Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses a late-nineteenth century Japanese translation of the biography of the Haitian revolutionary hero Toussaint Louverture, exploring why the work was such a potent salvo against the predominant racial discourse in Meiji Japan.

Paper long abstract:

The Haitian revolutionary hero Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803) was introduced to a Japanese reading public in 1890 through the pages of the juvenile magazine Shōnen’en (Youth’s Garden). Louverture, whose army defeated those of the French, British and Spanish to secure liberation of the enslaved people of Haiti and the country’s independence, was the subject of a biography entitled ‘A Black Hero’ (kuro-ijin). The Japanese version of the biography was published with the intention of challenging racial hierarchies posited by the new human sciences introduced to Japan in the late-nineteenth century Though focused ‘a black hero’, the implications for Japanese readers was clear: they too could transcend this contrived pecking order.

This Japanese translation was but one step in the transnational journey of Louverture’s biography, which saw transformations at every stage. The source of the Japanese translation was "Toussaint Louverture, The Negro Patriot of Hayti" by Rev. John R. Beard. This US publication was a heavily edited version of an earlier British publication, which was itself based on sources “found chiefly in the French language.” Like previous versions, the Japanese text was heavily revised: not only was it considerably abridged as it moved from book to magazine format, but it was also reshaped to appeal to Shōnen’en’s juvenile audience. The American version, published to argue for the abolition of slavery in the United States, was revised to promote aspiration among Japanese youth.

This paper will explore the biography’s position in the Japanese context, first by examining the racial discourse circulating in Japan in the late-nineteenth century. The translator of Louverture’s biography, Yamagata Teisaburō, was himself embedded in this discourse having previously translated works by the evolutionary theorists Ernst Haeckel and Charles Darwin. This paper will then discuss the factors that made Louverture’s biography such a potent salvo against the predominant Meiji-era racial discourse. Finally, by exploring how Louverture’s story was reshaped for its new readership, the paper will question whether this translation contributed to what the historian Michel-Rolph Trouillot has described as the global silencing of the Haitian revolution.