Black Spartacus

Black Spartacus by Sudhir Hazareesingh. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780241293812.

The Haitian revolution began in the French colony of Saint-Domingue with a slave revolt in November 1791, and culminated a dozen years later in the proclamation of the worlds first independent black republic. After the abolition of slavery in 1793, Toussaint Louverture became the leader of the colonys black population, commander of its republican army and eventually its governor. Treacherously captured by Napoleons invading army a year later and imprisoned, he ended his days as the revolutions most eminent martyr. Louverture confronted the mighty forces of his age - slavery, settler colonialism, imperial domination, racial hierarchy and European cultural supremacy - and bent them to his will. Sudhir Hazareesingh draws on a wealth of archival material, much of it overlooked by previous biographers, to follow every step in Louvertures singular career, to capture his voice and the force of his personality. To a greater extent than any previous biography, Black Spartacus understands Louvertures vision and leadership not solely in the context of events in Europe and imported Enlightenment ideals, but in a world of hybrid slave culture and African and Caribbean influences.