To Live and Die, Free and French Toussaint Louverture’s 1801 Constitution and the Original Challenge of Black Citizenship Lorelle D. Semley P erhaps it was prophetic that Governor-General Toussaint Louverture announced the program celebrating his 1801 Constitution on the fourth of July, even though the document was not, officially, a declaration of independence from France. 1 The festive yet solemn ceremonies that began at three in the morning three days later featured music, cannon fire, parades, speeches, a Catholic Mass and a dinner for several hundred officials and guests. In an exuberant toast at the end of the day, Louverture appealed to “the eternal bonds of friendship and fraternity between the people of France and the people of Saint-Domingue.” 2 But to issue such a constitu- tion without consulting Napoleon Bonaparte’s government in France directly chal- lenged French colonial rule. More audacious was Louverture’s unconditional ban on slavery and his self-appointment as governor for life. In his own address during the ceremonies, Louverture also extolled good habits, virtue, Catholic religion, and hard work, capturing all the racialized and gendered conceptualizations at the origins of debates over black citizenship in the Atlantic World. 3 Louverture’s Constitution claimed French citizenship for all women and men of Saint-Domingue, with its third article declaring, “Slaves cannot exist in this territory and servitude is forever abolished. Here, all men are born, live, and die, free and French.” 4 Because of its style and form, scholars have viewed Louverture’s Constitution as a rephrasing of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Radical History Review Issue 115 (Winter 2013) DOI 10.1215/01636545-1724724 © 2013 by MARHO: The Radical Historians’ Organization, Inc. 65 Radical History Review Published by Duke University Press