The Response Sentimentale refers to a specific letter written by Toussaint Louverture.
Here is a fuller explanation:
This is a letter written by Toussaint Louverture on August 27, 1793. It was addressed to Antoine Chanlatte, described as a colonel in the French republican army. This letter was a non-public communication.
It is significant because it contains the first confirmed sample of Toussaint using the name “Louverture” in a non-public communication. According to Madison Smartt Bell’s Toussaint biography, Toussaint signed this letter as “Louverture” and would “never answer to ‘Toussaint a Breda’ again” after this point.
The language used in the conclusion of this letter was a “rehearsal” for the proclamation Toussaint issued from Camp Turel two days later, on August 29, 1793.
The content of the letter to Chanlatte was polemical. Toussaint accused Chanlatte and his actions of not fighting for the rights of man, but rather for their own interests and “treacherous Criminal projects”.
In contrast, Toussaint asserted that among his own group (presumably the rebels), “the true rights of man and justice Reign!”. He claimed they received everyone, including “most Cruel enemies,” with humanity and brotherhood, pardoning them and gently coaxing them away from their errors.
Writing this letter and the subsequent Camp Turel proclamation occurred at a juncture where Toussaint unambiguously emerged as one of the rebel leaders and had become “completely, fervently committed to liberty for all the blacks of Saint Domingue”. His letter to Chanlatte was described as part of several letters he wrote in August 1793 to “introduce himself to the world”.
