Toussaint Louverture

CLR James's play on the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint Louverture, is an excellent companion to his classic, The Black Jacobins. Focusing on Toussaint Louverture as a tragic hero, which is not uncommon when writers of African descent wrote literary works on the "fathers" of Haitian independence, the play, written in 1934, foreshadows arguments of James in the future. For instance, the presence and influence of the masses is a consistent theme in the play, although it is certainly centered on Toussaint Louverture. The play also features historically accurate portrayals as well as some composites, but the omission of certain actors (such as Sonthonax) is intriguing and raises more questions. Indeed, James even includes Macaya (rendered here as Macoya) in the narrative, the African-born slave revolutionary whose seeming monarchical leanings complicate the question of ideology and the role of the French Revolution. 

As a play, the work functions quite well with the tragic hero of Toussaint Louverture and powerful monologues. Little action or combat scenes are in the play, but its an intriguing work that reflects the importance of Haiti and the Haitian Revolution in the Black Atlantic of the 1930s. For example, Christian Hogsberg's introduction explains the context of the play in the leftist scenes of London as well as opposition to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and European colonialism in Africa and the West Indies. Included in the text are additional essays and writings, as well as reviews of the play. One of the supplementary readings is an essay by CLR James refuting white supremacy, which argues against it using Toussaint Louverture.