Toussaint Louverture - Madison Bell [57]
The when of Toussaint's change of allegiance is as mysterious as the why. In a report written well after the fact, Laveaux states that Toussaint had stopped fighting the republican French by April 6,1794. Elsewhere he says that the black leader “placed himself under the banner of the Republic on May 6th.”19 The apparent inconsistency is not so difficult to resolve. It is logical that Toussaint should have ceased hostilities against the French and opened a line of communication with Laveaux soon after the ambush on his party at Camp Barade in late March and his subsequent retaliation on Biassou's camp at Maronniere Plantation, and just as logical that he should have delayed any further attacks on the Spanish until he was completely ready to commit to Laveaux and the republic. White Spanish troops, after all, seldom ventured west of Saint Raphael, and Biassou, after the whipping he had just taken, had reason to keep his distance from Toussaint, who probably spent most of April between Marmelade and Ennery where neither the Spanish nor the other black leaders could learn much about what he was up to.
The determinedly hostile Kerverseau described Toussaint's shift to the republic this way:
It was then that he put into practice all the tactics of slander and intrigue to corrupt the troops, create an independent force for himself, drive the former chiefs from the quarters they occupied and form from their debris a considerable arrondissement for himself* It was then that he opened negotiations with the French and the English, and that he redoubled his devotional practices, assurances of loyalty and demonstrations of zeal to deceive the Spanish government, evading the orders that were contrary to his projects by stories of imaginary combats in which he had received dangerous wounds, and never ceasing to extract gold and arms for pretended expeditions which he never actually undertook, until finally, after a year of ruses and detours, unhappy with the English who did not put a high enough price on his betrayal, and aware that the president,† informed of his perfidy, was only waiting for the right moment to punish him, he commit-ted himself made a surprise attack on San Raphael, whence that same morning they had sent him, at his own request, provisions and ammunition, then marched on Gona'ives which he seized after slitting the throats of all the Whites who had come before him to implore his protection—and declared himself commander under the orders of the General Laveaux. Such were the exploits with which he signaled his entry under the flags of the Republic.20
Kerverseau never misses a chance to denigrate Toussaint, and this narrative should be discounted accordingly, but the events of this day (whatever its date) do reveal a man capable of absolute treachery, absolute ruthlessness, and absolute hypocrisy—all qualities Toussaint Louverture could claim, along with his more conventionally admirable ones. His requisition of supplies from the very people he meant to attack is classic.
Documents show that black auxiliaries attacked Gonai'ves on April 29, but it is unclear whether this is the moment when Toussaint took control of the port—other accounts give the date of his action as May 4 or May 6. The last date is implausible, as Laveaux's May 5 letter says that Toussaint has already raised the republican flag at Gonai'ves. A contemporary observer, Pelage-Marie Duboys, claims that Laveaux had discussed Toussaint's capture of Gona'ives in advance (with an eye toward using Toussaint's presence there to counterbalance the influence of Villatte, the mulatto commander at Le Cap). By this account, Toussaint permitted the Spanish