Black Talleyrand: Toussaint Louverture's Diplomacy, 1798–1802

Philippe R. Girard

SCHOLARS have portrayed Toussaint Louverture, like his contemporaries George Washington and Napoléon Bonaparte, in conflicting ways (Figure I). In the nineteenth century, some authors chastised him for massacring white French planters, whereas others heralded him a Spartacus of the black race. The controversy has endured. Recent research has revealed Louverture's past as a slave owner and his advocacy of semifree labor, but many modern scholars, along with the general public, continue to celebrate him as a black liberator. Had Louverture indeed been a single-minded apostle of emancipation, one might assume that he would have invaded neighboring colonies governed by France's slave-owning enemies, as his alter ego Victor Hugues attacked the Lesser Antilles from Guadeloupe. One might also assume that as a former slave Louverture sought to spread slave revolt throughout the hemisphere, a common fear in Cuba, Jamaica, Santo Domingo (present-day Dominican Republic), and the U.S. South. Finally, one might assume that Louverture was a precursor of Haitian independence who planned to sever all links with France, as many of his contemporaries understood him.1 In fact Louverture did none of these things.	1
FIGURE I This portrait, attributed to François Seraphin Delpech, is most likely accurate since it was given by Toussaint Louverture to Philippe-Rose Roume de Saint-Laurent and includes some physical characteristics (such as a prognathous chin) mentioned by contemporaries. Courtesy, Print and Picture Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.
Louverture's record as an international statesman remains largely occluded, though he served as quasi-independent ruler of Saint Domingue for nearly four years (November 1798–February 1802). Atlantic historians studying the Haitian Revolution remain focused on the racial and social dimensions of the slave revolt, paying far less attention to the diplomatic ramifications of this dramatic event. What scholarship exists deals largely with Louverture's relations with the United States (rather than England and Spain) and U.S. objectives and policies, not Louverture's own goals. Books on England's Caribbean policy in the 1790s—arguably not its finest hour—are far outnumbered by the outpouring of research on its abolitionist movement. Works on Louverture's relations with Cuba and Santo Domingo are few and generally old. There is a greater array of solidly researched accounts of U.S. diplomacy toward Saint Domingue. By their very nature, however, these studies focus on U.S. policymakers' motives (racism, security, or trade), leaving Louverture as the person on the receiving end of a policy rather than as an actor with his own well-developed agenda. A classic history of the Quasi War argues that Louverture was moving toward independence but does not elaborate on his motives for doing so; a recent tome on U.S.-Haitian relations concludes that as a "riddle" who "kept his own counsel," Louverture's views are ultimately unknowable; another essay is primarily interested in proving that John Adams's policy was more idealistic than Thomas Jefferson's.2 The disparity is reflected in the sources, heavily weighted toward French and especially U.S. diplomatic archives rather than collections that would illuminate Saint Domingue's internal politics.	. . .