslavement due to a series of imperialist wars of expansion by the Kingdom of Dahomey into the Allada territory. The name Gaou possibly originated in the title Deguenon, meaning 'old man' or 'wise man' in the Allada kingdom, making Gaou Guinou and his son Hyppolite members of the bureaucracy or nobility, but not members of the royal family. Louverture's son Issac would later name his great-grandfather, Hyppolite's father, as Gaou Guinou and a son of the King of Allada, although there is little extant evidence of this. Louverture was born into slavery, the eldest son of Hyppolite, an Allada slave from the slave coast of West Africa, and his second wife Pauline, a slave from the Aja ethnic group, and given the name Toussaint at birth. The Haitian Revolution continued under Louverture's lieutenant, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who declared independence on 1 January 1804, thereby establishing the sovereign state of Haiti.Įarly life Birth, parentage, and childhood Suffering massive losses in multiple battles at the hands of the Haitian army and losing thousands of men to yellow fever, the French capitulated and withdrew permanently from Saint-Domingue the very same year. Although Louverture died before the final and most violent stage of the Haitian Revolution, his achievements set the grounds for the Haitian army's final victory. He was deported to France and jailed at the Fort de Joux. In 1802, he was invited to a parley by French Divisional General Jean-Baptiste Brunet, but was arrested upon his arrival. Louverture seized power in Saint-Domingue, established his own system of government, and promulgated his own colonial constitution in 1801 that named him as Governor-General for Life, which challenged Napoleon Bonaparte's authority. Worried about the economy, which had stalled, he restored the plantation system using paid labor negotiated trade agreements with the United Kingdom and the United States and maintained a large and well-trained army. Throughout his years in power, he worked to balance the economy and security of Saint-Domingue.

Louverture gradually established control over the whole island and used his political and military influence to gain dominance over his rivals. Initially allied with the Spaniards of neighboring Santo Domingo, Louverture switched his allegiance to the French when the new Republican government abolished slavery. Īt the start of the Haitian revolution he was nearly 50 years old and began his military career as a lieutenant to Georges Biassou, an early leader of the 1791 War for Freedom in Saint-Domingue. During his time as an affranchi, he became a salaried employee, an overseer of his former master's plantation, and later became a wealthy slave owner himself Toussaint Louverture owned several coffee plantations at Petit Cormier, Grande Rivière, and Ennery. He was a devout Catholic, and was manumitted as an affranchi (ex-slave) before the French Revolution, identifying as a Creole for the greater part of his life. Toussaint Louverture was born as a slave in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, now known as Haiti.

Louverture is now known as the 'Father of Haiti'. As a revolutionary leader, Louverture displayed military and political acumen that helped transform the fledgling slave rebellion into a revolutionary movement. Dominican Royalists, then joined with Republican France, becoming Governor-General-for-life of Saint-Domingue, and lastly fought against Napoleon Bonaparte's Empire. During his life, Louverture first fought and allied with Spanish forces against St. François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture ( French:, English: / ˌ l uː v ər ˈ tj ʊər/) also known as Toussaint L'Ouverture or Toussaint Bréda – 7 April 1803) was a Haitian general and the most prominent leader of the Haitian Revolution.

Slave venture definition