Jean-François’s Fort-Dauphin massacre shattered the Spanish alliance of white planters and black insurgents

Evidence

The defeated Jean-François took a curious revenge, one that reflected the unraveling of Spanish designs on Saint-Domingue. In the town of Fort- Dauphin, while an “immobile” Spanish garrison looked on, he had his troops slaughter 700 of the French planters who had rallied to the Spanish side. The brutal act made clear that the alliance the Spanish had tried to build between exiled white planters and black auxiliaries drawn from slave insurgents was untenable. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 620

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘immobile garrison watching’ detail is a striking set piece — a possible opening vignette for writing about how colonial alliances of convenience self-destruct.