France seriously weighed allying with rather than invading Saint-Domingue

Evidence

In mid- November 1801 the British had not yet announced to the French that they would accept the departure of a large expeditionary force to the Caribbean. Bonaparte and his strategists had concluded that in order to be successful his troops must occupy Saint-Domingue before April, because later in the year “the climate of the colonies becomes very dangerous for European troops who are not acclimated to it.” If the troops were unable to leave early enough, Bonaparte would have to delay his expedition, and he might well end up having to “recognize Toussaint” and accept the existence of “black Frenchmen” in Saint-Domingue. Although this would mean the loss of income for France—free labor, he was convinced, would be less profitable than slavery, and more black soldiers would mean fewer agricultural workers—it would be to its military advantage. Talleyrand passed on these reflections to the French ambassador in Britain, noting that “Saint- Domingue reconquered by the whites” would “for many years” be a weak power, one that would survive only through “a long peace and support from the mother country.” “The government of the blacks recognized in Saint-Domingue and legitimized by France,” in contrast, would be a “formidable base for the Republic in the New World.” France could collaborate with Louverture, using Saint-Domingue as a military base and deploying its black army against the colonies of its enemies. The Republic could, as it had in the mid-1790s, use emancipation as a potent weapon of imperial war. If a “new power” were “constituted and recognized” in Saint- Domingue, Talleyrand asserted, “the scepter of the New World” would “sooner or later” fall into France’s hands. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 920

Categorization

• SEED: Essay angle: the counterfactual of France embracing a black ally in 1801 — a whole different Atlantic history.