Memoir of General Toussaint L'Ouverture, Written by Himself (1802)

Toussaint Louverture's only extended autobiographical text, written in his prison cell at Fort de Joux during the winter of 1802, months before his death in April 1803 — simultaneously a military history, a legal defense, and a personal appeal to Bonaparte covering events from the arrival of the Leclerc expedition through his treacherous arrest. The memoir is the single richest primary source for understanding Toussaint's self-perception, political reasoning, and the narrative he constructed for posterity.