Le Cap. Toussaint pardons the Rigaudists in the church

Toussaint, seeing all his plans being realized and wishing to make friends for himself even among the vanquished, cast a look of compassion on the Rigaudist men of color and resolved to pardon them. On 28 May 1801 he assembled in the church of Le Cap all the mulattoes who since the fall of Rigaud had languished in the prisons or marched in the train of the troops, in rags and exposed to every kind of ill treatment. He mounted the pulpit and said to them: “The spirit of party has cast you into the prejudices of error; I speak to you as a father; I lament the ills you have suffered; I pardon you generously; I give you consolation; be full of courage, and return in peace to the bosom of your families.”