Around 1740, a boy was born into slavery on the Bréda plantation in French Saint-Domingue. In his mature years, re-baptizing himself Louverture (“The Opening”), he became the indispensable leader of the Haitian Revolution, the largest and most successful revolt of enslaved people in modern history. “Black Spartacus” is the story of an island as well as a man. Louverture was born and lived all but the last 10 months of his life in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, present-day Haiti. He also has a gift for tracing those threads that reveal a previously unrecognized pattern in the fabric of a life.

Source: Wall Street Journal August 26, 2020 22:52 UTC