When he joined in the insurrection in 1791, Toussaint was already a free man. He had been born in slavery just outside Le Cap on a plantation owned by the Bréda family. He worked as a coachman and took care of livestock on the plantation. Sometime in the 1770s the plantation manager, Bayon de Libertat, emancipated Toussaint. Within a few years Toussaint had acquired his own slave, an African-born man named Jean-Baptiste, whom he freed in 1777. Toussaint tried his hand at agriculture, renting a small coffee plantation near the town.

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 245