1805, February 25: (The Fall of Santiago and the Horrors of the Eastern Campaign): Santiago fell to Christophe on February 25, 1805, after which — in the wor…

1805, February 25: (The Fall of Santiago and the Horrors of the Eastern Campaign): Santiago fell to Christophe on February 25, 1805, after which — in the words of Sumner Welles, historian of Santo Domingo — there ensued rape, loot, murder, and the refined pleasures afforded by torture upon the captured civilian population. The greater part of Santiago’s inhabitants had taken refuge in the church, where all were slaughtered, and the officiating priest, Don José Vásquez, was burned alive using the sacred books and vestments as fuel. Children had their bodies mutilated before being literally torn to pieces, men and women were slowly sliced to bits with machetes, and in one case lighted cartridges were placed in the wounds of a victim until the bleeding mass was torn to shreds by the explosions. Upon their return, the few inhabitants who had escaped found the bodies of the members of the Cabildo — taken captive by Christophe — naked and mutilated, dangling from the balcony of the Casa Consistorial. This campaign exposed a fundamental contrast between Toussaint’s 1801 invasion, which had brought liberty and commerce, and Dessalines’s 1805 incursion, which brought only extermination and ruin.