Toussaint-Louverture AP Essay

The speech delivered in 1861 from Wendell Phillips, an abolitionist, on the Haitian
general Toussaint-Louverture. Louverture was a former slave who led the struggles to free
enslaved Haitians. Wendell, an abolitionist, admired Louverture for that matter. The speaker,
Phillips does a fantastic job on connecting his audience while praising Louverture during his
speech, as if the audience was there to experience these events alongside Louverture.
Phillips really praises Louverture through his word choice and phrases when describing
who Louverture was and what he had accomplished. Phrases such as, Forged a thunderbolt and
hurled it at what? At the proudest blood in Europe, Instead of just saying, put up a fight against
the Europeans. Phillips creates ideas for the audience to fathom of Louverture and his
accomplishments through using words such as warlike, pluckiest, and skulked. The
imagery created through these words sets the tone for the speech when Phillips speaks to the
audience.
Another strategy Phillips uses when describing how great and underrated Louverture
really was are the comparisons. Louverture is compared to notoriously famous historic
individuals, George Washington and Oliver Cromwell. Comparing Louverture to these figures
creates a sense among the audience that Louverture was an important figure in history, even if
they had never heard of him before. Phillips makes Louverture seem greater than he actually was
just by using these two individuals as comparisons, but in doing so the audience will believe the
Louverture was highly underrated and should be recognized as much as someone like George
Washington is in our society today. Louverture is conveyed to be superior to Washington and
Cromwell with these comparisons. I would call him Cromwell, but Cromwell was only a

soldier, and, I would call him Washington, but the great Virginian held slaves. When
describing who Louverture was as a person.
Phillips did a wonderful job when moving his his audience throughout his speech, and an
even better job of praising who Louverture was and what he had accomplished. The audience
will walk out after hearing this speech having a better understanding, and admiration of
Louverture, not quite as much as Phillips, but more than they had prior to hearing this well
spoken speech.