Toussaint Louverture played a key role in what was the first successful attempt by a slave population in the Americas and the world to throw off the yoke of European colonialism. He defeated armies of three imperial powers: Spain, France, and Great Britain. The success of the Haitian Revolution had enduring effects on shaking the institution of slavery throughout the New World. Haiti became the second independent republic in the Americas. After being captured by the French general Leclerc, on the ship to France, Toussaint Louverture warned his captors that the rebels would not make his mistake in the following words: "In overthrowing me you have cut down in Saint Domingue only the trunk of the tree of liberty, it will spring up again from the roots, for they are many and they are deep."

Dominique Toussaint Louverture, also Toussaint Bréda, Toussaint-L'Ouverture ( May 20, 1743 – April 7, 1803) was the leader of the Haitian Revolution. Born in Saint-Domingue, Toussaint led enslaved blacks in a long struggle for independence over French colonizers, abolished slavery, and secured "native" control over the colony, Haiti. In 1797 while nominally governor of the colony, he expelled the French commissioner Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, as well as the British armies; invaded Santo Domingo to free the slaves there; and wrote a Constitution naming himself governor-for-life that established a new polity for the colony. Especially between the years 1800 and 1802, Toussaint Louverture tried to rebuild the collapsed economy of Haiti and reestablish commercial contacts with the United States and Britain. His rule permitted the colony a taste of freedom which, after his death in exile, was gradually destroyed during the successive reigns of a series of despots. Translated from French "Tous Saints L'Ouverture", his name means "all saints" or "all souls opening". His last words were to his son in France, "My boy, you will one day go back to St. Domingo; forget that France murdered your father."