Le Cap. Entered by Dessalines on 21 April; massacre of the whites, then of the white women.

Crossing the mornes of the Dondon, Dessalines received the submission of Petit Noël Prière and of l’Africain, former chiefs of Congos, of those traitors who had for the most part come to terms with the French during the last moments of the war of Independence. He named Petit Noël Prière brigadier-general, concealing his indignation against him, and loaded him with favors while he waited for the chance to have him sacrificed. After Dessalines’s entry into the Cap, on 21 April, the massacre of the whites began. Some had their throats cut in the streets, others under their own roofs. Their dwellings were pillaged. Petit Noël Prière and his former lieutenants, to prove to Dessalines their devotion to the cause of independence, made themselves conspicuous by the fury with which they hunted down these unfortunates. They grew rich on the spoils, and believed themselves safe from Dessalines’s vengeance because they had bathed in the blood of the whites. General Christophe gave refuge in his house to some twenty Frenchmen. But he could not save them from the fury of the people, who discovered their hiding place. Fearing to arouse Dessalines’s displeasure, he handed them over to soldiers, who put them to death. The governor summoned to the government palace old Télémaque, the former mayor of the Cap under Toussaint, who had always shown himself very devoted to the French. He said to him: “You who did not want the Cap burned when Leclerc arrived, why did you not follow the French? So you have recognized that they are monsters! You want to enjoy the liberty we have won for the country!” Télémaque, trembling, made no answer. Dessalines had a white man brought in and ordered Télémaque to hang him, as a proof of his devotion to the cause of independence. Télémaque, after putting the rope round the Frenchman’s neck, felt his strength fail at the moment of execution. Almost fainting, he declared that he would rather perish than commit a crime. Dessalines, appearing to take pity on him, drove him from his presence while ordering that no harm be done to him. He handed the white man over to soldiers of the 4th, who cut him down with their sabers. He then had brought before him an old Black man named Dessalines, who under the old regime had been the second man to claim to own him and whose name he had taken. He told him that he was making him his grand master of the household.

At Port-de-Paix, General Capoix, following the orders he had received, had the French of his town arrested. There were only about fifteen of them; he saved five who were good artisans and had the rest massacred. At Fort-Liberté, at the Môle Saint-Nicolas and at every other point in the North, the slaughter was general.

At last the great sacrifice was consummated; the French had vanished from the soil of Haiti.

The massacres had lasted from the first days of February to 22 April. Dessalines would say: “If I die now, I shall go down happy to the grave; we have avenged our brothers and all the peoples extinguished in servitude; Haiti has become a red point on the surface of the globe, which the Frenchman will never approach.”

The white women were still alive, innocent and inoffensive beings whose death no one had demanded, even while their husbands were being massacred with the greatest fury. But blood draws blood. Infamous men, men in whom no feeling of pity remained, driven by brutal passions and eager to enrich themselves further by murder, approached Dessalines, who had no thought of putting these unfortunate women to death. It was the day after the massacre of the white men. They told him that the white women were brigands who cursed the victories of the Haitians; that they longed for the reign of their husbands; that they could not be left in the country; that they would have sons by Haitians; that the Haitians would have the grief of seeing their children grow up in French ideas, and that in less than twenty years they would have a new generation of traitors to exterminate.

This counsel at first filled Dessalines with horror; he answered those who gave it that it would be better for the white women to be spared; that they would settle with Black men and men of color, and would have mixed-blood children by them, Haitians in short. But he was so urged toward this great crime that he consented to it, while declaring that this time he did not feel its necessity.

At the Cap many of these unfortunate women were dragged out of the town. Scoundrels promised life to all who would give themselves to them. Several, to save their lives, sacrificed their honor. They were stabbed nonetheless by the men who had sated their infamous passions on them. At last Christophe had them all gathered into one great convoy and ordered them taken to La Fossette, where they were to be executed. They were placed between two lines of soldiers of the 4th. The military band, playing the patriotic airs of France, the Marseillaise and the Chant du Départ, led this mournful march. The soldiers kept their heads bowed; their faces expressed shame and grief; the cries of joy that had resounded everywhere while the white men were being slaughtered were not heard. When the convoy reached the rue Espagnole, a white woman who had not been arrested because of her great age, and who had kept herself shut indoors for several years, asked what this music meant. She was told that the white women were going to be slaughtered. She rose, took up her crutch and came to mingle with the crowd, saying: “Since they are slaughtering the women, I too wish to die.” She walked to her death with a more than natural assurance.