Enter My Classroom

      When I was teaching elementary and junior high school students; I sometimes felt as if that I had to apologize to talk about Haitian achievements. In these days of instant gratification, it is as if the Haitian youth is saying, “If Haiti were that great then we should have been far better off now”. Even adults sometimes feel aggravated to even talk about the idea of a Haitian solution. For many if not most of us, our Haitian problem is incurable, and hopeless. I would admonish anyone with such an attitude to dispel it right away. As free thinkers, the question should be “what can I do to solve my part of the Haitian puzzle-problem? If each of us thinks and acts positively, we would be halfway to our solution.

     One of the most beautiful and heroic of the stories that I love to tell is the story of the one and only successful slave revolt in the annals of world history. In 1510, the first Africans were forced to enter Hispaniola to work in the ‘New World.’  As slavery grew older, it had gotten more vicious and more inhumane. The next three hundred (300) years would mark the zenith of human exploitation by his fellow man. Three hundred years of forced labor, of wailing, and misery.

     As a persecuted African Sudanese woman told the rescue mission group NAPS, of which I am a member: “if God is God He will listen to the cries of a child, the cries of a woman, the cries of a gentleman and the cries of an elderly.” God surely is a father and a gentle-God to us all. As He had sent Moses to the Israelites in Egypt, He planned our “Moses” in the tormented soils of the Western Hell-in-the-sphere (hemisphere).

Toussaint Louverture--The Prince of the New World

       God sent us a man. Not just any man, but a black man, a servant of the slaves. In the 1780’s Raynal had predicted that the avenger of our race would surely appear, that “great man, the Negro chief who will lift up the sacred standard of liberty.” From 1791 through 1798, this character was in the making. With only a handful of uneducated slaves, he defeated Europe’s best veteran troops in St-Domingue. In Bible prophecy, 1798 marked the beginning of the time of the End, the time when the Gospel of the kingdom of God was to be preached unto the entire world.

     Haiti fulfilled a major role in Bible prophecy. Matthew 24:14, Daniel 7, 12:4, Revelation 13: 1-7 predicted 1798 as the year that would begin the Time of the End or the Last Days. 1798 began the preaching of the Gospel of God’s kingdom to the entire world. (See chapter 9 for more explanation of this prophecy)

     Raynal, who prophesied the coming of the Haitian type, Toussaint, also predicted that the time of this conqueror’s ascendance would mark the collision of the two worlds- the Old and the New. “Where is this great man,” cried Raynal, “whom nature owes to her afflicted, oppressed, and tormented children? Where is he? He will undoubtedly appear…he will show himself, he will lift up the standard of liberty…the plains of America will suck up with transport the blood which they have so long expected, and the bones of so many wretches, heaped upon one another, during the course of so many centuries, will bound for joy. The Old World will join its plaudits to those of the New.”

     That year was very important for Black slaves since they were to be reached by the gospel of Christ. 1798 was the year that the Haitian prophetic figure set all the captives free. He opened the eyes of the blind and established the first Free State in the New World. He proclaimed the Jubilee year of the Lord. That God-made man, my friend, as you may already know, was Toussaint Louverture of Haiti. Far above his accomplishments, his character made him who he was. For these traits, his friends, as well as his enemies, praised him.

     1798 marked the apex of all preceding world powers. The Haitian and the French Revolutions mixed with 1798 began our modern era. Dr. Delbert W. Baker, president of Oakwood College, attests to the fact that the preaching of the gospel to Blacks in general marked the beginning of the preaching of the gospel to the entire world.[i]

     The community of slaves in Saint-Domingue, of which Toussaint was a leader, made all this possible. As long as slavery was alive, the gospel of peace could neither reach us Haitians, nor the world. But God, in His amazing grace, used the slaves to teach the world that slavery was a poisonous disease that corrupted both its victims and its perpetrators. God used our forefathers to open the railroad of the Gospel train to the entire world. This is the mission that Haiti has lost and needs to regain.

     True Christian service involves removing the obstacles that keeps a person from having ears to hear and eyes to see.[ii] He prepared the way of the gospel. He opened the ears and the eyes of the victims so they could be receptive to God’s End Time message. Toussaint humbled himself and suffered to emancipate most of the New World humanity from the yoke of slavery.

     The philosopher, Amiel Frederick-Henry once realized, “Doing easily what others find difficult is talent, doing what is impossible for talent is genius.” Considering the conditions under which Toussaint ascended to leadership, I add, “Doing what neither talent nor genius could accomplish—this, I call Toussaint Louverture of Haïti, ‘A manifestation of Divine Inspiration.’” One can boldly say that Toussaint was the Prince of the New World.

     This is provided for you as a dose of mental synergy. It is encouraging to know that the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel to the entire world (Mat. 24: 14) was made possible mainly by the little community of slaves in Saint-Domingue. The slaves transformed Saint-Domingue into Haiti. This is something of a “humble pride”. If someone asks, “Did or Can anything good come out of Haiti? The answer has always been a definitive and absolute YES. The slavish notion that we were freed prematurely is far from being true. Freedom is man’s natural birthright and his best friend. We can never regain it too early. It was not supposed to be lost in the first place. What we do to secure freedom after it is conquered is another thing. We will discuss that in succeeding chapters. We now have an Exodus story to tell. These great moving stories distilled in the minds of the youth and even elders would exert a great influence toward Haitian achievement. Toussaint is my most inspiring historical characters.