The Surrender of Toussaint Louverture to General Leclerc

Even as racist logic supported the subjugation of enslaved Africans and Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas, there were acts of resistance such as the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804). Although d’Angers’s bronze relief depicts a moment of capitulation, when the formerly enslaved Toussaint Louverture (1743–1803), commander of the Haitian revolutionary army, surrendered to authorities sent by Napoleon to regain French control in the colony of Saint-Domingue, the uprising ultimately succeeded. Slavery was abolished in Haiti, which became the first independent nation in Latin America, and the first post-colonial, independent, Black-led nation in the world. Centuries later, the contemporary wampum belt Mathakawenanak Scheyichbink (We Fight Them in New Jersey), installed nearby, advocates for recognition by state authorities of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation. Native to this region, the group achieved recognition in 2018, affirming the benefits and rights afforded by formal acknowledgement.