p 61 ”[Toussaint} knew that the Negroes were oppressed not becase they were Negroes, but because they were weak. Epictetus and millions of other white men had been slaves. The chieftains who sold war prisoners and even their own subjects into slavery were of the same race as their victims. White planters were often cruel, but mulatto planters were said to be even worse.”

This quote is exactly what I’ve been looking for. For too long we have confused slavery as being a cruelty that only white people do to only black people. Slavery is a human embarrassment. It has nothing to do with race.

I’ve been thinking about presenting the Toussaint story much in the manner of a Shakespearean play that has been updated. What if his story could be told in today’s terms, placing him in today’s context, so that readers could relate to how respected he was and how important he was to his time? Do I have Clue One about how to pull this off? No really, but I really like the idea. Dispensing with the race issue might jar people’s understanding just enough to relate.

“Patience bat la force” = Patience overcomes strength.
“Doucement alle’ loin” = Gentleness goes far.

It’s cold and rainy in Seattle today. The wind was whipping around this morning, rippling Puget Sound like a leaf blower on a puddle. I could see the snow-capped Olympics in the distance. Gosh, it’s beautiful here.

I spent the day with a couple of my current hobbies – IMAP, Blogging, and avoiding work. Still, I managed to get a fair amount done with my grandfather’s files. I have set aside everything related to his actual writing or to marketing of the book. That leaves his research-related files accessible to me. In the not-too-distant future, I’ll take another pass at these, weeding out duplications, re-filing, and mining for research gems. At this point, though, I can focus on finishing Korngold and digging in to some other books so I can get my balance with this Toussaint character.

I’ve been thinking about this blog, too. In trying to explain the reasons behind it to my girlfriend, it became clear to me that I want it to do the following for me:

(1) I want a place to track my progress and let others follow along with the project as well. I’m hoping that this might then impose some outside accountability to keep me on task.
(2) I want a big searchable database of my research and thoughts related to this project.
(3) I want a place to capture other thoughts and musings, and, essentially, to practice writing.

It has occurred to me that anyone just stumbling across this blog might be a bit at sea as to what I’m talking about, so I should plan on writing up a background on the Toussaint project as well as who I am and what I’m all about.

I’m not sure what I want this site to be. I want it to track my progress with Toussaint research, yet I can see it’s useful to capture other thoughts and ideas about my day as well. Question is, am I willing to share that with the world? I’m completely ignorant of what that might mean.

I spent a couple hours sorting through the rest of the cards that I found in one of the boxes my mom sent me from my grandfather’s house. I sent a lot of stuff to my brother, ditched a bunch, and I still have a small boxful.

It was quite the nostalgic adventure to sift through the cards. Most of them were from between 1967 (my birth year) and 1973. Some of the highlights:

> A sheaf of note papers on which my Grandma had written a journal of my week-long visit in Washington DC.
> A bedtime story my dad wrote for me on hotel notepaper.
> Birth announcements for my brother and me. Also congratulatory notes and cards.
> Lots of subtle humor from my Grandpa. I know he just laughed to himself when he wrote to me about the “tit-mouse” he saw in the backyard.
> Postcards from my mom and dad’s trip around the US & Mexico.

For all my desire to lighten my load and throw stuff away, I sure loved having the chance to look through these again.

I’m reading Ralph Korngold’s Citizen Toussaint today. Uncle Jay says this book, published in 1944 seems to be the definitive book of Toussaint. The author certainly has good credentials and a chunky bibliography. Korngold was a French professor at one point and therefore was able to translate the French documents of the period.

On page 14, Korngold paints the picture of Le Cap as a bustling, transient village, with white men itching for the day they could leave and return to France. One wonders, if this is so, whether white planter’s hearts would be in revolution, or whether they were only interested in protecting their investments.

From page 15, ”...a free Negro would not have attempted to own a mulatto slave, who would have preferred death to such a humiliation.” I wonder if this dynamic came into play with Toussaint. What were the racial tensions he had to deal with, besides the obvious black/whte ones?