15718: Re: 15713: Bell on Toussaint's parentage (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: madison bell <mbell@goucher.edu>

Isaac Louverture's memoir says that Toussaint was the grandson of the Arada
King Gaou-Guinou-- GG's second son (Isaac doesn't give him a name) was
taken prisoner in a war and sold to Saint Domingue, where he married a
woman who gave birth to Toussaint on the property of the Comte de Noe. (See
Histoire de l'expedition des Francais a Saint Domingue by Antoine Metral
(Karthala, 1985) pp325ff.  Isaac's memoirs are in the appendices to this
book.  This is only documentation I have found of Toussaint's origins (or
rather it seems to be the source of the other documents).  Other stories
are told, and may be true.

Max Beauvoir knows more about the oral history than I do, (if he is
listening) and I note that oral history may be more reliable than existing
documents for a lot of these questions.  Isaac's note were written late,
after Toussaint's death, when  Isaac was isolated in French exile; one
supposes he relied on childhood memory, along with what his mother might
have been able to tell him later on.

Gerard Barthelmy discovered that no "Toussaint" was listed as the property
of the Comte de Noe at Breda, where Toussaint is supposed to have been
born.  Other records (discovered by GB) show that Bayon de Libertat,
manager of Breda at the time of the revolution, brought a few retainers
with him when he came to Breda from Borgne, including an unnamed coachman
(Toussaint's metier, or one of them).  From these suggestive shreds,
Barthelmy supposes that Toussaint might have been born at Borgne, rather
than Breda-- and so had an early attachment to Bayon de Libertat (whom he
took great pains to protect during the Revolution's first explosion).
Bell & Cooper CD forthcoming from Gaff Music:
http://faculty.goucher.edu/mbell/AnythingGoes/forty_words_for_fear.htm