Guerrilla harassment by cultivators demoralized the French army

Evidence

The French troops could see, on the plantations near the roads, “cultivators with their families who were observing our movements.” Some shot at the soldiers who guarded the flanks of the unit. They fled as soon as detachments of soldiers were sent after them, but when these detachments returned they appeared and started firing again. “It was evident,” wrote Lacroix, “that we no longer inspired any moral terror, which is the worst thing that can happen to an army.” As a later chronicler wrote: “Everywhere the land harbored enemies—in the woods, behind a rock; liberty gave birth to them.” — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 967

Categorization

• SHARE: The quote ‘Everywhere the land harbored enemies—in the woods, behind a rock; liberty gave birth to them’ is exactly the kind of line a friend teaching insurgency history would savor.
• SEED: The contrast between formal siege warfare and ubiquitous civilian guerrilla resistance could anchor an essay on how the Haitian war was unwinnable by conventional European means.