Toussaint Louverture - Madison Bell [28]
It was the bands of Pierrot and Macaya, ten thousand strong, who stormed Le Cap late in the day of June 21. Galbaud and his faction fled to their ships. When they sailed they brought with them most of the whites who had taken their part—the remnants of the grand blancs landowners and the petit blancs counterrevolutionaries (including Procurator Gros); this huge flotilla of refugees eventually landed in Baltimore. Though ready enough to sack the town, the rebel slaves did not seem particularly responsive to the orders of the civil commissioners or anyone else. Some fires had apparently already started while Galbaud was nominally in charge of the town. During the huge onslaught of the insurgent slaves, the fires spread uncontrollably. By the time the ten thousand blacks had carried their loot back into the hills, and Sonthonax and Polverel reoccupied Cap Francais, five-sixths of the Jewel of the Antilles had been destroyed.
The commissioners were back in control of the colony, but at a crippling cost. Again they separated, Polverel returning to Port-au-Prince. Olivier Delpech, who'd been sent to replace Ailhaud, took up the reins of administration in the south. Both Polverel and Sonthonax continued to circulate their proclamation of June 21, hoping to win over the black insurgents with the promise of freedom in return for military service. But, frustratingly, Jean-François and Biassou, when approached on behalf of the commissioners by the Abbe Delahaye, kept protesting their fealty to the idea of royalty in general and (now that the king of France had been executed) to the king of Spain in particular. Macaya, who'd helped the commissioners repel Galbaud, now returned to the rebel camp, declaring: “I am the subject of three kings; of the king of the Congo, master of all the blacks; of the King of France, who represents my father; of the king of Spain, who represents my father. These three kings are the descendants of those who, led by a star, came to adore God made Man.”26
Toussaint, whose importance as a commander had been recognized by the French since his engagements with Laveaux, replied that “the blacks wanted to serve under a king and the Spanish king offered him his protection.”27 In the course of this negotiation, Toussaint persuaded the French commander Allemand (who was supposed to win him over to the commission and the republic) to surrender to him the camp of LaTannerie with all its weapons and ammunition. This turn of events, deeply disconcerting to the French as it once again cut off Dondon from Le Cap, is one of the first examples of Toussaint's remarkable skill in winning bloodless victories.
During the months of internal struggle between the gens de couleur and the various white factions, Spain's black auxiliaries had had time to recover and regroup. Again they posed a serious threat to the French republic, especially in the north. The commissioners' limited proffer of freedom for military service had not proved effective. More and more it seemed that universal emancipation of Saint Domingue's slaves might be the only solution—although at this point it would be no more than formal recognition of the fact that the slaves had succeeded in freeing themselves. Many of the whites remaining in Le Cap now backed the idea of emancipation; on August 15, fifteen thousand people voted in its favor, and on August 29, Sonthonax proclaimed it. Whether the French home government would endorse the abolition of slavery (which went far beyond the powers the commissioners had been granted) remained to be seen. For the moment, there was no one nearby to tell Sonthonax he couldn't do it.
Toussaint had probably been as busy as Sonthonax and Polverel during the summer of 1793, though he left fewer traces in the white man's record books. But the battles he fought at Morne Pelee and LaTannerie proved what a redoubtable combatant he could be. At Morne Pelee, Toussaint had a vigorous sword fight with the Chevalier d'Assas, finally