And it is the story of a charismatic and barely literate enslaved person named Toussaint L’Ouverture, who successfully led the Black people of San Domingo against successive invasions by overwhelming French, Spanish, and English forces-and in the process helped form the first independent post-colonial nation in the Caribbean. It is the story of the French colony of San Domingo, a place where the brutality of plantation owners toward enslaved people was horrifyingly severe. James, was the first major analysis of the uprising that began in the wake of the storming of the Bastille in France and became the model for liberation movements from Africa to Cuba. The Black Jacobins, Education, and Redemption Afterword to The Black Jacobins ’s Italian Edition Making Drama out of the Haitian Revolution from Below C. In Confronting Black Jacobins, historian Gerald Horne states his 'central argument' thus: 'The Haitian Revolution created a general crisis for the system of slavery that could only be resolved with its collapse.' It represented a 'confrontation that compelled a retreat of the racialized slavery that had given rise to the slave-holding. The Black Jacobins, by Trinidadian historian C. An enjoyable read for a history buff like me. The Black Jacobins details the complex struggle that eventually ended in freedom for Haitians, and how that victory affected the history of Europe, America and the Caribbean to this day. Provocative and empowering.” – The New York Times Book Review Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L. “One of the seminal texts about the history of slavery and abolition.

This powerful and impassioned history of the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1803 is the classic account of the largest successful revolt by enslaved people in history.

The black jacobins review