Hédouville’s machinations deepened the Louverture-Rigaud rift

Evidence

Hédouville intentionally treated Rigaud more warmly than he did Louverture, seeking to create jealousy between the two men. Before he was expelled from the colony a few months later, Hédouville planted another “seed of contention” between them. In a letter to Rigaud, Hédouville criticized the “perfidy of General Toussaint Louverture, who is sold to the English, the émigrés, and the Americans.” “I absolve you entirely of the authority he was given as general-in-chief,” he wrote, and invited Rigaud “to take command of the Department of the South.” — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 810

Categorization

• XREF: A colonial power deliberately dividing local leaders is a recurring pattern — resonates with the divide-and-rule dynamics in Midwife’s Tale-era colonial administration and elsewhere.