as the sovereignty of France was finally avowed.
T his made the blacks fight with desperation for the
preservation of their freedom. T h e conflict was
carried on mainly in the old French colony at the
western end of the island. Y e llow fever came to
the aid of the struggling negroes and threatened the
French army with destruction. Then General Le-
clerc resorted again to tricks of diplomacy. § Having
won over the two black generals Dessalines and
Christophe to his scheme b y plausible representations,
he finally induced Toussaint himself to consent
upon solemnly repeated assurances of good
faith, to a plan of holding a representative assembly
of the people of the island, which should provide
for their future liberty and welfare. Then b y base
pretences Toussaint L ’Ouverture was enticed to a
conference in Gonaive, seized and carried to France,
where he died of neglect and starvation in the dungeons
of the Chateau Joux.
General Leclerc had remained behind and assumed
the title of governor-general, but the insurrection
broke out with new violence under Dessalines,
Christophe, and other lieutenants of Toussaint
L ’Ouverture. On the death of Leclerc, General
Rochambeau succeeded to the command and continued
a ruthless policy. Bloodhounds were brought
from Cuba to reinforce the French army and hunt
the blacks from their hiding-places, while a raging
epidemic of yellow fever rendered the army itself
well-nigh helpless. This horrible warfare was kept
up with appalling barbarity and suffering on both
sides, but the debilitated French soldiers were finally
penned up at Cape François (now Cape Haitien),
and forced to eat their Cuban bloodhounds or die of
starvation and disease. T h e y finally surrendered,
and France lost the greatest of her West Indian
colonies forever. T h e Haitians formally declared
their independence anew on the 1st of January,
1804, and General Dessalines was made governor for
life with the right to name his successor. He soon
declared himself emperor, with the title of Jacques
I ., and proceeded to order every French person on
the island to be put to death, turning out to be such
a murderous brute that in 1806 he was assassinated
by his own soldiers.
Rival negro chiefs then divided the heritage.
Christophe established himself in the north-west as
“ chief magistrate for life ,” with his capital at Cape
Haitien, but in 18x1 he proclaimed himself king
in that domain with the title of Henri I ., and built
a strong castle and a pleasure palace some distance
from the coast. In the meantime, Spain, with
the help of the English, had recovered nominal
control of her old colony in the east. In the
south-western peninsula, a mulatto named Petion
held sway with headquarters at Port-au-Prince. He
was a comparatively wise and benign ruler, and died
in 1818 much regretted by his people. In 1820, the
black king, Christophe, shot himself, and General
Boyer became president of the Republic of Haiti,
which now included both sections of the western
end of the island. Its independence was acknowledged
by France in 1825, upon an agreement for
the payment of 125,000,000 francs to indemnify