War Of Knives

The War of Knives (June 1799 – August 1800) was the civil war between Toussaint Louverture's forces in the north and west and André Rigaud's regime in the South Province, a conflict that divided revolutionary Saint-Domingue along regional and racial lines. Toussaint delegated much of the southern campaign to Dessalines, whose reprisals against mulatto communities were brutal enough that Toussaint later reproved him: 'I ordered you to prune the tree, not to uproot it.' Rigaud's defeat unified the colony under Toussaint for the first time, but the destruction left Saint-Domingue vulnerable to the Leclerc expedition and created resentments that persisted into independence.