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In overthrowing me, you have cut down in Saint-Domingue only the trunk of the tree of liberty. It will spring up again by the roots, for they are numerous and deep.

Even with their leader captured and deported, the revolution for freedom would continue, because its roots ran throughout the enslaved population.

Toussaint Louverture, Haiti

Source: Attributed to Toussaint Louverture upon his 1802 arrest and deportation to France; widely cited in Haitian Revolution historiography including C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins (1938)

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