Toussaint Louverture Chef des Noirs Insurgés de Saint Domingue c. 1800 John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence, R.I. • From a plantation birth to an early life as a wealthy free man, he was well educated. He took the surname Louverture, from the French term for “opening.” • Louverture led a slave rebellion, beginning in 1791, in a series of campaigns that ultimately defeated the armies of three world powers: Spain, the United Kingdom, and France. • Ruling a St. Dominigue freed from French rule, Louverture codified the abolition of slavery in the new nation, soon to be renamed Haiti.
