Taverny plantation. Insurgents camp there with Moreau as prisoner; the lambi sounds the general insurrection

Meanwhile those resident proprietors who had been dispossessed at last resolved to take up arms against the government. At Mécerou’s invitation they met on his plantation in the heights of Port-Salut during the night of the 6th to the 7th of October. The boldest among them set forth with vehemence that it had become impossible to bear Dessalines’s yoke any longer; that his power was without limits and pressed cruelly on every head; that he thirsted for the blood of the citizens of the South, and had already drunk his fill of that blood during and after the civil war. They added that the lands they had bought since the old regime, and had enjoyed even under the French, were being taken from them; that they had driven out the whites, their oppressors, after long and bloody struggles, and that as the reward of their labors and their exploits they had a government that recalled that of Rochambeau; ** that they had taken up arms in the name of Liberty, and yet they saw the cultivators treated almost as under the old regime. They cried: since we must die, let it not be the death of cowards! Let us all swear war to the death against Dessalines.” The conspirators rose and took the oath by acclamation. They dispersed before the end of the night and went to spread the same words over all the neighboring plantations. In the course of the 7th they learned that Moreau was to go to the Côteaux. About a hundred of the most resolute, armed with muskets and sticks, with Mécerou at their head, went to wait for him at the pass called the Garata, a place famous for a victory that General Férou had won over the French in 1803. On the 8th, at sunrise, General Moreau left Port-Salut. Mécerou had placed himself in ambush with his men behind large stones that lined the road. When Moreau reached Garata, a young trumpeter who rode ahead of his escort saw several heads appear from behind the rocks and at once disappear. He cried: an ambush! The officer at the head of the horsemen resolutely ordered the trumpeter to sound the charge, and his dragoons to draw sabers. He was at once supported by Moreau’s aides-de-camp. Moreau, instead of approving his resolution, ordered a halt. He could have dispersed the gathering by a vigorous charge; but he hoped, by speaking to the insurgents, to overawe them. In vain did the horsemen at his side urge him to force the pass. He invited the conspirators to come near and speak to him: they came out of their ambush and surrounded him. He asked them what they wanted; they answered: We claim our rights! Perceiving that his bearing was timid, they drew closer to him, surrounded his escort, declared him a prisoner and demanded his arms. To the great astonishment of his officers, Moreau exclaimed: “Ah! you are arresting me! What do you want? Is it my saber, because it is handsome? Very well! here it is.” He handed it to Mécerou. “No doubt it is those little coxcombs of Les Cayes who do not want to be soldiers, whom I had enlisted, who are conspiring against me.” Mécerou took off his braided hat, replaced it with a straw headdress, and tore off his epaulettes. Moreau got down from his horse, took off his coat and trampled it underfoot in indignation. He then wished to defend himself; but it was too late: most of the horsemen of his escort had fled toward Les Cayes as soon as he had given up his sword. He was at once taken as a prisoner to the Taverny plantation, where the insurgents encamped. The echoes of the mountain repeated the mournful sound of the lambi, the signal of the general insurrection; and the band encamped at Taverny swelled considerably at the report of the success it had won.