Date: May 14, 2025
Legacy Makers: Stories of Black Inventors and Icons
Title and Show Info
Episode #27. The Opening: A Tale of Toussaint Louverture.
Featuring: Toni Davis (Host & Storyteller).
Summary
🎙️ The Opening: A Tale of Toussaint Louverture
Before revolutions roar, before empires crumble—there is a boy, and a gatekeeper who sees the storm in his soul.
In this thrilling episode, we meet Toussaint Louverture, not as the indomitable general of legend, but as a quiet, slave boy on the Breda Plantation with eyes like open doors, watching, listening, learning. A curious soul in the stables, he deciphers the world through hooves and whispers, with Pierre-Baptiste Simon, the old carpenter, keeping silent vigil.
This is no ordinary origin story. It’s the spark before the fire, the hush before the uprising. Toussaint’s mind is already galloping ahead of his time, speaking three languages and dreaming in fourths: freedom, dignity, strategy, and legacy.
The groundwork for this saga is laid unlike any other—where history meets prophecy, and a child of bondage quietly rewrites the fate of nations.
Tune in as we peel back the curtain on one of history’s greatest unsung minds—before the revolts, before the treaties, before the betrayal—when he was just a boy, and the world didn’t yet know it should fear him.
This isn’t just the start of a podcast.
It’s the Opening.
New episodes every week. Subscribe now, and don’t just hear history—feel it.

Highlights:
00:56- INTRO.
02:29- TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE’S BIRTH.
03:28- STABLEMAN & COACHMAN.
03:59- MANUMITTED.
04:22- MARRIES.
04:37- CHILDREN.
05:34- SLAVE REVOLT.
06:07- JOINS THE REBELLION WITH THE SPANISH.
06:27- COMMANDER.
07:27- THE BRITISH SEND TROOPS TO CRUSH THE REBELLION.
07:41- SPAIN DECLARES WAR AGAINT ENGLAND & FRANCE.
07:49- FRANCE DECLARES WAR AGAINST ENGLAND.
08:27- ADOPTS THE NAME “LOUVERTURE”.
08:49- FRANCE ABOLISHES SLAVERY.
08:56- ABANDONS SPAIN AND FIGHTS FOR FRANCE.
09:32- 1798 ENGLAND AND US TREATIES.
10:16- “WAR OF THE KNIVES”.
10:29- CONQUERS SANTO DOMINGO & FREES IT’S SLAVES.
10:37- DRAFTS A NEW CONSTITUTION FOR SAINT DOMINGUE.
10:41- GENERAL FOR LIFE.
11:02- SENDS THE CONSTITUTION TO FRANCE.
11:07- FRANCE SENDS TROOPS.
11:33- CEASEFIRE.
11:49- ARRESTED AND EXILED.
12:20- IMPRISONED AT FORT DE JOUX IN FRANCE.
12:46- TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE PASSES AWAY.
13:39- SAINT DOMINGUE IS RENAMED HAITI AND DECLARED AN INDEPENDENT NATION.
14:10- CONCLUSION.
Subscribe to the podcast.

Links to additional resources:
Toussaint Louverture | Biography, Significance, & Facts | Britannica
The Wrongful Death of Toussaint Louverture | History Today
Toussaint Louverture | National Museum of African American History and Culture
How Toussaint L'ouverture Rose from Slavery to Lead the Haitian Revolution | HISTORY
Toussaint L'Ouverture (1743-1803) | BlackPast.org
Toussaint L'Ouverture: Biography, Haitian Indepenence Movement
Toussaint Louverture | Slavery and Remembrance
Toussaint Louverture - Kids | Britannica Kids | Homework Help
Toussaint Louverture - Wikipedia