[3] "But Bonaparte's plans were doomed to encounter an obstacle in the most remarkable man of negro blood known to modern history. Toussaint L'Ouverture was the descendant, he claimed, of an African chieftain. Highly endowed by nature, he had obtained an excellent education, and had gradually, though born a slave, cultivated his innate power of leadership until all the blacks of San Domingo regarded him with affection and awe."--Sloan's Napoleon, Vol. II, pages 236-237.
Thus spoke Toussaint L'Ouverture, the man of whom Lamartine says: "After God, this man was a nation;" thus he spoke in 1799, a time when all the nations of the earth were themselves slaves to slavery. To this black man was given to see the truth; to them it was not given.
We are now, I trust, prepared to estimate that thirteen years' struggle which went on in that island, during which the tidal wave of destruction, torture, and death, swept the land from side to side, and from end to end, inundating everything except the indomitable spirit of the humble people to whom the heavens of freedom had been opened. Truly does MacMaster class it among the noblest struggles for liberty. I cannot detail that mighty struggle here. For the history of those thirteen eventful years, for the instructive and thrilling story of those heroic black men who garlanded our race, I must refer you to my book on the Haitian Revolution from 1791 to 1804.
We may pause here at the close of this awful period and stand in the proud presence of these triumphant black heroes, as the last of their enemies sail slowly away as prisoners of war. With the new flag floating over the fortresses of the Cape, and the victorious army well-equipped and intact, it is Dessalines, the intrepid Dessalines, never beaten in battle, never surprised in camp, who in the name of the black people and Men of Color of Saint Domingo announces:
"The Independence of Saint Domingo is Proclaimed. "Restored to our primitive dignity, we have asserted[4] our rights; we swear never to yield them to any power on earth."
These were the words of war-worn veterans with swords still unsheathed.
[4] "Asserting their liberties as men, he (Toussaint L'Ouverture) and his fellow slaves rose against their masters and a servile War insued." Sloan, ibid.