Louverture explained that, as they waited for the “rainy season that will rid us of our enemies” through disease, their only “resource” was “destruction and fire.” It was crucial that “the land bathed in our sweat” not afford any provisions to the invading army. Dessalines should destroy the roads, order that “corpses and horses” be thrown into springs, and “annihilate and burn everything” so that “those who have come to put us back into slavery will always find in front of them the image of the hell they deserve.”

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 397