Brought up a slave in the western part of Hispaniola (now Haiti), in 1791 he became one of the leaders of a rebellion that succeeded in emancipating the island’s slaves by 1793. In 1797 he was appointed Governor‐General by the revolutionary government of France, and led the drive to expel the British and Spanish from western Hispaniola. In 1801 he took control of the whole island, establishing his own constitution, but the following year Napoleon (wishing to restore slavery) ordered his forces to regain the island; Toussaint was eventually taken to France, where he died in prison.