Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [412]
SEPTEMBER 23: Beauvais, mulatto commander of Jacmel, who had attempted to maintain neutrality in the Toussaint-Rigaud conflict, sails for Saint Thomas with his family.
NOVEMBER: Dessalines’s offensive retakes Petit and Grand Goâve from Rigaud.
NOVEMBER 9: In France, Napoleon Bonaparte assumes power as First Consul of the French Republic.
NOVEMBER 22: Jacmel, key to the defense of the southern peninsula, is besieged by Toussaint’s troops.
DECEMBER 13: In France, the new Constitution establishing the French Consulate states that the colonies will be governed by “special laws.”
1800
JANUARY 18: Toussaint requests Roume’s permission to occupy Spanish Santo Domingo according to the terms of the Treaty of Basel, citing the urgency of stopping the slave trade which continued to some extent on Spanish territory. Roume denies the request.
JANUARY 19: Pétion assumes command of Jacmel, entering the besieged town by stealth.
MARCH 1: Pétion evacuates the women of Jacmel.
MARCH 11: Pétion leads the survivors of the siege on a desperate sortie from Jacmel and manages to rejoin Rigaud with the shreds of his force, abandoning Jacmel to Toussaint. Rigaud retreats onto the Grand Anse, leaving scorched earth behind him.
APRIL 27: Under pressure from Toussaint, Roume signs an order to take possession of the Spanish side of the island.
MAY 22: Agé, a white general loyal to Toussaint, arrives in Santo Domingo with a symbolic force and is resisted by the population.
JUNE: A new group of emissaries from the French Consulate debarks in Spanish Santo Domingo, including General Michel, Raimond, and Colonel Vincent (the latter a white officer close to Toussaint). Their instructions are to keep the two halves of the island separate and to bring the black/mulatto war to a close—while at the same time conciliating Toussaint. Both Michel and Vincent are arrested briefly by Toussaint’s troops, on their way into the French part of the island.
JUNE 16: Roume rescinds his order of April 27, 1800, in the face of Agé’s failure.
JUNE 24: Colonel Vincent meets with Toussaint for the first time since his arrival, and informs him of the Consulate’s intention to maintain him as General-in-Chief.
JULY 7: Rigaud is decisively defeated by Dessalines at Aquin—last of a series of lost battles.
AUGUST 1: Toussaint enters Les Cayes, Rigaud’s hometown and the last center of mulatto resistance. Rigaud flees to France by way of Guadeloupe. Toussaint proclaims a general amnesty for the mulatto combatants. But Dessalines, left in charge of the south, conducts extremely severe reprisals.
OCTOBER 12: Toussaint proclaims forced labor on the plantations, to be enforced by two captain-generals: Dessalines in the south and west and Moyse in the north.
NOVEMBER 4: French Minister of Marine Forfait instructs Toussaint not to take possession of the Spanish portion of the island.
NOVEMBER 26: Roume, blamed by Toussaint for Agé’s failed expedition to Santo Domingo, is arrested by Moyse and imprisoned at Dondon.
1801
JANUARY: Toussaint sends two columns into Spanish Santo Domingo, one from Ouanaminthe under command of Moyse and the other from Mirebalais under his own command.
JANUARY 28: Toussaint enters Santo Domingo City, accepts the Spanish capitulation from Don García, and proclaims the abolition of slavery.
FEBRUARY 4: Toussaint organizes an assembly to create a constitution for Saint Domingue.
JULY 3: Toussaint proclaims the new constitution, whose terms make him governor for life.
JULY 16: Toussaint dispatches a reluctant Vincent to present his constitution to Napoleon Bonaparte and the Consulate in France.
OCTOBER 1: The Peace of Amiens ends the war between England and France. Napoleon begins to prepare an expedition, led by his brother-in-law General Leclerc, to restore white power in Saint Domingue.
OCTOBER 16: An insurrection against Toussaint’s forced labor policy begins on the northern plain and, in the coming weeks, is suppressed