How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
When you have been free, and then have been stolen and carried away to another country, you understand that things can change places. When you have always been master, this insight is closed to you. (4.82)
For Toussaint, slavery is a circumstance, not an identity. He doesn't listen to what the masters say about slaves being animals and won't let himself get too comfortable after he's free either. He shows us that being a slave doesn't have to define who he is or what he does.
Quote #2
Nine hundred million francs, he thought. That's what our lives cost. That's the reward for which the brave Republic of France, the champion of liberty, throws away our freedom. (6.34)
That's a lot of money. We would never condone slavery—ever—but we can see why the French are so stuck on keeping their slaves. After all, they are worth a lot of money. Toussaint realizes it, too. At first he thought their crops were the main pull, but he quickly figures out that people are a richer commodity on the market.
Quote #3
Toussaint frowned. This was perhaps the first true intimation he had received that slavery might be wrong. He had never thought about it too much before, but now he wondered how it could be right for a man to sell a woman's baby. (6.44)
When a new mom comes to his dad (the local doc) for help since her master wants to dump her baby, Toussaint realizes that slavery doesn't seem right. He starts thinking about how unfair it is to this woman and to others. This is just the first in several instances where he sees the injustices of slavery.
Quote #4
Yes, there were slave owners who were relatively kind and gentle—Bayou was one of them—but animals were disposable for good men and bad alike. […] This. This was the truth that Toussaint suddenly saw: that an evil idea makes bad men of everyone who believes in it. (6.96)
You could say Toussaint is lucky that his master was a kind man. Based on some of the other horror stories, Bayou seems like a godsend. But not to Toussaint. He doesn't care who the guy is—if he owns slave, he's not a good man. He tells us that slavery corrupts everybody.
Quote #5
He would destroy the idea of masters for good, and there would be no more slaves. One could call a master a good master because he did not whip his slaves, but ultimately he was still an owner of men, and men were not made to be owned. (6.111)
Once Toussaint gets that slavery is the problem, not individual men, things change for him. He signs up for the revolution and never looks back. His judgment might seem severe to us since his master was always good to him (by his own omission), but Toussaint knows that you can't make laws based on the goodness of one man. The system itself has to be changed from the ground up.
Quote #6
That book will open your mind, tell you how the Haitians rose up to throw off the yoke of oppression, man. These people who want to remove Aristide, they want to make us slaves again. Truth. Read that book, maybe you can help fight them better. (7.39)
Shorty might not be a slave in the same way that Toussaint is, where someone owned him, but his life sure operates in similar ways. Let's see how he rates on our slavery chart. Controlled by an oppressive system? Check. Unable to escape? Check. Left without options because of the evilness of the system? Check. Yep, we think it's safe to say that he's enslaved, too.
Quote #7
This was it. This was hope, this was the future, this was the freedom of the Haitian republic. This was everything. (16.1)
Toussaint risks his own life for the republic so we can see why he describes it as "everything." We'd also like to point out that he's invested in a democracy so every single man gets a voice. Instituting a monarchy would just create more problems because not everyone would be represented equally, and that's exactly what he's fighting for.
Quote #8
They'd have made me a king had I not resisted. I gave them freedom, I gave them peace, and they would have made me a dictator in return. Your emperor should thank me for my forbearance and strength of character in my insistence on democracy and my desire to maintain links of trade and amity with France. (22.18)
He tells us that he rebelled against slavery, not France. To Napoleon, there isn't much of a difference. It's a tough truth, but France wants slavery at this point (as do a lot of other nations), so they might as well be equated with one another.
Quote #9
If that were true, thought Toussaint, then he truly had accomplished nothing, for his descendant was also trapped in darkness, was also dying, his flesh was also slowly enervated by deprivation. He had staked his life to give his people freedom, but his people still were not free. (22.61)
We know better than that. Toussaint does accomplish something, and it's a lot bigger than just himself: He gets freedom for his people. Sure, this freedom is fought over and denied again and again in the coming years, but he is still a part of achieving it.
Quote #10
We are a slave. We are a slave to this space, to the inevitable decay of trapped things. We can feed ourselves, but there is no food; we can work with our hands and with our minds, but there is nothing on which to work. (23.8)
This comes to us from Shorty, even though he isn't actually a slave. Notice his use of the word "we" throughout the passage. He highlights how he has been caged up, all while being free. In some ways, this is what all people in Haiti have in common in the book. They are trapped in a society that doesn't offer ways out of the system.