Toussaint Louverture by Philippe R. Girard

Author:Philippe R. Girard [Girard, Philippe R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780465094141
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2016-11-22T05:00:00+00:00

The last official act of Roume’s predecessor, Hédouville, before leaving Saint-Domingue had been to denounce Louverture as a “rebel” and encourage André Rigaud, the commander of the southern region, to reject his authority. General Rigaud, who had been freed by his white father prior to the Revolution, was the leader of the “formerly free” community and Louverture’s last major rival in Saint-Domingue. A goldsmith by trade, he had traveled to France, Guadeloupe, and the United States (as part of the 1779 Savannah expedition) when Louverture was still a homebound muleteer in Haut-du-Cap. Rigaud was of mixed race, while Louverture was black. Rigaud disliked priests, whereas Louverture courted them. Rigaud was a southerner; Louverture was a northerner. At once racial, religious, social, and regional, the Rigaud-Louverture dispute was first and foremost personal: each of these two ambitious generals aspired to govern all of Saint-Domingue now that white power had almost vanished. Britain’s final departure and Hédouville’s ouster, both of which took place in October 1798, brought into the open a rivalry that had been largely private for years.13

Shortly after taking over as French agent, Roume brought Rigaud and Louverture together in a final attempt to avoid an armed conflict. The date, February 4, 1799, was well chosen: it coincided with the five-year anniversary of the French law of abolition and reminded the two rivals of their shared ideological agenda. The two men made a public show of reconciliation, but the war of words resumed as soon as Roume left for Cap. To the mixed-race population of Port-Républicain, which Louverture suspected of pro-Rigaud sympathies, Louverture warned that “he only had to raise his left arm and they would be done for.” This was no empty boast. Louverture, who could draw from the superior demographic resources of the North and West, amassed an army of 15,000 to 20,000 men in Port-Républicain; Rigaud was only able to muster about 5,000. The only thing Louverture lacked was supplies, which explains his eagerness to sign a commercial treaty with Britain and the United States in the spring of 1799. Accounting for ratification delays, commerce was scheduled to resume on August 1, 1799.14

Rigaud chose not to wait. In June, he struck first and attacked the town of Petit-Goâve, located southwest of Port-Républicain, at the junction of the western and southern provinces. Although Louverture’s army vastly outnumbered Rigaud’s, his men were poorly equipped, and Rigaud had the superior strategy. While Louverture’s lumbering army marched south to meet the enemy, Rigaud sponsored insurrections all along the northwestern coast, deep inside Louverture’s territory.

When Rigaud’s supporters threatened Cap itself, Louverture had to double back to avoid losing the war before it had even started. For the first time since 1792, he was in real danger of being on the losing side. As he approached Gonaïves, he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt when two bullets passed through his hat; two of his followers were killed by his side. Outraged, he ordered the suspects torn to shreds by cannon fire on the town square.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.