L’Acul. The flames of the insurrection rose here.

On the appointed day, at ten in the evening, whirlwinds of flame rising from the quarter of L’Acul and leaping into the sky gave the signal of the insurrection. The enslaved put at their head Jean-François, who had Boukman and Flaville as his lieutenants. They carried them in triumph to the sound of an African music that spread terror everywhere. The whole plain of the North was put to fire and sword; and in the countryside whites of every party fell under the blows of the people they had enslaved, whom they had tortured without pity for many years. Those who escaped the massacre came to swell the terror that already reigned at Le Cap. The whites of that town, seeing themselves surrounded by eight thousand captives, and believing the people of color to be the authors of this insurrection, fell on them in the streets and massacred a great number.