. He had been the born slave of the Count de
Breda, and had been well treated by his manager, Bayou de Libertas. He
was the husband of one wife and the father of children. With religious
aspirations, an inflexible integrity, and an inquiring mind, he had been
a valuable slave and had been raised from a field-hand to be M. Bayou's
coachman.

Toussaint was never hungry while a slave; he was not whipped. His hut
was comfortable; vines twined around his door. Bananas and potatoes grew
in his garden. Toussaint, it seems, was not a beast of burden. To make
sugar he was worth no more than a Bozal just stolen; but with these rare
virtues--patience, courage, intelligence, fidelity--he might have sold
for five hundred dollars and might be trusted to drive horses. When the
rebellion broke out he did not join it, but assisted M. Bayou with his
family to escape, and shipped a rich cargo to the United States for his
maintenance.

Toussaint was then fifty years old. None knew the day of his birth; the
records of stock then and there were not carefully kept. For fifty years
this negro had lived the life of a slave; his only occupation the hoeing
of cane and the grooming of horses. What thoughts, what struggles, what
hopes had taken shape in that uncultivated brain no man knows--for
Toussaint was a man of few words, and he left no writings. It was late
in life to begin a new trade; late to begin to find out his own powers
and strength; late to trust himself to freedom, he who had always had a
master; late to speculate upon the destinies of the black race; late to
attempt to shape them. But in revolutionary times men learn fast; great
men need only the opportunity; they rise to the emergency. Cromwell was
not a born or trained general or ruler, nor was Washington, nor was
William Tell. Toussaint had bided his time. This slave was ignorant,
knew nothing. He learned to read when approaching his declining years;
then he studied: Raynal, Epictetus, Caesar, Saxe, Herodotus, Plutarch,
Nepos--these were the books and lives he knew.

He decided to join his race, and having some knowledge of simples was
made physician of the forces commanded by Jean Francois. Here he served
well, as he always did, and learned the trade of war. Shocked at the
cruelties of whites and blacks he took the side of mercy and saved lives
from the sword as well as from disease. He saw the vanity of Francois,
the rashness of Biassou, the cruelty of Jeannot; but he retire