Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [459]
OCTOBER 25: In France, after a lengthy trial, Sonthonax is formally cleared of all charges concerning his conduct in Saint Domingue.
1796
JANUARY: Having moved the seat of government from Port-de-Paix to Le Cap, Laveaux finds his relationship with Villatte deteriorating and begins to suspect the latter of plotting for independence. The mulattoes of the north are roused to further insubordination by the activities of Pinchinat, sent to Le Cap from the south by Rigaud.
FEBRUARY 12: Toussaint sends a delegation to Dieudonné with a letter meant to persuade him to join the French Republican forces. Dieudonné is overthrown by his subordinate Laplume, who turns him over to Rigaud as a prisoner. Laplume brings Dieudonné’s men to join Toussaint.
MARCH 20: Villatte attempts a coup against Laveaux, who is imprisoned at Le Cap. Officers loyal to Toussaint engineer his release.
MARCH 27: Toussaint enters Le Cap with ten thousand men. Villatte and his remaining supporters flee the town.
MARCH 31: Laveaux, describing Toussaint as the “Black Spartacus” predicted by Raynal, installs him as Lieutenant-Governor of Saint Domingue. On the same day, Dieudonné dies a prisoner in Saint Louis du Sud, suffocated by a weight of chains.
MAY 11: Emissaries of the French Directoire arrive in Le Cap: the Third Commission, led by a politically rehabilitated Sonthonax and including the colored commissioner Raimond and whites Roume, Giraud, and Leblanc. The new Commission brings thirty thousand muskets to arm the colonial troops, but only nine hundred European soldiers, under command of Generals Rochambeau and Desfourneaux.
MAY 19: The Third Commission proclaims that colonists absent from Saint Domingue and residing elsewhere than France itself are to be considered émigrésdisloyal to the French Republic, their property subject to sequestration.
JUNE 30 : Sonthonax proclaims it a crime to publicly state that the freedom of the blacks is not irrevocable or that one man can own another.
JULY 5: Toussaint’s elder sons, Placide and Isaac Louverture, embark for France on the French warship Wattigny.
JULY 18: Unable for want of European troops to take possession of the Spanish part of the island, Rochambeau is stripped of his rank and deported to France.
AUGUST 17: Toussaint writes to Laveaux concerning his wish that the latter stand for election as a delegate to the French legislature, representing the colony.
AUGUST 27: Emissaries sent by Sonthonax to Rigaud and other mulatto leaders of the south create such ill will that a riot breaks out in Les Cayes, in which many whites are killed. Rigaud parades Sonthonax’s proclamations through the streets of the town, tied to the tail of a donkey.
SEPTEMBER: Sonthonax and Laveaux are elected, among others, as representatives from Saint Domingue to the French legislature.
OCTOBER 6: Members of the Third Commission write to the Directoire about their concern over the single-minded personal loyalty shown by the black troops toward particular leaders, especially Toussaint.
OCTOBER 14: With further encouragement from Toussaint, Laveaux departs from Saint Domingue to assume his position in the French legislature.
1797
MARCH: In France, royalists, reactionaries, and proslavery colonists make significant gains in new elections.
APRIL: Toussaint successfully recaptures Mirebalais and the surrounding area and uses the region as the base of an offensive against the British in Port-au-Prince. British General Simcoe defends the coast town successfully and attacks Mirebalais in force. Toussaint burns Mirebalais and makes a rapid drive toward Saint Marc, forcing Simcoe to retreat to defend the latter town. This campaign is the last British challenge to Toussaint’s control of the interior.
MAY 1: Sonthonax arrests General Desfourneaux,