Toussaint L'Ouverture (1865)

AUTHOR: Child, Lydia Maria

KEYWORDS: Abolition, animals, animal welfare, veg*nism

SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen)

This biography of Toussaint L'Ouverture at several points mentions both his kindness towards animals and his vegetarianism, emphasizing the intersection of Abolition with animal welfare. Child provides a heavily idealized portrait of the life and achievements of Toussaint L'Ouverture. She emphasizes time and again “his tender disposition” (46), “his uncommon intelligence, well-tried virtues, and courteous dignity of manner” (59), and his “extremely simple and frugal” lifestyle (60). At one point, she calls him “one of the greatest and best men the world has ever produced” (83). “It is singular,” Child writes, “how he escaped the contagion of impurity which always pollutes society where Slavery exists” (61).

Child grounds her characterization of Toussaint L'Ouverture, in part, in his treatment of animals in his youth (on this point, see also her essay “Kindness to Animals”). Early in the article Child notes how “he differed from other boys in his careful and gentle treatment of the animals under his care” (36). She does not fail to mention that, while still a young slave, “[h]is kindness to animals fitted him for the care of horses, and he was found as faithful in this new business as he had been while he was herds-boy” (37). She also emphasizes both his vegetarianism and his temperance: “His food consisted of vegetable preparations, and he drank water only” (61). Linking Abolition with respect and reverence for other people that is partly based on a concern for animal welfare, Child makes him a paragon of Christian morality (she mentions repeatedly that he was a devout Catholic). Accordingly, she concludes her encomium: “God raised him up to do a great work, which he faithfully performed; and his spirit is still 'marching on' ” (82).