But Saint-Domingue's constitution carried within it particularly powerful contradictions. On the one hand, the project that all the people of Saint- Domingue were called on to support was a project of emancipation, of freedom from racial hierarchy, of liberty for all in a land once dominated by slavery. At the same time, ex-slaves were given very particular responsibilities that were defined by their old status: those who had once worked as slaves were now free, but they were required to work as cultivators. To defend freedom, they had to surrender their freedom to the new state.30 This state was literally embodied in one person, Toussaint Louverture, who was declared governor of Saint-Domingue for “the rest of his glorious life.”

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 366