Hédouville’s ouster of Moïse signaled a retreat from emancipation by returning escaped slaves.

Evidence

By 1798 Moïse commanded the garrison at Fort-Liberté (formerly Fort-Dauphin), close to Le Cap. In mid-July Hédouville accused Moïse of gathering cultivators on a plantation, presumably with a seditious intent, though he allowed him to remain at his post. In October, however, using a series of fights in the town as a pretext, Hédouville effectively deposed Moïse, placing a local black official in charge of the town and an officer named Grandet in charge of the troops of Fort-Dauphin. Moïse and his supporters saw this as an attack against the black army, and even against the regime of liberty itself. Indeed, just as the conflict between Hédouville and Moïse was beginning, Moïse complained that Grandet was capturing fugitive blacks who had escaped from slavery on the Spanish side of the island, and was returning them to their masters on the other side of the border. To Moïse and others this policy portended a dangerous retreat from the principle of emancipation. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 774