La Marmelade. Toussaint massacres the Spanish garrison and raises the tricolor.

As early as 5 May 1794 Laveaux had urged him to recognize the Republic, in a letter conveyed to him by Chevalier, commandant of Terre-Neuve and Port-à-Piment. On the 18th of the same month Toussaint had answered that he would be happy to place himself under the flags of the Republic and that he had been led astray by the Spanish. This man of profound dissimulation resolved to give the Republic a terrifying proof of the sincerity of his submission by placing an abyss between himself and the Spanish. On 25 June, after taking communion at the Marmelade, where the Marquis d’Almonas commanded, he renewed his oath of fidelity to the King of Spain, mounted his horse, had his troops massacre the European soldiers quartered in the village, and went on to La Petite-Rivière, then to the Dondon, and then to the Gros-Morne, where the Spanish garrisons he had placed there were likewise slaughtered. In all these places he raised the tricolor flag. When he approached the Gonaïves, the soldiers of His Catholic Majesty who occupied the town fled and withdrew to the bridge of the Ester. He ordered one of his lieutenants, Blanc Cassenave, a man of color, to go and seize the bridge. He then went to Port-de-Paix, where General Laveaux received him with the greatest distinction. He reviewed the troops of the garrison, a courtesy paid him by the French general, who shared with him his bed and his table. Toussaint had 5,000 men under his orders; the influence of his name was already considerable; the French cause, reduced to the last extremity in the North, would have succumbed there had he not submitted to the Republic. The governor gave him command of the western cordon, after naming him brigadier general.