Louverture began securing emancipation even against French metropolitan authority itself.

Evidence

Louverture’s flouting of metropolitan authority had reached new heights. He was negotiating with Britain independently as the ruler of Saint-Domingue. He had his reasons to be angry with the French government, which had sent a man with no colonial experience, surrounded by a racist entourage, to give him orders. Why, Louverture may have wondered, didn’t the Directory regime place its confidence in the hands of those, like him, who had been most responsible for preserving and governing the colony? Why did they send whites to command him, when he had proven his loyalty and competence over the past years? In his writings Louverture expressed hope for reconciliation and for unified Republican support of emancipation. But his actions suggest that he was increasingly wary of the French government and of the fragility of its commitment to freedom. He began to make sure that liberty could be protected, even against France itself. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 768

Categorization

• XREF: Pivotal turn in the arc toward eventual rupture with France — connects to the later war against Leclerc and final independence.