Toussaint L'Ouverture by John Greenleaf Whittier

Toussaint L'Ouverture, the black chieftain of Hayti, was a slave on the plantation "de Libertas," belonging to M. Bayou. When the rising of the negroes took place, in 1791, Toussaint refused to join them until he had aided M. Bayou and his family to escape to Baltimore. The white man had discovered in Toussaint many noble qualities, and had instructed him in some of the first branches of education; and the preservation of his life was owing to the negro's gratitude for this kindness. In 1797, Toussaint L'Ouverture was appointed, by the French government, General-in-Chief of the armies of St. Domingo, and, as such, signed the Convention with General Maitland for the evacuation of the island by the British. From this period, until 1801, the island, under the government of Toussaint, was happy, tranquil, and prosperous. The miserable attempt of Napoleon to re-establish slavery in St. Domingo, although it failed of its intended object, proved fatal to the negro chieftain. Treacherously seized by Leclerc, he was hurried on board a vessel by night, and conveyed to France, where he was confined in a cold subterranean dungeon, at Besancon, where, in April, 1803, he died. The treatment of Toussaint finds a parallel only in the murder of the Duke D'Enghien. It was the remark of Godwin, in his Lectures, that the West India Islands, since their first discovery by Columbus, could not boast of a single name which deserves comparison with that of Toussaint L'Ouverture.

'T WAS night. The tranquil moonlight smile With which Heaven dreams of Earth, shed down Its beauty on the Indian isle, -- On broad green field and white-walled town; And inland waste of rock and wood, In searching sunshine, wild and rude, Rose, mellowed through the silver gleam, Soft as the landscape of a dream. All motionless and dewy wet, Tree, vine, and flower in shadow met The myrtle with its snowy bloom, Crossing the nightshade's solemn gloom, -- The white cecropia's silver rind Relieved by deeper green behind, The orange with its fruit of gold, The lithe paullinia's verdant fold, The passion-flower, with symbol holy, Twining its tendrils long and lowly, The rhexias dark, and cassia tall, And proudly rising over all, The kingly palm's imperial stem, Crowned with its leafy diadem, Star-like, beneath whose sombre shade, The fiery-winged cucullo played!