Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/286

 of what would be termed a plain education by some benevolent missionaries. Between Pierre and young Toussaint an intimacy sprung up, and all that Pierre had learned from the missionaries, Toussaint learned from him. His acquisitions, says our French authority, amounted to reading, writing, arithmetic, a little Latin, and an idea of geometry. It was a fortunate circumstance that the greatest natural genius among the negroes of St. Domingo was thus singled out to receive the unusual gift of a little instruction. Toussaint's qualifications gained him promotion; he was made the coachman of M. Bayou, the overseer of the count de Noé — a situation as high as a negro could hope to fill. In this, and in other still higher situations to which he was subsequently advanced, his conduct was irreproachable, so that while he gained the confidence of his master, every negro in the plantation held him in respect. Three particulars are authentically known respecting his character at this period of his life, and it is somewhat remarkable that all are points more peculiarly of moral than of intellectual superiority. He was noted, it is said, for an exceedingly patient temper, for great affection for brute animals, and for a strong, unswerving attachment to one female whom he had chosen for his wife. It is also said that he manifested singular strength of religious sentiment. In person, he was above the middle size, with a striking countenance, and a robust constitution, capable of enduring any amount of fatigue, and requiring little sleep.

Toussaint was about forty-eight years of age when the insurrection of the blacks took place in August, 1791. Great exertions were made by the insurgents to induce a negro of his respectability and reputation to join them in their first outbreak, but he steadily refused. It is also known that it was owing to Toussaint's care and ingenuity that his master, M. Bayou, and his family escaped being massacred. He hid them in the woods for several days, visited them at the risk of his own life, secured the means of their escape from the island, and, after they were settled in the United States, sent them such remittances as he could manage to snatch from the wreck of their property. Such conduct, in the midst of such barbarities as were then enacting, indicates great originality and moral independence of character. After his master's escape, Toussaint, who had no tie to retain him longer in servitude, and who, besides, saw reason and justice in the struggle which his race was making for liberty, attached himself to the bands of negroes then occupying the hills, commanded by François and Biassou. In the negro army Toussaint at once assumed a leading rank; and a certain amount of medical knowledge, which he had picked up in the course of his reading, enabled him to unite the functions of army physician with those of military officer. Such was Toussaint's position in the end of the year 1793, when the British landed in the island.

It is necessary here to describe, as exactly as the confusion will permit, the true state of parties in the island. The British, as we already know, were attempting to take the colony out of the hands of the French republic, and annex it to the crown of Great Britain; and in this design they were favored by the few French royalists still resident in the island. The French