Published the year after his death, this brief biography of the noted hairdresser and philanthropist, Pierre Toussaint (1766-1853), relates a very different experience of slavery compared to most in the slave narratives printed at the end of the Antebellum years.
Born into slavery on the Bérard Plantation in Saint-Domingue, Toussaint was brought to New York in 1787 by the Bérard family. After the death of the plantation’s heir, he “was left the task of supporting the Widow Berard, who was frail in body and mind, and his other relatives. As a hairdresser, he became the confidant and adviser of the many great ladies whose houses he visited to style their hair. He also became a one-man charity agency. Collecting money for charity, nursing the victims of the Yellow Fever epidemic, giving shelter and training to homeless Black youths, buying the freedom of his sister and his future wife, and only receiving his own freedom from his mistress on her deathbed in 1807, Pierre Toussaint’s self-effacing and laborious life was filled with works of piety and Christian service” (Davis).
Furthermore, with the proceeds from his hairdressing business, and the help of Elizabeth Seton, he established one of the first orphanages in New York City. He is the only layman buried in the crypt at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue.
LCP Americana, 5752; Sabin, 39737; Davis, C., “Black Catholics in Nineteenth Century America” in U.S. Catholic Historian, Vol.5, No.1 (1986) p.7.