Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [466]
JUNE 6 : Leclerc notifies Napoleon that he has ordered Toussaint’s arrest.
JUNE 7 : Lured away from Gonaives to a meeting with General Brunet, Toussaint is made prisoner.
JUNE 15 : Toussaint, with his family, is deported for France aboard the ship Le Héros.
JUNE 11 : Leclerc writes to the Minister of Marine that he suspects his army will die out from under him—citing his own illness (he had overcome a bout of malaria soon after his arrival), he asks for recall. This letter also contains the recommendation that Toussaint be imprisoned in the heart of inland France. In the third week of June, Leclerc begins the tricky project of disarming the cultivators—under authority of the black generals who have submitted to him.
JUNE 22 : Toussaint writes a letter of protest to Napoleon from his ship, which is now docked in Brest.
JULY 6 : Leclerc writes to the Minister of Marine that he is losing 160 men per day. However, this same report states that he is effectively destroying the influence of the black generals.
News of the restoration of slavery in Guadeloupe arrives in Saint Domingue in the last days of the month. The north rises instantly, the west shortly afterward, and black soldiers begin to desert their generals.
AUGUST 6 : Leclerc reports the continued prevalence of yellow fever, the failure to complete the disarmament, and the growth of rebellion. The major black generals have stayed in his camp, but the petty officers are deserting in droves and taking their troops with them.
AUGUST 24 : Toussaint is imprisoned at the Fort de Joux, in France near the Swiss border.
AUGUST 25 : Leclerc writes: “To have been rid of Toussaint is not enough; there are two thousand more leaders to get rid of as well.”
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER: In his cell at Fort de Joux, Toussaint composes a report of his conduct during Leclerc’s invasion, intended to justify himself to the First Consul, Bonaparte.
SEPTEMBER 13: The expected abatement of the yellow fever at the approach of the autumnal equinox fails to occur. The reinforcements arriving die as fast as they are put into the country, and Leclerc has to deploy them as soon as they get off the boat. Leclerc asks for 10,000 men to be immediately sent. He is losing territory in the interior and his black generals are beginning to waver, though he still is confident of his ability to manipulate them.
As of this date, a total of 28,000 men have been sent from France, and Leclerc estimates that 10,500 are still alive, but only 4,500 are fit for duty. Five thousand sailors have also died, bringing the total loss to 29,000.
SEPTEMBER 15 : General Caffarelli, agent of Napoleon Bonaparte, arrives at the Fort de Joux for the first of seven interrogations of Toussaint.
OCTOBER 7 : Leclerc: “We must destroy all the mountain Negroes, men and women, sparing only children under twelve years of age. We must destroy half the Negroes of the plains, and not allow in the colony a single man who has ever worn an epaulette. Without these measures the colony will never be at peace. . . .”
OCTOBER 10: Mulatto General Clervaux revolts, with all his troops, upon the news of Napoleon’s restoration of the mulatto discriminations of the ancien régime. Le Cap had been mostly garrisoned by mulattoes.
OCTOBER 13 : Christophe and the other black generals in the north join Clervaux’s rebellion. On this news, Dessalines raises revolt in the west.
NOVEMBER 2: Leclerc dies of yellow fever. Command is assumed by Rochambeau.
By the end of the month the fever finally begins to abate, and acclimated survivors, now immune, begin to return to service. In France, Napoleon has outfitted 10,000 reinforcements.
1803
MARCH: At the beginning of the month, Rochambeau has 11,000 troops and only 4,000 in hospital, indicating that the worst of the disease threat has passed. He is ready to conduct a war of extermination against the blacks, and brings man-eating dogs from Cuba to replace his lost soldiery. He makes slow headway against Dessalines in March and April, while Napoleon plans to send 30,000 reinforcements