Bonaparte planned to exploit internal Saint-Domingue resentments against Louverture

Evidence

In his instructions to General Leclerc, Bonaparte set out a three-stage plan for destroying Louverture’s regime. It depended on force, but also on ruse. On his arrival, Leclerc was to rally support in Spanish Santo Domingo, as well as make contact with the “negroes” who were “enemies of Toussaint” in the region of Môle, where Louverture had suffered repeated challenges to his authority. André Rigaud and his comrade Alexandre Pétion, exiled since their defeat by Louverture a few years before, were invited to join the expedition with a similar goal in mind: the French hoped they would help mobilize sectors of the population of free people of color, who they rightly assumed still resented Louverture. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 902