Free and French in the Caribbean: Toussaint Louverture by John Patrick Walsh

Abstract

Reviews 203 Robin tells us, the long, high-speed walkway has been retired after many mishaps), the shopping mall and giant Monoprix, and the unusual 750-unit apartment complex where Robin herself has chosen to live.Although a devoted Parisian often to be found, like her predecessors, writing in the Select, Robin nonetheless understands the necessity of modernization and continual change if Paris is to remain a living city. While many of us can resonate to Robin’s loving analysis of the new Montparnasse, her discovery of the more recently modernized areas on either end of the Simone de Beauvoir bridge may be a step into the as-yet-unknown. Robin welcomes the transformation of the old wine chais of Bercy, where she now happily visits the Cinémathèque, and looks forward to the transformation of the rapidly modernizing area around the Bibliothèque nationale into a new Quartier latin. Moving outward, Robin undertakes a study of the Parisian banlieue—a term best used in the plural, since the regions beyond the périphérique range from immigrant ghettos in the north to the impersonal commuter suburbs of the west, well described by Annie Ernaux. Robin explores the proposals to integrate and connect the various regions beyond the current urban boundaries in order to create a“Grand Paris”:“Paris-Métropole ou Paris-Mégapole, cela voudra simplement dire qu’on pourra s’identifier à l’ensemble de ses paysages, que la ville métamorphosée continuera à nous faire rêver” (325). Dartmouth University (NH) Mary Jean Green Walsh, John Patrick. Free and French in the Caribbean: Toussaint Louverture, Aimé Césaire, and Narratives of Loyal Opposition. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2013. ISBN 978-0-253-00627. Pp. 206. $75. This analytical study, which draws from history, politics, culture, and literature, focuses new light on two of the most influential leaders in the history of the French Caribbean territories: Louverture and Césaire. The author divides his analysis into two parts: the first studies various letters, proclamations, and reports written by Toussaint during the beginning of the Haitian revolution, and the second is devoted to the literary and political writings Césaire produced during the departmentalization of the French Caribbean colonies.Walsh’s introduction depicts the 2009 general strike in Guadeloupe when protesters demanded an end to the colonial structure of the relationship between the overseas departments and metropolitan France. The “push and pull” between autonomy and assimilation, which has gone on between metropolitan France and the Caribbean regions since the nineteenth-century rebellion in Saint-Domingue, serves as the basis of Walsh’s book. His comparison of Toussaint and Césaire’s writings reveals how both men fought the forces of French colonialism and slavery while also taking compromising positions. Walsh draws parallels between the writers’demands for freedom while remaining part of France, giving rise to the expression , “free and French.” Readers will not find here a history of Haiti and the French Caribbean. Instead, they will discover detailed analyses of a variety of texts written approximately 150 years apart by the two leaders, along with a review of earlier scholarship and theoretical considerations. Each of the two parts of the book is focused on key works of Toussaint and Césaire. In the chapters on Toussaint,Walsh conducts close readingsof two,oftenmisunderstood,documents—the1801ConstitutionandToussaint’s Mémoire. For Walsh, these writings are multi-layered narratives that reveal contradictions between the ideals of universal freedom and re-emerging policies on slavery. The chapters on Césaire contain studies of earlier critical works about Haiti followed by close analyses of Césaire’s historical essay,Toussaint Louverture: la révolution française et le problème colonial, and his Tragédie du roi Christophe. In both parts of the book, Walsh grounds his analyses in sufficient historical background so that the reader can better understand the context of the writings. An important unifying element that Walsh explores throughout is a metaphor of the family romance that he identifies in Toussaint’s political writings. This trope, which Walsh connects to a 1798 letter Toussaint addressed to his sons, is representative of Toussaint’s relationship between the French government and the people...