Petit-Goave. Lamarre declares for the insurrection; Gérin and Yayou meet; Pétion joins the insurgents

He established himself at the Bridge of Miragoâne, which crosses the lake of that name, the boundary, on the north side of the peninsula, between the provinces of the West and the South. At once he sent the citizens Calice Brouard and Nicolas Brouard to Colonel Lamarre at Petit-Goâve to win him over to the insurrection. Lamarre, colonel of the 24th, was at the head of 1,800 men who obeyed him blindly. When the two envoys reached Petit-Goâve they announced publicly that they had taken refuge with their families so as to take no part in what was happening at L’Anse-à-Veau. But on the other hand they obtained a private interview with Lamarre and set out for him the object of their coming. Lamarre rejected their proposal and ordered the Chabanne bridge fortified, at the entrance of Petit-Goâve on the side of the Bridge of Miragoâne. He wrote to General Yayou, commander of the arrondissement, who was at Léogane, that the troops of the South meant to invade the province of the West. Yayou at once informed Pétion, commander of the 2nd military division of the West, of what he had just learned. In the midst of this, an old man named Jérôme came to the Chabanne bridge and handed Lamarre a letter that Borgella had addressed to him on leaving Aquin for L’Anse-à-Veau, when he was on his way to Gérin. Its effect was prodigious. It began with these words: To arms! To arms! dear Lamarre! the voice of your brothers calls you to the aid of the fatherland! Lamarre was suddenly shaken. The letter reminded him of his dearest former comrades in arms, whom he was about to fight, the men to whom he had many a time said that he had nothing but praise for the Emperor, but that if the Emperor went on giving himself up to every kind of excess, their party would be his. He resolved to declare for the insurrection. The night was far advanced; toward daybreak on the 14th General Yayou entered Petit-Goâve at the head of the troops of Léogane, and almost at the same moment Gérin took prisoner Eveillard, an officer of the 24th commanding the post at the Bridge of Miragoâne, and entered Petit-Goâve after covering six leagues at the double. Lamarre urged Yayou to obtain an interview with Gérin, and advised Gérin to have Fort Liberté occupied, a short distance from the town, where there was only a weak garrison. Gérin seized the position at once, installed there the second battalion of the 15th, commanded by Léveillé, and accepted the interview Yayou had proposed to him. Although he set out warmly for that general the causes that had led him to take up arms against Dessalines, he could not carry him along. Yayou answered him: I would be one of you if, in your party, inferiors had known how to respect their superiors. Has not General Vaval already been put to death? Gérin ordered Vaval to be brought into the room. At the sight of him Yayou, astonished, wavered. Nevertheless he raised a few more objections on the rashness of the undertaking, which were successfully answered. He left the place of the interview declaring that he would take no decision until he had heard General Pétion. At that same moment an aide-de-camp of the Emperor, Commandant Delpêche, entered Petit-Goâve. He was charged with making his way into the South, ascertaining the scale of the revolt, and reporting on it to His Majesty. As the insurrection had reached Petit-Goâve, he could not get past that town to reach the Bridge of Miragoâne; he took the road back to Marchand in all haste.

Pétion had left Port-au-Prince with the eleventh and twelfth demi-brigades, marching against the department of the South. Germain Frère, carried away by his zeal, had abandoned his post as commander of the arrondissement to follow him. On learning the formidable character of the revolt, Pétion had resolved to join the army of the South; he took good care not to leave behind him an enterprising man like Germain Frère, who would have opposed his return to Port-au-Prince and would have defended that town vigorously against the insurgents until Dessalines arrived. When he reached Léogane he met General Magloire Ambroise, who, though ill, had had himself carried there to confer with him. He talked with this general for an hour, confided to him that he was going to join the insurgents, and ordered him to go to Jacmel and declare against Dessalines. Continuing his rapid march, he went on ahead of his troops, left General Germain Frère at Grand-Goâve to wait there for the 11th and 12th, crossed the Tapion on 15 October at ten in the morning, and was received with distinction by Lieutenant Solage, who was at the head of the first company of grenadiers of the advance guard of the insurrectionary army. He caught sight of General Yayou, who was hurrying alone to meet him. Yayou came up to him and told him of the conversation he had had with Gérin the day before. Pétion said to him: “Good; let us not lose a moment; let us accept the insurrection, for Dessalines will be upon us, perhaps tomorrow.” He entered Petit-Goâve at noon, fraternized with the insurgents and agreed to leave the chief command of the army to General Gérin.* The insurgent troops at once filed off for Port-au-Prince at the double; they still had seventeen leagues to cover. On reaching Grand-Goâve, Gérin was struck by the cold attitude of the two demi-brigades of the West. Germain Frère, surrounded by the corps of the South, pretended to accept the revolution: he was temporizing so as to declare for Dessalines at Port-au-Prince. Gérin had the 15th and 16th take the right, placed in the center the 11th and 12th, whom he mistrusted, and put the 24th in the rear guard. Many armed citizens, women and children followed the army, singing in Creole across the hills and the plain: The devil has broken his chains, let Dessalines be taken!** Yet everywhere along their way they respected property. The insurrection was wholly military, and the cultivators very seldom left their work to run to arms. The insurgents reached Léogane at sunset and spent the night there. The next day, the 16th, at daybreak, the 15th, 16th, 11th, 12th, 21st and 24th demi-brigades and three squadrons of dragoons, ten thousand men, set out for Port-au-Prince and arrived there at four in the afternoon. General Germain Frère, who had been arrested on the way, was thrown into prison. The troops of the South at once crossed the town and did not halt until they reached the Saint-Joseph gate. The command of the arrondissement was entrusted to one Dieudonné Charlot, aide-de-camp to Pétion; and the commandant of the town, Bédouet, on whose life an attempt was made, escaped and went into hiding. Gérin placed the 15th and 16th demi-brigades in ambush at the Pont-Rouge; he posted the 21st and 24th at the Saint-Joseph gate, and the 11th and 12th remained in the center of the town under Pétion’s eye.