Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History

Abstract

C.L.R. James, Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History, edited and introduced by Christian H?gsbjerg. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2013. xii + 222 pp.REVIEWED BY BRIDGET BRERETONTHIS FIRST-TIME PUBLICATION OF A PLAY BY C.L.R. JAMES, which was performed in London in 1936, is part of Duke University's multi-volume series, The C.L.R. James Archives, edited by Robert A. Hill. The play, according to James, was conceived in 1932, when he left Trinidad for England, and completed in 1934. Of course it is closely linked to his famous non-fictional account of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins, which appeared in 1938.In his erudite and rewarding introduction, Christian Hogsbjerg explains that he found the long-lost original playscript by chance, in the papers of one Jock Haston, in the University of Hull library. Haston had collaborated with James in the work of the Independent Labour Party in London in the mid-1930s, and must have been given this flimsy typewritten copy, which has some corrections by James. This script, presumably dating to 1934, seems to be earlier than other versions which are known to exist. The Alma Jordan Library, at the St Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies, holds no fewer than four typescripts of the play in its James Collection. One is heavily annotated and corrected by James; but, from internal evidence, all are later than the script in the Haston Papers which is published in this book.Hogsbjerg provides a comprehensive and informative account of the background to the writing and production of James's play. James had read up on Toussaint while he was still in Trinidad, regarding him as one of the greatest Negroes whose career and achievements could be used in the vindicationist discourse so important to African-descended intellectuals in this period. He spent six months in Paris in 1933-34 doing archival research for what became The Black Jacobins, and this was also when he wrote his play. In a detailed and well-researched section of the introduction, Hogsbjerg describes how the production of the play came to pass (March 1936, in London, for only two performances), how the world-famous Paul Robeson was persuaded to play the title role, and how the production was received and reviewed in Britain.James's play tells the story of the Haitian Revolution from 1791, when the massive rising of the enslaved began in the north of the rich French colony of Saint-Domingue, to the moment when - Toussaint having died in a French prison - Dessalines decides to lead a final battle against Napoleon's army for national independence under the name of Haiti. The central theme of the play is the conflict between two ideologies or worldviews, symbolised respectively by Toussaint and Dessalines.Toussaint, who was literate, and had been freed before 1791, feels intense loyalty to the France of the Revolution, the France which had abolished slavery in all her colonies in 1794, the France which had ended its monarchy and proclaimed its adherence to Republican ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. …