Jacmel. Stormed by Lamour Dérance and repulsed

In the West, Lamour Dérance, who had taken the title of general in chief of the departments of the West and the South, commanded all the insurgents: Larose at the Arcahaie; Magloire Ambroise and Macaque in the mornes of Jacmel; Beauséjour, Pierre-Louis, Sanglaou, Mathieu Fourmi, Cangé, Métellus and Adam in the mornes of Léogane, of Grand-Goâve and of the Rivière Froide near Port-Républicain.

Dessalines was master of the whole district of the Artibonite, although Cibas, chief of the bands of the heights of Saint-Marc, sometimes refused to carry out his orders. All the chiefs of the North and the West were, so far, in his eyes no more than rebels who were by right his subordinates. Sans-Souci in the North and Lamour Dérance in the West each had himself called general in chief, as he did.

Until now the department of the South had not stirred.

The party of Dessalines, which held the most enlightenment, was also the most energetic; it embodied the principle of Indigenous unity; it could already fight the French with success and, at the same time, stifle the factions that refused to submit to the central government, whose seat was at La Petite-Rivière de l’Artibonite. Dessalines himself, a dictator with the right of life and death, disposing of men and things, went everywhere in person and gave the operations that vigor of action which will bring about the triumph of independence. Pétion had already suggested to him the idea of carrying the war into the South by sending Geffrard there with the 13th, to raise the citizens of that department and give them the impulse of the great national war.

The cultivators of Le Dondon drive Christophe out of that town. Dessalines returns to the North. His language to the people. He wins Sans-Souci over entirely to his party. Capoix has the hospitals of La Tortue set on fire. General Clausel takes Port-de-Paix from Capoix. Christophe has Sans-Souci murdered at Grandpré. General Lacroix takes Laxabon and Ouanaminthe from the Indigenous. Christophe marches against him and is wounded. Petit Noël Prière revolts against Christophe and against Dessalines. Death of General Paul Louverture. Dessalines marches against Petit Noël Prière; he destroys his party. Result of the fall of the party of the Congos. To satisfy the cultivators of the North, Dessalines places Christophe at Les Gonaïves. Dessalines marches against Larose. He takes the Arcahaie. Larose withdraws to Lamour Dérance. General Quentin is driven back into the town of Saint-Marc. Administrative work of Rochambeau. Decree of Hector Daure of 29 Frimaire. Indemnity granted to the widows of employees of the military administration. Duties of the municipalities. Decree of the Consuls of 30 Vendémiaire, Year 11. Decree of Rochambeau of 14 Nivôse, Year 11. Elite companies. Traffic in captives between Saint-Domingue and the island of Cuba by French warships. Ludot, chief justice. Searches of houses by night.

While Dessalines and Pétion were organizing, at La Petite-Rivière de l’Artibonite, the Indigenous government, which had taken the name of the government of the Incas, the independents of the cantons of Léogane and Port-Républicain were making rapid progress. Sanglaou, Beauséjour, Pierre-Louis and Mathieu Fourmi, the chiefs of the bands of Léogane, had established their main camp at Bugnot. The mountains of La Coupe and of L’Hôpital, near Port-Républicain, were occupied by Caradeux, Germain Frère and Adam, Black men, who made every effort to turn aside the waters that run down to Port-Républicain by blocking the channels. Adam seized the spring of Turgeot, which lies half a league from the town on a height that commands the place considerably. It is claimed that the Indigenous sometimes poisoned its waters by throwing in many branches of the manchineel. This spring feeds the fountains of the town and waters the surrounding countryside. The white garrison and the national guard made a sortie against the Indigenous and drove them from that position. The French set up a considerable post there. Germain Frère and Caradeux had pitched a camp on the Frère plantation, in the plain of the Cul-de-Sac, at the foot of the mornes of La Coupe. There they stood at the head of the remnants of the 11th colonial demi-brigade. This camp served as a refuge for all the cultivators of the Cul-de-Sac who fled the rigors of Rochambeau’s administration.

It was then that Cangé, chief of a band of cultivators from the mornes of Grand-Goâve, resolved to move into the plain of Léogane. He was a man of color, formerly a battalion commander in Rigaud’s troops during the civil war. He had the confidence of all the cultivators of that district. He was subject to the authority of Lamour Dérance, who, like him, had fought Toussaint Louverture. He came to the Sarrebousse plantation, in the parish of Léogane, at the head of about a hundred cultivators. By his bravery and his military talents he soon became the soul of every operation. The Indigenous undertook nothing without consulting him. He was the only officer among them who had served in regular troops. The insurgents had never thought of organizing themselves into disciplined corps; the African system of Lamour Dérance prevailed among them; they fought without order; and every time they attacked Léogane they were thrown back by European tactics. Cangé assembled on the Sarrebousse plantation the chiefs of bands of the plain, Mathieu Fourmi, Sanglaou and Pierre-Louis. Beauséjour, who had been the first to give the signal of insurrection in the district of Léogane, was absent. Cangé had a tent pitched for the chiefs and served them a great meal with meat, provisions and tafia in abundance. The cultivators, for their part, were gathered in groups under the trees around enormous quarters of roast beef, mutton and pork. They danced the bamboulas, sang, ate, drank and grew drunk. When every head had been heated by the fumes of the tafia, Cangé had the lambi sounded and gathered all the bands around the main tent. He climbed on a stump and said to the crowd: my brothers, to make war on the French to good effect we must be disciplined, we must have tactics, we must form ourselves into demi-brigades and give ourselves officers and non-commissioned officers. The bands received his words with loud acclamations. “I name,” he went on, “Sanglaou and Mathieu Fourmi colonels; they will choose the captains of their demi-brigades.” These two appointments were greeted with cries of enthusiasm. He then organized two corps of infantry and a corps of cavalry of two squadrons. He named the battalion commanders and proclaimed Pierre-Louis, an officer of rare intrepidity, squadron commander. The cultivators, most of them drunk, took up their songs and dances again. Cangé remained without rank; and the insurgents, who had not understood him, raised no cry in his favor. He had the lambi sounded once more, obtained a little silence, and said: I have named the colonels and the commandants, I have put each man in his place; what am I myself? The multitude cried out, long live General Cangé! and streamed away singing through the woods. By his skill Cangé became the chief of these men, simple then but heroic, who fell under the influence of a brave, bold and intelligent warrior. This was in the first days of December. Lamour Dérance, coming out of the mornes of Jacmel, came to Darbonne. He confirmed Cangé in his rank of general, although he had seen with jealousy an appointment made in his absence; nevertheless Cangé soon became his favorite and his counselor. Beauséjour, displeased with the conduct of Cangé, who had taken a command that belonged to him, stayed in the mornes, kept apart and took no further part in the war. Lamour Dérance went back before Jacmel, which he was besieging, after ordering Cangé to attack Léogane. Cangé assailed the French vigorously, drove them back into the town, which he closely invested, and established himself at Dampuce, at the entrance of the high road to Port-Républicain. At the same time, on 19 Frimaire, Lamour Dérance was storming the town of Jacmel, seconded by the commandants Magloire Ambroise, Lacroix and Macaque. It took the courage and firmness of General Pageot and of Colonel Dieudonné Jambon to repulse him. These two officers were energetically supported by the battalion commanders Burres and Pascal.