French troops massacred insurgent camps and found Spanish supplying the rebels

Evidence

Since the beginning of the insurrection, the main Gallifet plantation had grown into a fortified base from which frequent raids were launched. In late September about 900 troops under Tousard’s command attacked before dawn and soon overran the camp. Most of those who had been living there had fled a few days before, carrying “an immense quantity of valuable effects.” Most of the 2,000 who had stayed behind were old, sick, or simply wished “for an opportunity to escape; being reduced to an allowance of two bananas a day” in the insurgent camp. The attackers, however, “had orders to give no quarter to men, women or children,” and once they took the camp a “horrid carnage ensued.” As the soldiers ransacked and burnt the buildings, the “many sick, and old negroes” they encountered “were all either destroyed in the fire or by the sword.” The troops freed several white prisoners and found proof that the insurgents were receiving aid from the Spanish: a cannon with a Spanish inscription and a letter from a commander named Don Alonzo. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 392

Categorization

• XREF: Spanish involvement here prefigures the Saint-Domingue colony’s role in the wider Franco-Spanish imperial rivalry that will recur throughout the revolution’s arc.