The Black Napoleon and the only successful slave revolution in history
We've all heard of Spartacus, but how many slave revolts actually brought about regime change? It turned out that there was only one slave rebellion in human history that was successful in creating a new form of political order, and that happened in Haiti, 1791.The leader of this rebellion was a remarkable man. Francois Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture (1743-1803), as he was known to the French, was born and raised an African slave on the French colonial plantations. It was not until he was freed from his bondage, at the age of 33, that he had learned how to read and write from a black Roman Catholic priest. Toussaint's humble background certainly had not prevented him from rising meteorically in the Haitian revolutionary army after he and his comrades had fired the first shot against their former masters under the slogan "Liberté, égalité, fraternité." Having learned of the great events that led to the Declaration of the Rights of Man full citizenship, black Haitians could no longer tolerate their lives of servitude.
Toussaint and his army won victory after victory, and won his moniker L'Ouverture ("The Opening") by being exceptionally good at exploiting the openings in the French defences. Finally, in 1794, the French Government (the "Convention Nationale," controlled largely by the Jacobins) granted all Haitians, black or white, full rights of citizenship. Toussaint L'Ouverture was appointed Général de brigade and later Général de division of the Army of the First French Republic. This made him the first and (I am unsure about this, but he could have been the only) general officer of African descent in the French Army.
And the rest was history. He entered into an agreement with Napoleon under which he would retire upon the condition of Haiti's full independence. Napoleon later treacherously tricked him out from his estates under the pretext of honoring him with a banquet and had him arrested and imprisoned solitarily in France. General Toussaint died shortly after of pneumonia. He was commemorated by William Wordsworth of England in one of his finest sonnets ("To Toussaint L'Ouverture") and Alphonse de Lamartine of France in the play "Toussaint L'Ouverture."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toussaint_L'Ouverture
The story also confirmed Beethoven's judgment of Napoleon's character. In fact Beethoven had been too kind in judging Napoleon to be a "common mortal." Not only was M. Bonaparte not a hero, by any stretch of the word, he wasn't even a common mortal. He was a traitor to the Republic, a betrayer of the French people, a tyrant abroad and an autocrat at home, and the worst of all, a coward. Hegel was absolutely out of his mind when he proclaimed M. Bonaparte a "historical man." That honor should've gone to the holy trinity George Washington-Thomas Jefferson-James Madison or worst-come-worst the unhallowed trinity of Robespierre-Danton-Marat.
posted by James Chang @ 12:22 AM
1 Comments:
My friend Patrick apparently was very dissatisfied with my assessment of Napoleon as leader. I stand by my judgment, since it was meant to be a moral judgment, not a consequentialist/utilitarian/prudential one. Patrick's praise of Napoleon seemed to focus on his actual achievements, and that totally missed the point since I am passing categorical judgments here. Whoever had created the more liberal polity was the winner here, and there could be no doubt that Napoleon's liberalism was half-assed. In fact there is even a term for it, "Bonapartism."
Am I applying 21st century standard to him? Well, was Beethoven a 21st century bleeding-heart liberal? And why should it matter at all if Napoleon was a better person than Alexander I? Does my being a better person than Ng Chi-tat makes me a good person? Furthermore, in passing *my* judgment, why should I defer to public opinion in France??
As per Patrick's accusation of the American Founders and Second Founders being expansionist, of course they were. And I'm glad that they were. They were the true "historical men" for they shoved unadulterated capitalism and liberalism down the throats of Southern and American Indian aristocrats. Thank God they did. I'm sure Sitting Bull and Robert E. Lee were far better persons than U.S. Grant, but unfortunately Grant had history on his side. Now maybe that's a little bit of exaggeration. I don't think genocide against the Natives was right, though I do have preciously little sympathy for the White Southern "victims" of Reconstruction.
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