meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Dan Snow's History Hit

Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.713.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 October 2020

⏱️ 22 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sudhir Hazareesingh joined me to discuss the life of Toussaint Louverture, a revolutionary leader who confronted the forces of slavery, settler colonialism, imperialism and racial hierarchy. The Haitian Revolution began in the French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue with a slave revolt in August 1791, and culminated a dozen years later in the proclamation of the world's first independent black state.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hi everybody, welcome downstairs history. I'm in a very exciting place at the moment. You can study,

0:03.8

you can read, you can watch, you can listen to history for years and years and years and sometimes

0:09.9

a little juicy story or detail comes through and hits you right square in the chops. You had no

0:15.0

idea this story existed and it's just a huge privilege when it does happen. I had that experience. I'm

0:20.7

on the windswept little island of Lundy off the North Devon coast and I was looking around the

0:26.9

castle and I learned to my amazement was built by Henry III to bring the island under control. It

0:32.1

had been a nest of pirates. Maurisco was a bit of a wrong and he became a pirate. He tried to

0:37.6

assassinate the king with a secret assassination squad. The king then seized Lundy, sent his man

0:43.9

up a cliffs in the depths of winter, captured Maurisco, had him killed, caughted, naturally for treason,

0:50.8

and then built his own castle on this rock. So he's not cool. I can believe my eyes when I was reading

0:55.0

this. Anyway, this podcast got nothing to do with that. This podcast is about another fantastic

0:59.3

fascinating moment in our history. The Haitian Revolution, you've heard about it on the podcast before,

1:03.9

but this time we got Sudear Hazari Singh on the podcast. An absolute legend. He's at Baylor College,

1:09.5

Oxford and he has written a new book called Black Spartacus, the epic life of Tucson,

1:15.2

Leverchoir. If you haven't heard of Tucson, Leverchoir, you are in for a massive treat. Once

1:21.0

he was born into slavery on the Isle of Orwell, what is now in Haiti, but he rose to lead a successful

1:28.0

revolt of the formerly enslaved people in that colony. An absolute extraordinary story with

1:33.2

enormous repercussions right around the world. If you enjoy stories like this, please go and check out

1:37.2

History Hit TV. It's a digital history channel. It is like Netflix for history. You can go there and

1:42.0

if you use the code pod1, POD1, you get a month of free and your second month is one pound euro or

1:46.9

so sweet. Head over there and do it in the meantime everybody. Here is Sudear Hazari Singh Enjoy.

2:00.2

Sudear, thank you very much for coming on the podcast.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.