Santiago. Christophe enters after the battle, executes the wounded and hangs leading citizens

While Christophe was making his dispositions for the attack, the greatest order reigned in the enemy’s ranks. He sent to the opposite bank an officer of the battalion of Santiago, Don Pèdre, charged with summoning Sérapio to give up the breastwork and the fort, and with telling him that he came with no hostile intentions toward the Spaniards and made war only on the French. The enemy answered that he was ready to die rather than surrender. Christophe at once had the charge beaten, and Battalion Commander Jason, followed by the 1st demi-brigade, the battalion of Santiago and the 9th, plunged into the river. The Haitian soldiers, in water up to their waists, withstood the swiftness of the current only by pressing tightly against one another. Our troops, supported by the fire of the 2nd and 27th posted on the left bank, reached the right bank, where a bloody combat began. In spite of prodigies of valor by Sérapio, a Black officer, the Spanish-French began to give way. As soon as Christophe perceived it, he ordered Colonel Étienne Albert to cross the river with the cavalry and charge. The Haitian dragoons, having reached the opposite bank, broke the ranks of the enemy, whom the 9th was already overthrowing with the bayonet. The rout became complete, and the fugitives, hard pressed by the 9th and cut down by the dragoons of the 2nd regiment, fell back into Santiago. General Brave pushed into the center of the town, driving before him the women and children who, fleeing the cavalry, were trying to reach the woods. Most of the enemy soldiers were massacred; Sérapio and Colonel Polanque had perished in the battle.

The enemy’s munitions of war and baggage fell into our hands. We had lost more than 300 men, killed or carried away by the waters of the Grand Yaque during the crossing. We had 60 wounded, among whom were counted General Brave; Pourcely, colonel of the 9th; Jacques Louis, battalion commander in the same corps; and Squadron Leader Pierre Poux. It was the 9th that, by the impetuosity of its attack, decided the victory in favor of the Haitians. Most of the dead and wounded were soldiers of that corps, whom Christophe, it was said in the army at the time, was deliberately squandering under fire in order to destroy them. It was claimed that the influence of General Capoix, Christophe’s personal enemy, weakened in proportion to the losses of the 9th.

Christophe entered Santiago at nine in the morning on 25 February. He entrusted the command of the department to Colonel Tabarrès and that of the town to Captain Joubert. The next day General Clervaux arrived at Santiago at the head of his division, which formed the rear guard of the army of the North. Christophe had all the Spanish and French wounded whom he found in the streets of Santiago put to death. Under the gallery of the courthouse he hanged a great number of persons who had taken refuge in the church and had been dragged from it: those named Don Francisco Remondo, Compa, Don Francisco Escoto, Don José de Roxas, Don José de Nunez, Don Jean Curel, Don Jean Nunez, del Monté, Noberto Alvarès, Antonio Rodriguez and Blas de Almonté, the most respected citizens of the town. He threw many others into prison, among them the Abbé Pablo Alvarès. On leaving Santiago he left orders with Commandant Tabarrès to hunt down relentlessly, during his absence, the families that had hidden in the woods.