Insurgents break the colonial column at Croix-des-Bouquets

On 22 March 1792 colonial troops marched out of Port-au-Prince to destroy the free-coloured force of Louis-Jacques Beauvais and André Rigaud at Croix-des-Bouquets. The enslaved people of the Cul-de-Sac plain had risen and joined them, led by a twenty-one-year-old named Hyacinthe, carrying knives, spears and hoes. National Guard infantry and dragoons, stiffened by regulars of the 9th and 48th line regiments, came at them and were broken. The insurgents held the field and buried about 1,200 of their own; the colonial side lost around 100. That is the arithmetic of the whole revolution — our people paid ten to one and still took the ground.