Dessalines promised his troops independence with no whites remaining in Saint-Domingue
Evidence
“Listen well! If Dessalines surrenders to them a hundred times, he will betray them a hundred times.” They would see that “when the French are reduced to small, small numbers, we will harass them and beat them; we will burn the harvests and then take to the hills. They will be forced to leave.” “Then,” announced Dessalines, “I will make you independent. There will be no more whites among us.” — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 968
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
Related
- Dessalines publicly promised independence and total expulsion of whites (similarity 0.91)
- Dessalines openly told his troops he would feign surrender and betray (similarity 0.87)
- Dessalines publicly renounced the French mission and its massacres. (similarity 0.85)
- Dessalines served as a brutal instrument of Leclerc’s counterinsurgency (similarity 0.82)
- MoĂŻse advocated expelling all whites from Saint-Domingue as early as 1798 (similarity 0.80)
- MoĂŻse welcomed a French invasion as a source of captured weaponry (similarity 0.80)
- Dessalines waged brutal counterinsurgency against former comrades while serving the French (similarity 0.80)
- Leclerc’s need for black troops forced him to postpone their destruction (similarity 0.80)
- Dessalines pre-authorized killing of French-allied whites but spared culturally assimilated ones. (similarity 0.80)
- Slave rebels sought freedom through alliance with France, not secession (similarity 0.80)
- Dessalines burned Saint-Marc and massacred its white residents in retreat. (similarity 0.80)
- Dessalines initially helped the French crush Belair’s uprising against them. (similarity 0.79)
- Dessalines broke with the French over their massacres of blacks (similarity 0.79)
- Dessalines’ troops massacred hundreds of white prisoners during retreat. (similarity 0.79)
- French commissioners sent to end the revolt would end up embracing it instead (similarity 0.79)