Grace and Tolerance in History is Dr. Roy’s eighth lecture for the Museum of the Future’s Lessons from the Past (2025). This collaboration between the Museum of the Future and Dr. Roy aims to explore 10 topics ranging from the life of the father of modern medicine to examples of great leadership to the birth of the Most Serene Republic of Venice.
Discover what true leadership under impossible circumstances looks like — from mercy amid revolution to the making of the world’s first Black republic.
🌍 Learn more: https://museumofthefuture.ae
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Dr. Roy Casagranda examines the extraordinary life and leadership of Toussaint Louverture during the Haitian Revolution — a story of vision, mercy, and betrayal. From the arrival of Columbus and the genocide of the Taino to the rise of Louverture and the fall of Napoleon’s colonial ambitions, this lecture reveals how Haiti became the first free Black republic in the modern world. Exploring themes of power, forgiveness, race, and empire, Dr. Casagranda exposes the moral and political lessons that still define the struggle for justice and freedom today.
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🔉 Dr. Roy Casagranda Podcast 🔉
Podcast Spotify ▶ https://open.spotify.com/show/6aebF9BEErbbiTLEHEyV6z
Apple Podcast ▶ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dr-roy-casagranda-podcast/id1837193563
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00:00:00 Great Leadership Under Terrible Circumstances
00:03:13 Columbus Arrives and the Destruction of the Taino
00:07:21 Slavery Transforms the Island Economy
00:09:49 The Racial and Social Hierarchy of Saint-Domingue
00:18:29 The French Revolution Sparks Global Change
00:23:15 Early Mixed-Race Rebellions and Rising Tensions
00:24:47 The Rise of Toussaint Louverture
00:27:55 Acts of Mercy in a Time of Vengeance
00:33:01 Switching Sides: Toussaint Joins the French
00:36:30 The British Invasion and Toussaint’s Strategy
00:40:55 Building a New Post-Slavery Economy
00:43:46 Radical Politics and the French Reaction
00:47:15 Napoleon’s Ambition and Return to Empire
00:51:00 Civil War and Toussaint’s Consolidation of Power
00:53:35 The 1801 Constitution and Toussaint’s Rule
00:57:00 Napoleon’s Invasion and the Great Betrayal
01:05:26 The Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot
01:16:08 Haiti’s Independence and Toussaint’s Legacy
#ToussaintLouverture #HaitianRevolution #WorldHistory #Leadership
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No, I do NOT buy the "white supremacy" sidebar around minute twelve; he jumps from "we all have some racist in us (also an enormous and generalized assumption) to "it's built into us to see white supremacy everywhere" and then "aspire to whiteness." No. Such colossal generalizations need to be VERY specific.What do they even mean? "Built into us to see white supremacy"? I flat-out don't get it. Sounds like talking points to make himself feel better about race. I enjoy his grip of human history, but no, his opinions and hysteria and generalizations over race are better off omitted.
Honestly the story of Haiti is one of the most interesting yet tragic pieces of history.
Disappointed in this white washed interpretation of Haitian history. I love Dr Roy but it’s clear his knowledge on this subject is limited.
Dessalines was the inevitable reaction to what was done to the people. His crimes are often overblown and he has been painted as more of a criminal than his much more blatantly EVIL European counterparts. White people were not killed indiscriminately and to pretend like the French white settlers were going to ever accept the revolution is silly. And to call what Dessalines did a genocide when no mention of the uniquely intense brutality of French slavery and the 10s of thousands of lives (maybe more) that were lost in the 200 years they there. You say Toussaints vision was a missed opportunity but for who? In a world where all the powers around you are evil and view you as an aberration and view black people as a whole as some type of domesticated monkey, I’m not sure Toussaints vision would have resulted in a true revolution against the system.
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Love the intellectuals in the comments bringing up the UAE, having benefactors and patrons may have its drawbacks. Yet, who is paying nowadays for Unbiased historical conversations from learned academics? Not many. Not trying to justify the call out to the governance of that nation. Just history, especially real history is not told or funded. History is shaped by a eurocentric viewpoint, which can propogate white supremacy. Like I said, people aint paying for real history.
Ugh blood money from UAE.
I just cannot get enough of this guy.
Dr. Roy: with a low ratio of Spanish to indigenous people, and if as you claim, they committed genocide…..why did the build so many colleges and universities that allowed indigenous, mestizo and Europeans in the 60 universties before any other Europeans built even one? Harvard was not founded until 1630 – no women, indigenous, mixed blood and certainly no Africans were allowed. If the plan was to kill as many indigenous as possible, why did the they establish hospitals…..Santo Domingo (1502), Puerto Rico (1523 – still standing)? Before the end of the first century of Spanish presence in Mexico City, there were 40 hospitals. If the Spanish goal was to kill indigenous people, why were the first three books printed in the new world dictionaries of Nahuatl, Maya & Quechua. If killing indigenous people was their plan, why did Queen Isabel la Católica decree that Spaniards who marry indigenous, and indigenous should ,marry Spanish? Why didn’t the ensuing Spanish monarchs not declare her decree null and void? Fast-forward to 1802, why did king Carlos III become the world’s first monarch initiates a global vaccination drive, beginning in Puerto Rico then spanning the globe until it successfully covered all Spanish subjects; Euro, Mestizo, Indigenous , mulato? Dr. Roy; have you read Alexander von Humbolt’s comparison’s of salaries, food access, in Mexico versus Eastern Europe?
Tell the indians , Bengalis and so on that works there how they are kind and graceful