Recall Louverture’s speech to his soldiers: “Do not disappoint me . . . do not permit the desire for booty to turn you aside . . . it will be time enough to think of material things when we have driven the enemy from our shores.” Consider how strange this statement must have seemed. Louverture’s highest goal, like Uber’s, was winning. If he didn’t win the war, slavery would not be abolished. Nothing could be more important than this, could it? If it made his soldiers happy to pillage, why disallow it?
