A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution by Jeremy D. Popkin

Author:Jeremy D. Popkin
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2011-09-26T16:00:00+00:00

The Conflict with Rigaud

Assured of supplies from the United States, Toussaint Louverture was now prepared to settle accounts with André Rigaud, his most serious rival for power in the colony. Ever since 1793, Rigaud and his army had dominated Saint-Domingue’s South Province. Like Toussaint, Rigaud had defied the French officials in the island and established relations with the British, who were happy to see Saint-Domingue remain weak and divided after they decided to end their effort to conquer it. Rigaud’s method of government was not very different from Toussaint’s: both men had built up military regimes that relied on force to compel the mass of the black population to work on the plantations. The crucial difference between them was one of race or caste: Rigaud was a light-skinned man of mixed racial ancestry, and his regime appeared to amount to the substitution of a mulatto elite for the former white ruling class. In February 1799, Toussaint gave a menacing speech in which he accused the former free men of color of plotting to force the blacks back into slavery. He denounced the mistreatment of the “Swiss,” the armed black slaves who had been betrayed by the men of color in 1791, and accused Rigaud of refusing to accept his authority because of his black skin. As tension mounted between Rigaud and Toussaint, Rigaud wrote to Roume, insisting that he was more loyal to France than his rival and protesting that “my crime is … that I won’t bow my head before the idol.”5

Open warfare broke out in June 1799, when some of Rigaud’s men tried to retake the town of Petit-Goâve, which Toussaint Louverture’s forces had occupied. Toussaint’s army had a significant advantage in numbers, but Rigaud’s smaller force was initially better organized. The American agent Edward Stevens commented that Rigaud’s “infantry are well disciplined, and his cavalry the best in the colony,” whereas Toussaint’s army, at the start of the war, was “in want of everything.” Nevertheless, Stevens predicted, once Toussaint had obtained supplies, “the contest will be but short” since Toussaint could count on the support of the black population and of most of the whites, who resented the pretensions of those they called “mulattoes.”6 As Stevens had foreseen, Rigaud proved no match for Toussaint as a leader. With relentless determination, the black general drove his forces to conquer his rival’s strongholds. He was careful not to convert the conflict into a straightforward race war; some mixed-race officers continued to serve in Toussaint’s forces, while others remained neutral. Toussaint’s relations with the United States paid off: armed American ships blockaded the ports in the South Province, depriving Rigaud’s forces of supplies.

The conflict, known as the “war of the knives,” was fought with great brutality on both sides; captives were often tortured and killed with bayonets, and as many as 4,000 people may have starved to death during the four-month siege of the southern port of Jacmel, where a future president of post-revolutionary Haiti, Alexandre Pétion, commanded the defense.

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