64. The Black Spartacus

Hank joined BJ's wholesale club the day he became a father of 30. "I coach football." Now, Coach Hank saves up to 25% off grocery store prices, 30 pounds of pasta, three cases of protein bars, 75 sports drinks, and that's just pregame. He knows teamwork, and BJ's knows savings. This is your home coach, home of the save. Join for just $20 at bj's.com/maskete and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon, limited time offer, new members only. BJ's home of the save. You're not worried about hosting for the holidays? Oh, Wayfair's got me covered with holiday decor, extra dining chairs, and guest bedding, all with tons of five-star reviews so there's no surprises. Unless Uncle Matt brings his dogs again. For worry-free hosting, Wayfair delivers. Hello and welcome to Empire. I'm Anita Arnand. And I am William Turimple. Right, leaning in a bit. I mean, we know. It's like it's a sport, you know. So, for no, you might forget. I'm Hank. Are you on a boat? It's half way by swing? I am sitting in my, the house I grew up in in Scotland, which I haven't been to for four years is my father died. And I'm looking out on the garden and I run around as a child. It's a very, very nice and unusually for Scotland. It's a bright blue summer day and it's just gorgeous. Yeah, Karen's just said, "Willie, can you stop looking at the window and look at the night?" That's the problem with the window. Is to my right like, "I'll stop looking at the window." The thing with audio magic is that you can pretend you're looking out of the window. So we can hear you. It's still a very foreign form to me. No, I know, I know. We've only done about six million episodes. But no, I understand. I understand the problems. I'm just trying to understand what little William was like. I mean, I mean, we are going to get to this. Really good. It's a very good podcast, by the way. But just since you've opened the door or a window, a crack, what were you like? Is it, what were you like as a child? My housemaster of school said, "I was the boy who's changed least." I was exactly like this, I think. I was mad kid. I wrote age seven at my primary school. They had the less they say, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And I said, "An author and an archaeologist." It's more or less history rather than archaeology, but it's more or less. My first trip to London was to aged seven. It was to go and see the Tutankhamel exhibition. Really? It's south of the board of the first time. I remember it was the time that they were burning crops. And I'd been brought up with all these stories about how awful the English were. And as we passed the border in the train, it was like Mordor because the whole place was on flames. And I literally thought we're going into the land of the Orcs, so Edward the First and all this. I'm going to share a little story with you. I don't think I've told you this before, but you went to school with Patrick French, didn't you? I did. So Patrick, and dearly departed Patrick French. Did you die this year? Yes, I died this year. An absolutely wonderful man. My friend from the age of, from the age of 12. Yeah, and he, you know, an author of Liberty, Old Death and many other books. Dan has been. Jan has been, which is the next book. The Great Nipole Bography. He told me a story about you. Don't know. I've got it. Possibly not on it. Well, have you been saving this one? Well, this is expression. No, I know lots of stories about you from Patrick, but this is one you'll be fine with. But he said that you have actually always been the same. And at school, quite, I don't, you know, sort of off your own back, you started running a history society. I can't put it. Archaeology society. OK, I've misremembered. I'm sure he said it right. But you would put these little notes up on the notice board saying, "Archaeology, this week, this Thursday." Well, everyone else is running around playing. You have the chance to listen to a really interesting talk by me on something. And sometimes hardly anyone turned up. Sometimes people did turn up. But you have never been different. Which is, yeah. And it wasn't me talking. We had some very interesting speakers. And it actually was, I suppose, in some ways a dry run for all this. Because it was, it was writing to people asking to come on and speak on history. Did all people come when it was just you or when you were the speaker? I only had to speak once. OK. And that was on a very boring lecture on Anglo-Saxon sculpture. I wish it. And that did get a pretty low attention. That is not true. We have friends loyally turned up. But anyway, if you want me to dish more dirt on William, one thing that I've heard about him, you could just email us. And that's hard to see if there's a quantum of interest. Luckily Patrick is no longer around dish any water. But he must have tasted any other way. No, he's such a nice man. Anyway, look, today we are discussing one of the most extraordinary characters in this story of slavery. This is a story of a man known as the black Spartacus, Tucson, Louis Ture. Or rather impressed by that French accent. Thank you, my man. Thank you very much. Do you think it's-- [LAUGHTER] Tucson, Louis Ture. And just a petit, petit descendant to my level. Thank you. Who led the only completely successful slave rebellion in the history of the transatlantic slave trade? It is the Haitian revolution. The only slave revolution in history to result in an independent state. So tell us about Louis Ture. I mean, give us a thumbnail sketch of who this man was. Well, he is a figure who is becoming quite famous in the Francophone world. And there was a big French TV series, for example, about him. And Wichlif Jean, the-- Oh, gee. [LAUGHTER] I'm sorry, I want to watch it. Do you mean my cliff is all? I mean, try not to do it now. Mr. Man of the People. [LAUGHTER] Rapped about him. Carlos Santana has done a songs about him. There's a plaque to him in the pantheon recently erected. Is it at the end of the pantheon, along with the other greats of French history? He was a major influence. His revolutionary techniques were studied by Castro and Ho Chi Minh. Yet he's someone that's almost completely unknown in the Anglophone world. Until-- Oh, any parts at the Anglophone. I have to correct you, because my American friends have been telling me that, actually, he's an enormous figure in the Black Lives Matter. Correct. In the United States, he's massive, but not here. In Great Britain, no one really knows his name. And he is an extraordinarily cool character. And he is someone you could easily imagine at the forefront of a whole line of movies or Netflix series. He's born enslaved on a sugar plantation in Sandemang, which is what we today call Haiti, which is the-- of course, half the island of Hispaniola. And today, of course, we think of it as a poor and rather chaotic country that's always undergoing coups or the substrate violence, there's a sort of voodoo, and it's often held up as the archetypal chaotic sort of third world country in some accounts. But in the 18th century, it is the richest place in the entire colonial world. It's the center of the slave trade has more slaves than anywhere else. It makes a vast profit for France and Spain who both have bits of the island. And Louverture comes to adulthood at the time of the French Revolution. And he mixes ideas from the Caribbean, from France, from Africa, and produces a new form of politics that's part Jacobin, but very much focused on the liberation of the slaves. Yeah. And we should say, I mean, Haiti at the time in the 1800s is the sugar and coffee capital of the world. I mean, it is pumping out the stuff. It has enormous importance when it comes to trade. So this is a jewel in anybody's crown. And again, this is something that we need to get our head around, because again, in our head, America is the rich area, and the Caribbean is small and marginal. In the 1800s, it's the other way around. It's the Caribbean that is hugely rich. And the three richest islands are, first of all, Santamau, secondly Jamaica, thirdly Cuba. And that is where the money is being minted. And huge fortunes are there to be made. And the American South, Virginia, all this sort of place comes very much lower on the priority list if you're sitting in Europe wanting to make money out of your colonies. - Well, we're going to go into Levitua's life and deeds in a great deal of detail in these podcasts. But just if I was writing his CV, this is how I would write it. Outmanuva's three successive French commissioners defeats the British overpowers the Spanish and in 1801, despite having been wounded 17 times, 17 times in battle. - And lost most of his front teeth when a cabin ball goes off ball guy. - Yeah, I mean, but gone through all of that, nevertheless, authors his own new abolitionist constitution for Sanderbank. Asserting, and I'll quote from it, here, all men are born, live and dead. free and French. So to get to that point where he has that amount of muscularity and influence, he had to create a myriad of international alliances, he had to build an army, he had to build an army that could defeat eventually Bonaparte's forces. So you can have a lot of names in this that you're going to recognize. There are going to be some cameo roles going through this where you're going to go what? And Bonaparte does not come out well out of the story. He is he is the demon in the pack and he he plays a very, very negative role in the story. But what I love about this whole story is the way that I don't have to start is so mysterious. He moves in in such extraordinary waves that he comes to be regarded not just by his own people, but by the French, the British and the Spanish who he takes on almost as a supernatural figure. He uses voodoo. He's renowned for his almost magical capacity to appear in the most unexpected settings and to vanish without trace. I mean, I know this, this is there's one of his French enemies, you know, the French detested him, but this is what they said. I often think, you know, the most powerful praise comes from the people who hate your guts the most, but this one is a he is too strong is a man who managed to make himself so to speak invisible where he was and visible where he was not. He seemed to have borrowed his spontaneity of movement from the tiger. It's such a good question. I mean, if you were him, you'd put it on a poster. It's not bad. But for all that sort of voodoo mystical stuff, which is very important to his myth both then and today in the Caribbean, he left solid political achievements behind him. And he was described at the time as the father of blacks, the blacks on the French Revolution, the black George Washington, the boner part of the Caribbean, the African hero, the Hannibal or Sandema and so on. In all these different newspapers, all these different countries. He is. He missed him. It's my favorite. I don't know why you miss the center of the savannah. He's the center. And this is because he's this great horse, but he has this horse, this white horse called Belagir. Yeah, he rides through the night. He appears the following morning on his white horse. He changes the course of battles when he appears. At the time, he's recognized as this extraordinary black hero figure, not just in Haiti, not just in the Caribbean, but in America and Philadelphia, in London. One of the London papers describes him, the annual register describes him as the major public figure of the year, a great man. I mean, I love rippling through old newspapers. I mean, just worth mentioning. So Philadelphia newspapers usually refer to him as the celebrated African chief. The London Gazette in 1798 said he was a Negro king, a proud representative of the black grace whom the Christian world to their infamy have been accustomed to degrade. So, you know, a figure that looms large for a long time. The timing is important. And in a sense, he's partly, he provokes what happens at the time, because this is just when the cries from anticipation are really beginning to get heard in Britain. There is a considerable lobby, which has been resisted very strongly in London. And the same sort of thing is going on in France, too. The revolution initially comes out, four slaves, bow to part, rolls it back and sees it in a potential part of the French economy and then wants to re-inslave all these people. So all this is going on and he appears just at the right moment, this incredibly charismatic figure who changes the story by leading a successful revolt and leading his people to freedom. And the great tragedy is that he is captured through treachery just before he achieves this final independence. And he dies alone in a freezing prison. They deliberately put him when they capture him. They're taking back to France and they put him in the coldest place they can find in the middle of the Jura mountains. And he dies huddled around a far a year later without any covering. I mean, it's a tragic story. Can I just listen to this? That's me slapping my head because you just gave a win into it. I mean, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we have to know. I just want to say it's always good if you know the idea that you see how it works towards that. Just doing it again. I just want to sound of despair. Right. Well, let us, I mean, we've given you sort of a roller-king ride through an exceptional life. But there was so much to tell you and so much to learn from the stars ending left to tell. I haven't told you. This is me giving you the padding to spare. I'm doing not. I'm seeing this there. I will be fine. I know when I be told what to say. Yeah. I mean, we're that way true. Lord, well, that were true. Okay. So, first of all, we should talk about Sandabank a little bit. So, as you say, a Caribbean island, but the terrain is really interesting, dominated by mountain ranges. There are massive plains in between them. I mean, it's, it's fecund. It is fertile because there are waters coming down from rivers, coming down from the hills. It is a place that stuff grows. Well, what's important, I think, is that it is both fecund and fertile, but also incredibly mountainous. So, it's both a place you can make a lot of money for, but it's also a place where if you're a guerrilla leader, you can fend off organized armed forces. It's like, you know, it's the Afghanistan of the Caribbean, if you like. It's a place that's given naturally for resistance movements. Yeah. So, again, this is a very thumbnail sketch of the history. So, because so many European adventurers had their eyes on it. So, the Spaniards colonized it first when they went to the new world, but, but, but not for that long because in the mid 17th century, it was taken over by French pirates. Our friends, the pirates, who sort of sail the seven seasons and do whatever the hell they want. I've just realized we haven't actually done pirates. We should definitely do that. We should do that. We should do that. We should do that. I don't know, but it's such a brilliant idea. I'm going across that you thought of it, and I did that. She catches their paws. Pirate empires. Yes. So, over time, these French pirates, you know, they turn from swashbuckling in a pillaging and a lute and they decide to set up shop. I know that, but they decide that they're going to put down their roots in this very fertile land, and they begin to create plantations. They start with coffee. And of course, you know, this is labor intensive. We're talking about the mid 17th century. They need hands to be working in these plantations. And where do they look? Well, where everybody else is looking at this time, they look to Africa. And it has, by the mid 18th century, half a million slaves, most of whom have come from Africa, who have been worked their death every year. There's a rapid turnover because of the way that they're treated, yet it's incredibly profitable. And so vast as the slave population here, that it probably has, and this is again important for the future history of rebellion, it has the highest ratio of black to white. So there's about 10 to 1 blacks to every one white. In other words, it's ripe for a rebellion. And by sheer weight of numbers, the slaves have a greater chance of success here than they do elsewhere. Yeah, I mean, we've mentioned sugar and coffee, but they also grow significant amounts of cotton, indigo, cacao for chocolate. And it becomes such a vast part of trade. I think it supplies two thirds of France's overseas trade at the time. Is that right? That's a extraordinary figure. And it's known as the pearl of the Antilles. Yeah, it's the world's largest producer of sugar and coffee, and even Jamaica, which is the most profitable British colony, pales and significance next to it. So in short, pre-the Haitian revolution, this was the most valuable colony in the world. And it's not a tall, a backward place either. At a time when, you know, a lot of the North American world is very rural and fairly basic. The capital, gap is a bustling cosmopolitan center with a population of nearly 20,000. There are libraries, there are philosophical societies, there's a publishing world, private libraries, reading clubs. So it's not a provincial place at all, again, you know, one has to completely reject one's wireless preconceptions. And I think someone coming from Virginia would regard this as a major metropolitan center, it was somewhere you'd go for a bit of culture. Yeah, and I think one of the things that underlines this and just how well the pirates had done for themselves, these former pirates now settlers had done for themselves, you know, they built bakeries and theatres. They had a very important for the French. Yeah, I mean, you know, petisseries. 25 bakeries. 25 petisseries. And this is important because you understand that the hierarchy, the division between races is so stark here on this island. And people see it every single day. And the scientific organization, again, Saint-Dameek had Le Cercle de Philadelphia, which published five volumes of scientific memoirs on things as diverse as medicine, agriculture, botany, ethnographical studies. And it had, you know, this this scientific center had an international membership. So, you know, there were people who were traveling from Europe and the United States to come and give lectures and likewise and tape is going. It's an important place. And this is, again, this thing that we that we have to struggle with when we're studying this world is that the same people who are studying philosophy and reading enlightenment thought and going to these reading rooms and using these libraries are also the same people who are controlling a black African-slave population with barbaric cruelty. And differently, I mean, the difference is, you know, we talked about in Britain, you know, the reason why for so many years nobody said anything is because they couldn't see it. Here they see it every time they go into a lecture, every time they go and buy an eclair, every time they go and deliver a lecture, they see it, but I guess I don't care or are blind to it anyway, we'll fully blind to it. And so side by side with this world of philosophical societies and and learning journals, you have the world of the slaves, 500,000 black African slaves, with no political or civil rights treated extremely badly, very, very high mortality rates, people die in their thirties or forties, very few live longer. But there's also a big world, because there's so many in because of the shared density of the slave world, there's a very sophisticated slave culture with brotherhoods in the plantation, they practice voodoo in this strange mixture of indigenous Indian and black African mythologies and spirit rituals and things evolving bodies and resurrection, dance, song, possession, divination, all this sort of thing is far more developed in Haiti than it is in smaller islands. Now, I want to give you a little bit of casting here, because there are different types of people and I'm very interested in this division among the white community. So you have leg humble, the big whites, these are the wealthy merchants, the bourgeoisie, the people who own stuff, the people who are going to the patisseries, if you like. And then you have the small whites. And these are the people, you know, I suppose you'd call them the bureaucrats, the middle classes, the clerks, the artisans, the graces, the lawyers. And they have less. One little detail there, which I love, according to, so we should quickly say very, very much upfront that there are two fantastic books that we are drawing on today from this. The first is C. L.R. James, and it's called the Black Jackabins, Tucson, Louverture, and the San Domingue Revolution. And that is written in the 30s when fascism is beginning to rise. Yeah, no, no, I always thought of him as a sort of 50s or 60s figure, but he's, no, he's way before that. Well, that makes the writing even more interesting, because he's kind of slightly pressing about the arrival of fascism on his doorstep, but that's very interesting. Yeah, no, still I just born in 1911, it says here. Gosh, okay. And the other, and the other is a book which won the Wilson History Prize, it's premier history prize two years ago by Sudhir Hazari Singh, a fantastic book called Black Spartacus. And it's amazing, and it challenges some of the C. L.R. James's conclusions. C. L. James, I think it's been absolutely affixed for anyone studying this stuff for 40 years, and Sudhir Hazari Singh has found an amazing amount of new stuff, not least in the National Archives in Cue, which Bizarre Lee had even letters from Louverture and a whole range of stuff, which changes the picture. But one detail in the C. L.R. James, which I love, is that some of the P. T. Blanc, the small whites, are escaped Gali slaves. Yeah. So you've got, I don't know, I don't know whether they're Gali slaves from the Ottoman world, or what the fat they're doing in, excuse my language, I don't know. I've got a piece of the vapours. Anyway, I don't know what they're doing in there. No, you really, I think you've made that quite clear. That is now abundantly clear. Anyway, the X Gali slaves among the poor whites, and of course this leads to edgy relations with the Black slaves, because they're very keen not to be put on the same level as them. And so it's, there's huge tensions running through this rich but very hierarchical colony. Yeah. I mean, the thing about the betignal, the small whites, is that they hate the big whites, and they hate the Black slaves. So they are caught in a maelstrom of resentment and hatred. And then in the non-white world, you also have the whole mulatto and marital population. Remind us who they are. Remind us because we have referred to them before. They're both escaped slaves who've made their own lives up in the mountains, and they're mixed blood. This group sits between the different kinds of whites and the Blacks. And as we'll see as this story develops, not necessarily good relations with the slaves at all. And Louvertio has a rival in the marital community. And so we saw earlier when Vincent was talking about Taki's revolt, how it was the marital and the free blacks that we used against the slaves. And there's a similar thing going on here. There's a lot of tension despite Louvertio's best attempts to try and sort it out between the mixed blood community and the Black Africans. So we're going to give you one more cast member. It's going to sound weird to you, but it's a very important cast member. And then we're going to take a break and we're going to come back with Louvertio himself. But this is a very major character in this story, and that is the French Revolution. It is crucial in this story. So the French Revolution, you know this, but it's a movement by the French to overthrow the absolute monarchy of Louis XVI, who ruled France the years at the time. The French Revolution begins with the fall of the Bastille. You know, it's all of those men at the barricade, laymirs, all of that kind of thing, and the declaration of the rights of man, which let me remind you of the quality of liberty. You just took the best line. But this is going to be very, very important because the reverberations, just as everybody in Britain fears the reverberations from that French Revolution spread, like a boulder in the water, the ripples from the French Revolution sweep across Europe all across Asia and they reach the Americas. And they lap up on Sandermank as well. Join us after the break. We've given you sort of a backdrop of Louvertio and where he comes from, meet the man properly himself. I coach football. Now coach Hank saves up to 25% off grocery store prices, 30 pounds of pasta, three cases of protein bars, 75 sports drinks, and that's just pregame. He knows teamwork and BJ's knows savings. Join for just $20 at BJ's.com/maskeet and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon limited time offer new members only. Star Wars the Mandalorian and Grogu is now streaming on Disney Plus. What are you waiting for? Hop on. The must-see galactic adventure comes home on Disney Plus. This is the way our only chance is to work together. On life this kid. Always wear your seatbelt. Star Wars the Mandalorian and Grogu now streaming on Disney Plus. Wait PG 13. The most memorable gifts aren't found they're made. Zazzle is a custom marketplace where you pick any product. A mug, a card, a tote, a phone case, and make it personal. A photo, a name, an inside joke. The kind of gift that actually fits the person. That's what 30 million customers have been coming back to Zazzle for over 20 years to find. Right now, save 25% on your first order at Zazzle.com. That's Zazzle.com. Make it Z Amazing. Welcome back. So we've given you the extraordinary cast list of this story. Just before we shake hands with Liverpool, let's talk about the Milato Revolt because October 1790 is a very pivotal date in this story, isn't it? And this is presumably when news is just arriving from France of what's going on and the storming of the barricades and all that. And it is the first to rise up are not the Black African slaves, but the Milatos. And they rise up killing both the Petit Blanc and the Granblanc. All the whites are being curred. There's a major revolt. And they have a leader called Vincent Oje and he's tortured, net scuted in a horrific manner. News of this tortured death erupts across the island. And very soon after this, you have a slave revolt, which follows, which is separate from it, but in a sense inspired by it. I'm really fascinated with how actually the news of the French revolution spreads around the plantations themselves among the slaves because they had heard of it. Of course, everybody's talking about the French revolution, but they frame it in their own terms. And these are interesting. They talk about the white slaves of France rising up and killing their masters and now enjoying life on their own terms. And that is a very powerful thing, even though they don't share the colour, they share the slavery in their minds with the French who rise up and get rid of their monarchy and their nobility. And in July 1971, a gigantic man called Buchmann, who's the head of a plantation and has been following the situation, organizes a revolt among the slaves. And it's to exterminate the whites. It's a very, very serious uprising. The plan was to set forth plantations and this was signaled to the slaves in Le Cap, the capital, that it's time to rise up. I mean, in Buchmann, his is a violent plan because he his basic messages kill all the whites, massacre the whites. It is going to be different to what you meet with your, but his is bloodlust is now sweeping through. How successful is Buchmann's uprising? So I'll on the night of the 22nd of August 1791, in the middle of a fierce tropical storm. It's all very filthy, it's certainly good. And CLR James gives a wonderful version of it in his books. Bookman gives his final instructions to the slaves. They perform voodooing plantation, and they suck the blood of a stuck pig. This is all, I mean, this is all kind of fantastically, I can just imagine all this. And that night the slaves do rise up, they murder their masters, and they burn the plantations to the ground. And the cap is not, however, taken because there are precautions there. And it is, you know, it's everything that the slave drivers and the plantation owners have feared. It's barbaric, it's violent. - Women and children are targeted in this as well, aren't they? - And this is the point that we first start hearing about Toussaint Levertoux. This is when he rides into the rescue, with a very different way of managing affairs. - Yes, I mean, I wonder if this is, you know, just that he is appalled by what he sees the children being sort of bare-knitted and dismembered. But let's talk about him. Let's talk about his origin story a little more. So he's the son of a petty chieftain. He is unusual from the start. You know, like with so many of these characters, with Barber, with Alado Aquiano, he's bright. And people around him recognize that there is, there is a bright mind in here. I mean, goodness knows how many bright minds they've ignored. But certain people are recognized. In his own words, what does he think of himself, William? You've got a great quote there. There's a lovely quote, which is one of his first declaration. He says, "I was born a slave, but nature gave me the soul of a free man." And we do know a little bit about his background. He's the second son of someone called Gau Guinu, the king of the warrior nation of the Alarders, a West African people living on the Gold Coast and in Benin. And so his father is a very high status in this society. And he's born in the Caribbean, on the bread of sugar estate, where his parents worked at slaves. And he is initially, Tulsa Leverto, is a spindly little boy, sickly, but he could swim well. And it was very quick at running. And what he's famous for throughout his life is his exceptional abilities as a rider. Oh yes, the center of the Caribbean. The center of the Caribbean. And so he says, one of the sources, he habitually rode 125 miles a day, which presumably can't be literally true. Well, no, and also, they also say he survived on two hours sleep a night, which also, I mean, literally, I cannot believe that could be true. That sounds crackers to me. What's very clear is that he has this presence. He is quiet, steely eyed, serious, has immense gravitas. He's spent a lot of time in his own as a kid. He's a shepherd on the estate. And he's sitting with his sheep on his own, brooding. And he's literate and he's reading the system. Well, the reason he's reading, and we should say, this kind of, you know, the difference in him is recognized by, and I love this. Again, if we're pitching this for a movie, Pierre Baptiste, you know, your archetypal, wise old man, you know, as a silvery head, who beckons him over with wisdom hands, saying, to sorry, see somebody in the movie. Who's going to play him in the movie? Who's the guy that plays? And it's Morgan Freeman. It's Morgan Freeman. Of course, it's Morgan Freeman. Morgan. So he'll say, you know, he beckons him over and he said, look, you know, you've got a good mind, but let me mold it. Let me help. And he teaches him things that are out of reach for most of the people working there. Even rudimentary French is out of their reach, but he teaches him French. He teaches him Latin. He teaches him a bit of drawing as well. And from his father, he takes away that sort of native knowledge of plants, medicine, things that can heal. So, you know, as much as it's possible to be on a plantation, this is an educated, yes, sickly, but educated, young man. And the Jesuits play a role here too. The Jesuits get onto him. They're later expelled from Sandema because they're encouraging the saves and educating them and the plantation owners don't like this. But they're an important part. And he remains, despite taking on very much the spirit world and voodoo as well, he remains a Catholic throughout his life. So, Catholicism is important and important in his education. He's a product of the life on Sandemaang. I mean, all of these different cultures, all of these different learnings coming together in one human being, which will be incredibly important. He's also a man for the ladies. He is a man for the ladies. And there's evidence that he has quite a few mistresses in his life and only one parent of his love that has survived, but we've got the replies from him. He said, he said, "No, see, man, because he has got a wife." Well, he has all these mistresses. He has two wives. He has one wife, and he's been able to live. And one later on. But he, otherwise, he's not a liberty. And he's actually quite a severe character. He doesn't eat much. His daily diet is said to consist of a modest plate of vegetables served with a few pieces of chicken. That's all right. That's not chicken salad, that's not too bad. Chicken salad. I mean, I was surprised you say that. I thought you would have gone, "Next!" It's awful. I don't like that. I don't like chicken salad. I mean, it doesn't go to lunch. I know what I'm talking about. We'll see how that works. Shall we? Mr. I think I'll have a steak. Okay. So, Mr. D2 has a steak with me. Anyway. That's okay. And large, but anyway. Unlike either of us, he doesn't drink alcohol. And he has an extraordinary capacity for physical endurance. And he's incredibly hard. He's shilling up mountains faster than anyone else, disappearing into the jungle. And he, one of the features of his life that you see throughout accounts of his movements is that he's always on the move. And he rides so fast that he leaves his own guards trailing way behind him. And even the best riders from France can't make match him for speed or endurance, not to mention bravado. I mean, it is sort of scarlet, Pimpanelli. You know, they seek him here. They seek him there. Those French you seek him everywhere. I mean, it could fit him very well. And there's a lovely story, one point where he's been chased by one of his adversaries. And he crosses a river by standing fully upright on his horse and guiding the steed to the opposite. I love that detail. Yeah. And we haven't really said how he has made the transition from being a learned slave. Learn a shepherd sitting with it. But then turning into somebody who is playing catch me if you can with the French. Tell us more about that. Well, when the expression comes in 1791 to sound of a tour, joins the ranks of the rebels. And like thousands of his black comrades, he rises up. And it actually becomes the secretary to one of the rebel leaders. And in time, because of his learning and because of his charisma, he emerges as a key figure in the rebel leadership. And he protects white prisoners who are being massacred at the early stages of the uprising. And he advocates compromise with the local colonial assembly. And this is a completely new approach. Because up to now, the slave revolt has been all about anarchy and murder and rape. But Lutto is more intelligent than that. And he's very well read. His key book that he's reading at this time is by somebody called Abbey Renal, who writes something called the philosophical and political history of the establishments and commerce of the Europeans in the two Indies, which actually calls for a slave revolution. And it says a courageous chief is all that is wanted. Where is he? That great man whom nature owes to her vexed, depressed and tormented children. And Lutto seems to think that this is him. And you can see this ambition to become a leader. And he cultivates this sort of mystical personality from the beginning. Has this sort of quasi mystical aura? He has a red handkerchief that he wears around his head with the corners tied in delicate knots. And he's seen as a symbol of ojufair, the voodoo spirit of war and anger. And is believed to be able to, the spirit is able to protect Tussant and his men and keep them safe and more. Okay, so he's entered the fray. So the revolution has happened. It's Lutto's spark in him. He believes the Abbey's prophecy is about him. He is now, you know, he's becoming. And we should say he's not, if you've got in your mind, so this young spindly teen, he's not. At this time, we're talking about a man, aren't we? William Howell, do we think he is at this time? Yes, I mean, he's surprisingly old for someone who is, who is going to emerge as a kind of great military leader. And this is, you know, he's already 43 to 53 at this point, which isn't the usual age that you begin a military career. He's also, as we said, you know, he's skinny and short because he had a sickly childhood. And the one thing that really makes him stand out, and this is in all the different accounts, is that he's one of the best horsemen on the island. Great horsemen, but also, you know, a fairly effective. All right. So there is this proclamation that he makes. The camp to rail proclamation. It's lovely, I love the words, yeah. Yeah, he announces this to his, you know, would be followers. I am too solid of it, you have perhaps had my name. You always have seen through the French accent. It sounds like a spin to do so. I am just a little bit to you. You have perhaps heard my name. Okay. I am too solid of it to you. You are aware, brothers, that I have undertake inventions and that I want freedom and equality to reign in Santa Mac. And it's those kind of stirring words that draw people to him. You know, this sort of stern, brilliant horseman who has physical prowess, has more learning than most of them and who can talk like that. So he has this sort of error of mystery about him, this error of elusiveness. He's a very private man. He confides with no one. He goes out of his way to conceal important information about that. himself and he spreads misinformation and rumors, he puts false locations in his lecture and his most confidential messages. And he once told the British diplomat that his preferred way of operating was to say little but do as much as possible. Yeah it's pretty much the direct opposite of us. Actually, I just talk a lot, do nothing very much. Anyway, so Tussart is on the move, he is, his reputation is growing. He's still, you know, at this point, even when he's making these sort of rather grand proclamation, still in the lower ranks of the Santa Manque rebellion, but he's impressive. And so he rises through those ranks. And by this stage, this lady is sufficiently organized to actually have ranks and uniforms and have organized themselves in an impressively coherent and disciplined manner. And this is something that everyone remarks upon because, you know, this revolt started off as the Narcica uprising of people with machetes. But by now, we've got sort of drilled regiments with weapons and uniforms. So it's taken on a completely different form now. Yeah, I mean, you may not know the answer to this. But do you have an idea of what the actual uniforms look like? Because I think I do. Got a rather grand picture of Tussart Liberty. You want to know? Tell me. Well, this, I mean, when you say uniform, you really aren't joking. I mean, this is sort of like, you know, sort of stitch for stitch as grand. Yes. I mean, you're talking of brocaded epilets, high-necked black jackets on, on Liberty, at least big, brassy, shiny buttons going all the way down. Tight white riding, riding jobpers. Indeed. And those hats, you know, that normally you would associate it with Bonaparte himself. There's wide said it did. Yeah, yeah, I don't know if it is a trick on it. I think it's like, you know, they're too excited. I'm not sure about that. I don't know. I think it might be sort of one of the, in the French style. I never put you down as an expert in the in-hattery. I mean, it's more mandatory. I might be wrong. I mean, it's what it looks like. But also, you know, sort of the feathered plumage coming out. So there was, there was this notion that actually you had to look the part as well. And the picture you're describing is, in fact, modeled on David's famous picture of Bonaparte crossing the Elves. And he, he's this figure on this white horse with his sword raised. The only thing that sort of distinguishes him is the fact that he's black. And you have a palm tree in the background of the Elves. Yeah, they also make him taller than he is. I mean, I think you mentioned this before that he's not big. He's not a tall of stature. And then this, I think part is, you know, the secret of his ability is this great rider, the centaur, because Jocky's, as we know, are small men. And this is a compact figure on the back of Bella Jean on his white horse. Hey, look taller on horse. That is true. Okay. So there he is. And he's trying to get some kind of discipline in the ranks, make them a fighting force. And it's interesting that actually he's very successful in doing that. But the owners don't take this lightly, because they're still there. I mean, you know, those who survive, you know, bookwinds, first massacre attempts, they are there and they are angrier. Then, and quite, you know, quite understandably, they're not going to just sit on their hands and let this happen. What do they do? And also to complicate everything, you've got a molata revolt at the same time. So you've got this guy, Rigo, who's the great rival, and will appear in the future as even more of a rival to Tucson. And so it's a big island. And there's a lot going on. So the slave revolt is only one thing in one corner. And just seeing with the masters for one moment more, but you know, there are slaves who sort of join the rebellion. And then they think, oh no, I've made a mistake. You know, they get frightened and they go back to their white masters and they are killed. So that, you know, that's kind of a strategic mistake on the part of the blanches, is that they treat those returning slaves so harshly that even more start leaving. You know, you know, we, this is leaving and we're not coming back. So the numbers of this, if you like, slave army, great to a hundred thousand. A hundred thousand people. A hundred thousand. By the standards of time, that is a very, very big army. Well, what happens to the Milato uprising? I mean, who are they rising up against and what happens to them? Similar sort of story. There is a Milato who's hung in the streets of Porto Bras. And this causes an uprising in that part of the island. So you've got two different revolts happening on the same island at the same time. And you've got the whites joining together to resist in the middle. And there's nearly a moment when it all collapses because the whites offer peace. And they reach out to the leaders. And there's nearly this moment when the slave revolt sells out. Only because they say that we'll give some, is that, oh, divide and rule thing, isn't it? We will give four hundred of you freedom. And you can live in peace, you know, which is for most people, people just want to live in peace. So, you know, those, those leaders start fumbling around going, well, actually, you know, I don't want to die at the end of a sword. This might be better for me. But Louvertio has none of it. And in 1792, he trains up his own army. He becomes a brigadier general. And he makes sure that these slaves are properly drilled, capable of fighting proper European troops. And he has the tactics that he gets split up into multiple groups to try and develop the enemy. But he also begins to develop, and this is something that develops later in his career, these guerrilla tactics, these classic guerrilla tactics. He hangs around in ambushes. He will disappear into the jungle after striking baggage trains and ammunition parties. And he becomes this very, he's never had a military training. This is the extraordinary thing. He has just been a shepherd. But he knows the terrain very well. And he has apparently this disinherent sense of strategy of how to fight a guerrilla war. And this is, and what's fascinating is that in years to come, we'll see pic figures like Ho Chi Min and Castro copying his tactics and reading history of Louvertio's uprising to study how you do this thing, this whole idea of, kind of malice tactics of efficient the water and so on. This is stuff that is developed by a black slave who had been a shepherd on the island of Haiti. You know, one last thing, and we're going to end it here, but he also understands the small circle of trust as well. So he sets up his own elite set of revolutionary troops, largely made up of Merrill, and these are runaway slaves, remember, and he trains them better. And they, he trusts them more. He needs this, this inner circle. And this is a big deal, the fact that he's reached out to the Merrill, who in so many other Caribbean slave rebellions have been the enemies have put down slave revolts. Yeah. So we've seen this in Jamaica. Yeah. We see this also in Sierra Leone. And what's so clever about Louvertio is he's not just a fantastic guerrilla leader who works out how to fight at this period in, in, in this form, in, in, in this amazing landscape. He's also someone that is conciliatory. He's also ruthless. He's a brilliant strategist. And he's someone that isn't just a, you know, a, a map show general in the battlefield. He's someone who realizes you need to hold variety in tactics if you're going to gain your freedom. So, you know, from, from, from shepherd to rising through the ranks, we leave you in 1792 for this particular episode where Tucson is promoted to the rank of general in the rebel army. So join us on Thursday when we find out what general louverture has up his sleeve. Tammy regularly hauled stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's wholesale club saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up. Have you met my kid? And with BJ's gas, she gets there for less. They call me the road warrior. This is your home, road warrior mom, home of the save. Join for just $20 at BJ's dot com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only. I'm not giving up. I am selling the building. The final season of FX is the bear. Restaurant is flooded. Everything's either going to be okay or not. We are outgunned and we are outmanned but we have each other. FX is the bear. The final season. All episodes now streaming on Disney+.