Louverture’s authoritarian turn estranged even fellow defenders of liberty

Evidence

Joining Hédouville in his flight were the commissioner Julien Raimond and several black officers, including Pierre Léveillé, one of the heroes of the Villatte affair, and Jean-Baptiste Belley, who had returned to the colony after serving out his term in Paris. Such men were, like Louverture and unlike Hédouville, deeply committed to defending emancipation and racial equality. But they were disturbed by various aspects of Louverture’s increasingly authoritarian exercise of power, his friendly dealings with the British, his generosity to and closeness with returning planters, and his bold dismissal of official French emissaries such as Hédouville. Louverture saw his actions as vital to the preservation and consolidation of liberty. But, increasingly, he was alienating not only metropolitan emissaries but also some who had fought the battle for equality with him. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 775

Categorization

• QUESTION: Which aspects of Louverture’s power did these black officers specifically repudiate, and how did loyalty fractures forecast later splits?