Free black deserters delivered the ammunition and cannon that let insurgents take border towns.

Evidence

The towns of Fort-Dauphin and Ounaminthe, near the Spanish border, were taken over by the insurgents thanks to the desertion of Jean-Baptiste Marc and Cézar, two “free blacks” who had fought for several months against the “brigands” before joining them, bringing ammunition and cannon. Slaves who had been employed hunting for their masters had experience with firearms. One visitor to the colony in the late 1790s described some hunters, who seem to have developed their skills as slaves before emancipation, who each week were given enough powder for seven shots. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 374

Categorization

• XREF: Concrete case of how the insurgency was armed and supplied by defectors—echoes material-transfer dynamics in the American Revolution.