WI: A reconquest of Haiti by Restoration France?

As for the Louverture idea, it would definitely work for the short-term but after his death? At best some of his more radical lieutenants would simply take power and at worse the entire thing falls back into civil war, which I suppose could be a good thing for France, as it would give then the opportunity to invade under the guise of restoring order

Why not Lourverture as subcommander under an Sonthonax regeime? Then after he died his men could be steadily integrated into a French Republican army more broadly based in the former slave population. Arguably, since Sonthonax lives until 1813, if he could hold onto the island it will slip into a succession struggle JUST as there's no Empire left to smooth the transition and the Restoration regeime has the perfect chance to pounce
 
Why not Lourverture as subcommander under an Sonthonax regeime? Then after he died his men could be steadily integrated into a French Republican army more broadly based in the former slave population. Arguably, since lives until 1813, if he could hold onto the island it will slip into a succession struggle JUST as there's no Empire left to smooth the transition and the Restoration regeime has the perfect chance to pounce

That's not a bad idea but it would necessitate a POD much farther back than the one I'm using and I'm not sure I want to do that. Also, wouldn't the continuation of French rule during the Napoléonic era also effect the Louisiana Purchase?
 
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Another question then; why was Haiti able to resist the reimposition of slavery and ultimately declare independence instead of being reconquered/reinslaved like the rest of the French West Indies? Was it better organization, a large population to resist, was slavery simply that much worse there then on the other islands, another reason I'm not thinking of or simply a combination of everything above.

Slavery had never been abolished on Martinique, St Lucia or Tobago - they were occupied by the British when the 1794 decree was made. It was only Guadeloupe and Guyana where slavery was abolished and then re-established. Guyana at this time hardly had any people while Guadeloupe had not gone through a decade of warfare like Saint-Domingue had. The Haitians had veteran troops that had previously battled the French, British and Spanish. They also had a larger population/territory, there was the yellow fever epidemic that killed a lot of Leclerc's troops, and finally, the British got involved on their side.
 
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You know, more that I look at the Saint-Domingue expedition, it seems to me that the French ran into quite a bit of bad luck. I mean they lost their Supreme commander (Charles Leclerc) and one of the more capable generals (Antoine Richepanse) to Yellow fever, while the only Général that might have been able to reconcile the native elite to French rule (Jean Boudet) was heavily injured and forced to cede command to the Vicomte de Rochambeau, whose extremism and incompetence united the entire population against him. Not to mention Leclerc failed to properly disarm Lourverture's junior officers, even though it should have been obvious to him that only slavery was reimposed they would all defect/rise up. Then, on the flipside, the only leader the Haitians lost was Lourverture.

So, what if that situation was reversed, with the Haitains losing all or most of their leaders and the French only losing Leclerc and Rochambeau (and leaving Boudet in charge to sweeten the pot)? I mean I can easily find instances where both Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe could have died in the early months of the expedition, while Alexandre Pétion could have been arrested and deported with Lourverture. Maybe combine this with NOT removing André Rigaud, the most pro-French of the Haitians and the one who could have brought the mulattos over to the side of the French (provided that they're given full citizenship and are considered equal to the whites in the equality in the eyes of the law). It might be a bit hand-wavy but I think its doable. Plus it likely wouldn't effect the rest of the Napoléonic wars all that much; cash-strapped Napoléon would likely still sell Louisiana to the U.S. and, in the event of a Spanish reconquest of their half of Hispaniola, the French would just retreat back to Saint-Domingue.
 
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