All Souls' Rising (63 page)

In the aftermath, Sonthonax deports the Regiment Le Cap en masse and rules the town with mulatto troops. He sets up a revolutionary tribunal and redoubles his deportations.

Laveaux and the Chevalier D’Assas mount an attack on the rebel slaves at Grande Rivière. By this time, Toussaint has his own body of troops under his direct command, and has been using the skills of white prisoners and deserters to train them. He also has gathered some of the black officers who will be significant later in the slave revolution, including Dessalines, Moise, and Charles Belair.

Toussaint fights battles with Laveaux’s forces at Morne Pélé and La Tannerie, covering the retreat of the larger black force under Biassou and Jean-François, then retreats into the Cibao mountains himself.

December 8:
Sonthonax writes to the French Convention of the necessity of ameliorating the lot of the slaves in some way—as a logical consequence of the law of April 4.

1793

January 21:
Louis XVI is executed in France.

February:
France goes to war against England and Spain.

Toussaint, Biassou and Jean-François formally join the Spanish forces at San Raphael. At this point Toussaint has six hundred men under his own control and reports directly to the Spanish general. He embarks on an invasion of French territory.

March 8:
News of the king’s execution reaches Le Cap. In the absence of Sonthonax, who’s traveling to the western department, Laveaux must hold the city under martial law.

March 18:
News of the war with England reaches Le Cap, further destabilizing the situation there.

April:
Blanchelande is executed in France by guillotine.

May:
Early in the month, minor skirmishes begin along the Spanish border, as Toussaint, Jean-François and Biassou begin advancing into French territory.

May 7:
Galbaud arrives at Le Cap as the new governor-general, dispatched by the French National Convention which sees that war with England and Spain endangers the colony, and wants a strong military commander in place. Galbaud is supposed to obey the Commission in all political matters but to have absolute authority over the troops (the same intructions given Desparbés). Because Galbaud’s wife is a Creole, and he owns property in Saint Domingue, many colonists hope for support from him.

May 29:
Sonthonax and Polverel, after unsatisfactory correspondence with Galbaud, write to announce their return to Le Cap.

June 10:
The commissioners reach Le Cap with the remains of the mulatto army used in operations around Port-au-Prince. Sonthonax declares Galbaud’s credentials invalid and puts him on shipboard for return to France. Sonthonax begins to pack the harbor for another deportation, more massive than ever before. Conflicts develop between Sonthonax’s mulatto troops and the white civilians and three thousand-odd sailors in Le Cap.

June 19:
The sailors, drafting Galbaud to lead them, organize for an assault on the town.

June 20:
Galbaud lands with two thousand sailors. The regular troops of the garrison go over to him immediately, but the National Guards and the mulatto troops fight for Sonthonax and the Commission. A general riot breaks out, with the
petit blancs
of the town fighting for Galbaud and the mulattoes and the town blacks fighting for the Commission.

June 21:
By dawn, the Galbaud faction has driven the commissioners to the fortified lines at the entrance to the plain. But during the night, Sonthonax deals with the rebels on the plain, led by the blacks Pierrot and Macaya, offering them liberty and pillage in exchange for their support. During the next day the rebels sack the town and drive Galbaud’s forces back to the harbor forts by nightfall. The rebels burn the city.

Sonthonax’s proclamation for the day states that “all slaves declared free by the Republic shall be the equals of all men, white or any other color. They shall enjoy all the rights of French citizens.”

June 22:
Fifteen thousand more rebel slaves enter Le Cap from the plain. Galbaud empties the harbor and sails for the United States (Chesapeake Bay) with ten thousand refugees in his fleet.

That night, General Lasalle arrives from the west with a force of mulatto dragoons, but Sonthonax, keeping his promise to let the rebels from the plain plunder the town, refuses his request to intervene. Not until the evening of June 24 is Lasalle allowed to enter with a small force.

In the aftermath of the burning of Le Cap, a great many French regular army officers desert to the Spanish. Toussaint recruits from these, and uses them as officers to train his bands.

August 29:
Sonthonax proclaims emancipation of all the slaves of the north.

This same day, Toussaint issues a proclamation of his own, assuming for the first time the name “Louverture.”

September 19:
The British invasion begins. The English land nine hundred soldiers at Jérémie.

December:
Toussaint, still fighting for the Spanish, occupies central Haiti after a series of victories.

1794

February 4:
The French National Convention abolishes slavery.

In Saint Domingue, news of these events causes more and more mulat-toes to fall off from the Republic, so that Sonthonax and the commissioners, in Port-au-Prince, are forced into increasing reliance on black support.

By the spring of 1794, Toussaint has about four thousand troops under his command, the best-armed and disciplined black corps of the Spanish army.

May 6:
Toussaint changes sides to join the French Republican force with his four thousand black soldiers, first massacring the white Spanish troops under his command. The disorganized Spanish soon withdraw from the territory in the north they’d occupied. Toussaint routs the other black leaders.

May 30:
The English strike against Port-au-Prince. After their victory, the English ranks are decimated by an outbreak of yellow fever.

June 12:
Sonthonax and Polverel are arrested by order of the French National Convention and shipped back to France.

By the end of the year, Toussaint has swept the Spanish out of the north and has driven the English back from the Cordon of the West, and a mulatto army under the command of the mulatto leader Rigaud has captured Leogane. Toussaint’s army is still growing.

1795

This year, Toussaint completely expels the Spanish from the French part of the island. The Spanish are already negotiating a peace with the French Republic.

September:
News of the Peace of Basel reaches Saint Domingue. By this treaty, Spain cedes its part of Saint Domingue to the French, but deferring transfer “till the Republic should be in a position to defend its new territory from attack.”

After the conclusion of this treaty, Jean-François retires to Spain. Most of his troops go over to Toussaint.

As the foreign threats are reduced, the possibilities of race war increase among different factions: free and slave mulattoes, free blacks of the ancien régime, and (sometimes, unreliably) the maroons—all allied against the slaves freed since Sonthonax’s proclamation, who are now led by Toussaint.

1796

March 20:
The Le Cap mulattoes imprison Laveaux. Toussaint comes to Laveaux’s rescue with ten thousand troops.

April 1:
Laveaux proclaims Toussaint lieutenant-governor of Saint Domingue. Toussaint makes his own pronouncement: “After God, Laveaux.”

May 11:
The Third Commission arrives as emissaries of the Directory government in France. The chairman of the Commission is again Sonthonax, who has beaten the charges he’d been served with previously, purged himself of his Jacobinism and reincarnated himself as a Thermidorean. The Commission is backed by three thousand white troops commanded by Rochambeau.

During this year, Sonthonax’s policies increasingly show favor to Toussaint and the blacks and work to the disadvantage of the mulatto factions led by Antoine Rigaud and others. Toward the end of the year, Sonthonax and Toussaint collaborate in getting Laveaux out of the country by arranging his election as a deputy for Saint Domingue in the French legislature.

1797

May:
Toussaint officially becomes commander in chief of all French armies in Saint Domingue.

August 20:
Toussaint disposes of Sonthonax by electing him as a deputy to the French legislature, and brings in troops to speed his departure. Sonthonax struggles to intrigue his way out of this predicament, but can’t find any black generals willing to back him.

Toussaint sends a special envoy to the Directory to make the claim that Sonthonax suggested that they declare independence in Saint Domingue and set themselves up as kings. Toussaint then makes further assaults on the English, driving them back to Môle, a small bit of the west coast, and two forts on the Grande Anse.

1798

May 2:
A treaty is concluded between Toussaint and British general Maitland, stipulating a complete British withdrawal from Saint Domingue. The treaty has a secret rider giving Britain trade rights in the colony, but Toussaint turns down a suggestion that Britain would recognize him as king of Haiti.

An effort by French emissary General Hédouville to negotiate a peace between Rigaud and Toussaint does not succeed.

October 20:
Toussaint expels Hédouville by raising the cultivators of the north with a rumor that the general has come to restore slavery. When the ex-slaves reach Le Cap with Toussaint among them, Hédouville embarks for France, leaving behind an order for Rigaud to disregard Toussaint’s authority. This parting shot makes it increasingly difficult for Toussaint to continue displaying loyalty to the French Republic.

1799

As preparations for a war against Rigaud develop, Toussaint disposes of Raymond (the next to last member of the French Commission still on the island) by arranging his election as deputy to the French legislature. To have some sanction from French officialdom, he recalls Roume from the Spanish side.

April:
War breaks out between Toussaint and Rigaud—“The war of knives.” Roume and Toussaint proclaim Rigaud a traitor to France. Toussaint assembles an army of ten thousand at Port-au-Prince.

June:
Toussaint puts down the mulatto revolt in the Artibonite, then goes to Le Cap, sending Dessalines to Môle. This campaign is attended with much torture and massacre.

In the ensuing three months, Toussaint slowly pushes Rigaud back into the Grand Anse.

1800

March 11:
Pursuing the war against the mulattoes, Toussaint invades the south. In this campaign, the men give up their guns for knives and teeth, so great is the race hatred.

July 5:
Rigaud is defeated at Acquin. Roume and Vincent persuade him to give up the struggle.

July 31:
Rigaud sails for Saint Thomas, while his corps of seven hundred mulattoes goes to Cuba.

August 1:
Toussaint enters Les Cayes and pronounces a general amnesty. But he leaves Dessalines in charge of the south. Throughout the fall Dessalines, perhaps without Toussaint’s knowledge (“I told him to prune the tree, not uproot it”), systematically exterminates about ten thousand mulattoes—men, women and children.

October:
Toussaint proclaims a system of forced labor on the plantations. Under this system, productivity and prosperity return to the colony. At this time, Toussaint begins to invite the white colonists back to manage their property, recognizing that their technical and management skills would speed the return of prosperity.

1801

January 28:
Toussaint enters San Domingo City with his army and takes over the Spanish half of the island in the name of France.

July:
Toussaint proclaims a new constitution for Saint Domingue, which makes him governor for life and gives him the right to name his successor. His acknowledgment of French sovereignty is merely nominal at this point.

In the fall, Toussaint sends the reluctant white Colonel Vincent to present the new constitution to Bonaparte in France.

October 1:
The Peace of Amiens ends the war between England and France. Bonaparte begins to prepare an expedition, led by his brother-in-law General Leclerc, to restore white power in Saint Domingue.