Born a slave on Saint-Domingue, Toussaint Louverture obtained his freedom, took up planting on a modest scale, and bought slaves of his own. Girard makes that contradiction central rather than incidental.

The book follows Louverture from freedman to revolutionary leader, crediting him with planning the slave revolt of 1791, and on to 1801, when he governed the colony in which he had once been property. What he wanted throughout, acceptance as a member of the colonial elite, he never received; he died after a year in a French prison cell. His example nevertheless fed movements for Black nationalism and against colonial rule far into the twentieth century.

Girard draws on extensive research in primary sources, conducted in archives in many countries and in several languages, and the publisher presents the result as the definitive life of Louverture.