Fiolle. Goman joins the insurgents there

While Lamarre was carrying the war into the North, the revolt of the Grand’Anse was gaining strength. We have seen that Lieutenant-Colonel Goman, of the 19th demi-brigade, had become its chief. He took the title of general of brigade and from then on acknowledged the authority of Christophe. He called the soldiers of the Republic insurgents, as the President and Generalissimo of the State of Haiti did in the North; in the mornes where he kept his headquarters, now on one plantation, now on another, he maintained an order rare in such circumstances, and he kept up an understanding with several citizens of Jérémie who secretly sent him munitions of war and gold braid. These men hoped, should Christophe succeed in defeating the Republic, to be kept in their positions through Goman’s protection. Saint-Louis Boteau, his first lieutenant, whom he had named principal inspector, set to work in the fields all the laborers who did not form part of the body of fighters and who lay within the reach of the revolt. He wrote to Goman that the working of the plantations must not be neglected, or else the insurrection, deprived of resources, would succumb. He had been the first to come to terms with Goman, after the attack on Jérémie of 8 January 1807, and had drawn him into the movement, as we have seen. Goman had put himself at the head of the insurgents on the 4th of February of that year, after joining them on the Fiolle plantation in the heights of Dame-Marie. They had entrusted him with the supreme command as the senior soldier.