By the time Dessalines had reached the mountains, he had very few white prisoners with him. Questioned by Louverture, he claimed they had been captured by French troops, been killed in combat, or had escaped. Descourtilz wrote that he had witnessed them being slaughtered by the hundreds under Dessalines's direct orders. His account was corroborated by Lacroix, who described finding 800 corpses in the town of Verrettes as he pursued Dessalines's retreating troops, and coming across other piles of bodies along the route they had taken into the mountains.

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 404