Isaac Louverture’s Mémoires: A Nineteenth-Century Representation of Black Masculinity in the Name of the Father

Isaac Louverture’s 1818 memoir, when read in tandem with the memoir (1802) of his father, Toussaint Louverture, offers a nuanced representation of black masculine subjectivity and agency—one that elegizes his father’s legacy while simultaneously rewriting an episode from his father’s narrative. Within the context of the events in Saint-Domingue prior to independence, the son’s memoir suggests the possibility of a different dynamic between black and white men in part by calling into question his father’s account of the latter’s relationship to Napoleon and Saint-Domingue’s relation to France. (afs-a)