Sonthonax failed to break Rigaud’s hold over southern Saint-Domingue

Evidence

Welcomed in Le Cap, the commissioners were less warmly received in other parts of the colony. Suspecting Rigaud of a role in encouraging the Villatte conspiracy, and wishing to bring the south more firmly under his command, Sonthonax sent several delegates to the region. Following his orders, they sought to loosen Rigaud’s hold on power by turning plantation workers against him. They criticized his plantation regime as tyrannical and publicly destroyed cachots (prisons)—which were still used to punish recalcitrant workers on plantations—promising that the commissioners would bring them a truer freedom. In Les Cayes they sought to take control of the administration and the army. Not surprisingly, their actions— coupled with their inept and provocative behavior toward local leaders— incited a hostile reaction. Rigaud and his partisans turned the tables on the delegates, mobilizing plantation workers by spreading the rumor that they had come to restore slavery. Soon an uprising was under way against the delegates, who fled for their lives. Rigaud had preserved his control over the south, and although his actions enraged the commissioners in Le Cap, they could do little to resist him. A second mission in 1797, during which the commissioners sought to use the “African eloquence” of one former slave to gain converts among the workers of the south, made no headway. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 709

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Le Cap-Villatte and Rigaud factional division established in earlier chapters; this is the north-south fracture that later erupts in the War of the South.