Toussaint Louverture (10 page)

The four dots enclosed by the last extravagant loop of the signature which Toussaint deployed for the first time in his proclamation from Camp Turel indicate that he was a Freemason, and of a very high degree; all his subsequent signatures also include this symbol. Toussaint's name is not to be found in the membership list of any Masonic lodge; yet those lists do include the names of many of his proteges—men who were officers in his army and would figure prominently in future governments of Haiti, not only his brother Paul Louverture and his nephew Charles Belair but also many white men who were close to him. The implication is that the ever-secretive Toussaint occluded his own name from the membership rolls while discreetly using the Masonic temple structure to reinforce the position of his closest associates—whose presence there strongly suggests that Toussaints sponsorship was very influential.

Freemasonry has preserved its essential secrets from its origins up until the present day. During the eighteenth century it was established in Saint Domingue by French colonists, but even in the colonial period the Masonic lodges included (surprisingly) some free blacks and
gens de couleur
as well as whites. Toussaint's membership in the organization would have furnished him a relationship—on exceptionally equal terms—with some of the most powerful white men in the colony. Via this network, he and other leaders of the first insurrection are supposed
to have been in contact with significant figures among the
grands blancs
before the great rising of the slaves in August 1791.

Toussaint's presence is implied between the lines of the Masonic records, and also in those of two hospitals originally founded by the Fathers of Charity, a Jesuit order, in the region of Cap Francais. One of these, sometimes called the Providence Hospital, was located on the high ground of Le Cap, near the military barracks and the Champ de Mars: the other was on the heights outside of town, above the road which leads to Haut du Cap. The sympathy of the Jesuit priests with the slaves and free blacks was alarming enough to the colonial authorities that the order was formally forbidden to operate in Saint Domingue by an edict of 1763; the Jesuits' landholdings and other property, including slaves, were confiscated. These hospitals continued to operate after 1763 (thirty years later, Biassou raided one of them to rescue his mother), though they were no longer officially connected to the Jesuits.

Both before and after the expulsion of the Jesuits from Saint Domingue, these hospitals were much frequented by free blacks, including Toussaint Breda (and probably also his godfather Baptiste). Haitian historian Pere Cabon asserts that Toussaint was a slave at “the Hospital of the Fathers in Le Cap.” In a 1779 letter to the Abbe Gregoire in France, Pere Constantin of Luxembourg claims to have known Toussaint before his rise to fame and power: “a negro, slave at the hospital of the Fathers of Charity, where he served me at table when I went there to dine.”
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It is possible, though not very likely, that Toussaint Louverture was a slave of the Jesuits before he turned up on Breda Plantation, to which he conceivably could have been sold when the Jesuits were expelled in 1763, or even at a later date. Not all the Jesuits actually left the colony that year; one of them, the Abbe Leclerc, hung on in quasi hiding on a plantation formerly owned by the Fathers of Charity in the region of Haut du Cap. An early biographer reports that Toussaint was a slave on this plantation, which burned in 1772—the very year Bayon de Libertat took over the management of Breda.

Whether or not he was ever actually owned by the Jesuits, it seems very likely that Toussaint was in a position to imbibe their influence
during his youth (he was somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four at the time of their expulsion) and that they had a hand in his education. (One cynic commented that Toussaint spent enough time with the Jesuits to absorb the duplicity and hypocrisy of which the order was often accused, along with their erudition.) The Jesuits were diligent in religious instruction not only for their own slaves but also for those on nearby plantations, including Breda, and that is the likely source for the Catholic devotion which Toussaint so constantly displayed as he rose to power. And it seems certain that Toussaint was sometimes employed at either or both of the Jesuit-founded hospitals, which used some slaves and free blacks as nurses, with between ten and twenty-five patients in their care; some blacks also assisted in surgery. Toussaint very likely served in such a role, as well as waiting on visiting clerics at meals. This situation was propitious for augmenting his considerable knowledge of African-based herbal medicine with European medical lore of the period. Toussaint's ability in both styles of treatment goes a long way to explain why “Medecin General” became his first title among the rebel slaves in 1791. Georges Biassou's family belonged to the Jesuit hospital system, so it's there that his acquaintance with Toussaint most likely began.

As in the Masonic lodge and the Jesuit hospitals, Toussaint's invisible presence is felt in the extensive correspondence between the manager Bayon de Libertat and the absentee proprietor of Breda Plantation, Monsieur de Breda. In these letters, Bayon frequently mentions his preference for Arada slaves, whom he believed to be unusually capable and trustworthy, and recommends that the owner purchase more members of this tribe. Here again, Toussaint, though unnamed, is suggested by Bayon's descriptions. These letters, combined with the anomalous fact that Toussaint cannot be identified on the rolls of slaves belonging to Breda Plantation, suggest an alternative to the story of his origin recounted by Isaac Louverture.

Isaac's description of Gaou-Guinou/Hyppolite's status at Breda is consistent with a condition called
liberte de savane,
according to which a slave would be freed for all practical purposes, but without an official manumission document and thus without the owner's being obliged to
pay the prohibitive manumission tax. If his father had been freed in this manner, then Toussaint would never have been listed on the rolls of slaves at Breda. General François Marie Perichou de Kerverseau, a French officer who wrote a hostile but incisive study of the black leader at the height of his power, claimed (somewhat spitefully) that Toussaint had never known slavery in anything but name.

And yet, in 1878, Bayon de Libertat's widow wrote to Placide Louverture's daughter Rose: “You must have heard your parents speak about the family of Bayon, in which Monsieur your father was born. Monsieur Bayon, recognizing the intellectual qualities of Monsieur votre pere, had him raised like his own son.”
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In the early 1770s, Bayon de Libertat sold a plantation with eighty-six slaves in order to make the move to Haut du Cap, but he kept a few of his slaves from the place he gave up and brought them with him to Breda. In a letter to Bredas owner, who had offered him the services of one of his coachmen, de Libertat wrote, “I have no need of his help, I have coachmen of my own.'
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The previous manager of Breda Plantation, a Monsieur Gilly, died at his post in 1772, and in his last testament he recommended to the owner in Paris that his godson, Bayon de Libertat, take over the management of this property and another plantation owned by Monsieur de Breda a few miles off near the town of Plaine du Nord. It was a valuable concession: not only were the two plantations rich in sugarcane, but the one at Haut du Cap included a pottery works which produced tiles, bricks, and vessels sought after by planters all over the region, for the clay used in the manufacture was of a nonporous type that did not react with sugar, but “favored the cares of the refiner and even seemed to embellish his work.”
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More than one jealous observer had an eye on the job which Gilly had vacated and Bayon had assumed.

Bayon's first year at Breda was difficult. A severe drought brought on illness among the livestock; many animals were lost. In February 1773, a windstorm damaged many of the plantation's buildings. And although Bayon seems to have been a good friend of the late M. Gilly, he found a good deal of fault with his predecessor's management. According to Bayon's first letters back to France, Gilly had done little
more than barely keep things going. Bayon himself was for growth and development; he wanted to increase the slave labor force (in part through more births on the plantation), to plant more staples for the slaves to live on, and to make other substantial improvements. Monsieur de Breda (whose own letters are lost) must have complained about the expense entailed, for on August 6,1773, Bayon wrote to complain of a “lack of Confidence”; moreover, the owner's remarks had wounded Bayon's “delicacy.” Abruptly, Bayon turned over Breda Plantation to a Sieur Delribal, writing tartly to Monsieur de Breda: “It's up to you to give your Confidence to whoever seems good to you; you have made a beautiful choice. It remains to be Known just how your plantations will be managed.”
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Delribal's tenure at Breda was catastrophic. Livestock there continued to die, most likely of drought-related disease which was widespread in the region, but the new manager suspected poisoning. Fear of poisoning was a kind of neurosis among the planter class, nurtured by the fact that every so often a poison plot really did exist, like the one organized by Macandal, a notorious maroon leader, in 1757. This conspiracy, which had the destruction of the whole white population as its goal, was foiled just before it was launched, and Macandal was captured and burned at the stake. Its specter, however, remained vividly present to the minds of men like Delribal.

Bayon thought his rival's suspicions absurd, writing to the owner on August 18, “There is no one but the Sieur Delribal, alone, who pretends that it's poison … He has said he is Convinced of it by the testimony of the herdsmen, whom he has put to torture; finally Louis, a creole, the only one of your negroes who understands the bandaging of animals, was put in a dungeon of the prison in Le Cap; Despair moved him to Cut His Throat with a broken bottle; this unfortunate did not die on the spot, though we doubt that he will survive; another of your negroes was brought to the same extremity on your plantation; finally whatever reasonable negroes are there have been reduced to the greatest despair.”
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The Toussaint who would become Louverture is suggested in these lines—by his absence. By all accounts, he had acquired a famous skill in veterinary medicine by 1773. But apparently he was not one of
Monsieur de Breda's Negroes; more likely he had left Breda Plantation with his master, Bayon, with whom he would later return.

The “reasonable” Negroes at Breda carried a complaint about Delribal's conduct to Monsieur de Breda's nephews, the brothers Noe, who owned other plantations in the area of Plaine du Nord, but got no immediate relief. Delribal (as Bayon went on reporting to the absent owner throughout the fall of 1773) continued to pursue the poison plot. Bayon notes acidly that the one material improvement Delribal had accomplished at Breda was the construction of a large torture chamber. At the sight of that, most of the adult male slaves on the plantation fled into the mountains, where they lived in
marronage
for nearly two months.

Delribal's own lengthy report to the owner fits neatly with Bayon's accusations: “I promised him
*
that if he was Guilty of having made the Animals die I would pardon him if he wanted to tell me the truth, But that I wanted to Know also, In Case he was not Guilty, who were the Negroes who made them Die? With what? And from Whom did they buy the Drugs? That if he declared to me everything that I asked for, I promised him further that I would ask you to give him Liberty, but if on the Contrary he did not want to confess I would make him Suffer, and that I would leave him for the Rest of his Days in the Dungeon.”
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Under torture, Delribal's several victims did indeed declare to him everything that he asked for—and as he had done a good job of suggesting to them what he wanted to hear, the poison plot which he “discovered” came straight from his own morbid fantasies. “I will not Hide from you,” he wrote to the owner, “that from the Acquaintance I have had during twenty-three years I have been in Saint Domingue Of the Malice of which the Negroes are Capable, to cause to perish from poison, Whites, negroes and Animals, as they have done in the past … I Am of the persuasion that In this Malady there is something supernatural.”
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Bayon, whose account agrees closely with Delribal's on the events (though not at all on their interpretation), confirmed in his own letters that Delribal believed that he himself was the ultimate intended victim of the poison plot—and that Delribal himself used witchcraft in
his “investigation.” “He had the simplicity to make a Magic Wand turn, which he said would let him know who were the poisoners on your plantation,” Bayon wrote, soon after Monsieur de Breda had decided to fire Delribal and restore Bayon. “It is a sad character of whom you have rid yourself.”
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Sad indeed, but also typical. More masters resembled Delribal than Bayon—fearful and suspicious to the point of paranoia and at least as superstitious as the Africans they affected to despise for that weakness. Delribal's report of his own conduct reveals how the masters could imprison themselves in the endless vicious circles of the slave system. Bayon, for his part, was an exceptional case, as progressive as a slave master could possibly be. One need not call his attitude altruistic, but he was determined to create conditions in which the slaves of Breda would multiply. Creole slaves, born in the colony, were considered infinitely more useful and manageable than those imported from Africa, but under masters and managers of Delribal's stripe, abortion and infanticide—notorious among the slaves of Saint Domingue— destroyed all hope of increasing them. In a system where Delribal represented the norm, Bayon's commonsensical approach was enough to make him respected and liked by slaves in his charge, perhaps even beloved by some of them.

“I hope,” he wrote to the owner soon after his return to Breda, “that henceforward there will be no such disorder. Your negroes seem to be very Happy that I command them, They Know how determined I am that no one will do them Injustice, that they will have provisions to live on in their place, that they will be Cared For When they are ill, but also that they will work for Their master.”
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