One street insult ignited a race war that burned Port-au-Prince

Evidence

Meanwhile the brief period of cooperation and peace between the freecoloreds and whites ended in a new outbreak of violence. On the day the municipality was scheduled to ratify the Concordat, a black Confederate soldier named Scapin was insulted in the street by a white soldier. They began to fight, and when the police arrived they arrested Scapin. News of the incident spread, and an angry white crowd pushed the police aside and lynched him. Enraged free-coloreds responded by shooting down a white “patriot.” A battle broke out in the streets of Port-au-Prince. The outnumbered free-colored soldiers retreated from the town, but whites killed freecolored civilians in the streets and murdered them in their homes. As the killing progressed, a devastating fire broke out in the city. Eight hundred houses were burnt to their foundations, and the city reduced to a “mound of ashes.” — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 410