The “War of the South,” as the conflict is usually called, is often presented as a racial conflict pitting Louverture’s black army against Rigaud’s free-coloreds. Before the revolution the south was a bastion for wealthy free-coloreds such as the Raimond family, and Rigaud was a member of this social group. Under his regime free-coloreds had filled posts as officers and had gained access to many of the abandoned properties in the south. There were, therefore, consistent tensions between the free-coloreds and the former slaves whose lives they governed and whose labor they often controlled. Although these tensions were driven primarily by the economic differences between the groups, given that so many of the wealthy and powerful in the region were of mixed European and African descent, while those they controlled were not, it was easy for former slaves to see racism at work. In the north, meanwhile, most of Louverture’s highest-ranking officers were entirely of African descent, and many had been slaves when they revolted in 1791. The contrast between the two leadership groups makes it tempting to see their conflict as primarily a race war.
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 African born 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.2