Bell opens at Camp Turel on 29 August 1793, where a man until then known as Toussaint Breda issued a short proclamation announcing his new surname and calling for liberty and equality while holding a commission in the Spanish army. The date is the point: Sonthonax abolished slavery in the North that same day, and Toussaint was placing himself at the head of the newly freed as the author of their liberty. Louverture, the opening, carries a Vodou charge, since Legba keeps the gates and crossroads, and the crossroads becomes the book's governing image for a man who worked several sides at once. Bell is direct about the awkward facts, that Toussaint had been free since the mid-1770s and had held slaves. The narrative runs through the campaigns to the Fort de Joux, and a closing essay on portraits and reputation shows how partisan the record has been since Wendell Phillips.