The War of the South crossed racial lines on both sides despite appearances

Evidence

In fact, however, there was quite a bit of diversity on both sides. There were many free-coloreds and whites who fought with Louverture’s forces during the war, and some of them distinguished themselves for their ferocity against Rigaud’s partisans. And there were also ex-slave leaders who, disenchanted with Louverture’s regime, and particularly with his close ties to returning white planters, took advantage of the war to strike out against his regime. In the north, several ex-slave officers supported Rigaud during uprisings against Louverture, notably Pierre Michel, who had helped to suppress the Villatte uprising in Le Cap in 1796. In the west the Africanborn Lamour Desrances, who controlled mountain areas around Port-au- Prince, also sided with Rigaud. The war cannot be explained simply as a conflict between two racial groups. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 814

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the North Vietnamese/US Civil War framing where ideological lines cut across ethnic categories taught as monolithic.