A documentary reader in the Great Lives Observed series, built around the complaint that Toussaint Louverture has been made to serve everyone's purposes and is understood by almost nobody. Tyson's introduction sets out the colonial background, the mercantile Exclusive that indebted the planters, and a caste order divided by origin and colour, then assembles three layers of material: Toussaint's own proclamations, letters and prison memoir; reactions from French, English, American, Haitian and Romantic contemporaries; and later verdicts from abolitionists, Black American writers, Henry Adams, Aimé Césaire, François Duvalier with Lorimer Denis, and C. L. R. James. Placing them side by side is meant to show each generation judging Toussaint by its own commitments, from bloodthirsty brigand to father of the nation. Tyson holds that committed writing grounded in archival research can illuminate, and asks readers to see a former slave choosing within narrow limits.