Toussaint L'Ouverture, FrançoisDominique

Tous·saint L'Ou·ver·ture (to͞o-săɴʹ lo͞o-vĕr-türʹ), François Dominique. 1743?-1803.

Haitian military and political leader who led a successful slave insurrection (1791-1793) and helped the French expel the British from Haiti (1798). In 1801 he invaded Spanish Santo Domingo and freed the slaves there. He briefly maintained control over the entire island, establishing the first Black-led government in the Americas, before being arrested by Bonapartist agents (1802) and deported to France.

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