War brought with it an old question, one that had split the slave insurgents in 1791: What was to be done with the whites? For nearly a decade an uneasy peace had existed in Saint-Domingue between white and black soldiers who served side by side, and between white and black plantation managers and the plantation laborers. Tensions had simmered, and sometimes exploded, as they had in the October 1801 insurrection on the northern plain, but generally whites in the colony were safe under Louverture's regime. With the arrival of the Leclerc expedition, however, many whites soon found themselves hostages of the rebels.

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 402