were four hundred and fifty-two thousand, arose in revolt to help the
free Negroes.

For many years runaway slaves under their own chiefs had hidden in the
mountains. One of the earliest of these chiefs was Polydor, in 1724, who
was succeeded by Macandal. The great chief of these runaways or
"Maroons" at the time of the slave revolt was Jean Francois, who was
soon succeeded by Biassou.

Pierre Dominic Toussaint, known as Toussaint L'Ouverture, joined these
Maroon bands, where he was called "the doctor of the armies of the
king," and soon became chief aid to Jean Francois and Biassou. Upon
their deaths Toussaint rose to the chief command. He acquired complete
control over the blacks, not only in military matters, but in politics
and social organization; "the soldiers regarded him as a superior being,
and the farmers prostrated themselves before him. All his generals
trembled before him (Dessalines did not dare to look in his face), and
all the world trembled before his generals."

The revolt once started, blacks and mulattoes murdered whites without
mercy and the whites retaliated. Commissioners were sent from France,
who asked simply civil rights for freedmen, and not emancipation. Indeed
that was all that Toussaint himself had as yet demanded. The planters
intrigued with the British and this, together with the beheading of the
king (an impious act in the eyes of Negroes), induced Toussaint to join
the Spaniards. In 1793 British troops were landed and the French
commissioners in desperation declared the slaves emancipated. This at
once won back Toussaint from the Spaniards. He became supreme in the
north, while Rigaud, leader of the mulattoes, held the south and the
west. By 1798 the British, having lost most of their forces by yellow
fever, surrendered Mole St. Nicholas to Toussaint and departed. Rigaud
finally left for France, and Toussaint in 1800 was master of Hayti. He
promulgated a constitution under which Hayti was to be a self-governing
colony; all men were equal before the law, and trade was practically
free. Toussaint was to be president for life, with the power to name his
successor.

Napoleon Bonaparte, master of France, had at this time dreams of a great
American empire, and replied to Toussaint's new government by sending
twenty-five thousand men under his brother-in-law to subdue the
presumptuous Negroes, as a preliminary step to his occupation and
development of the Mississippi valley. Fierce fightin