In practice, the National Guard, sometimes present in significant numbers, were of limited help to the French regular forces. Three to four hundred were present in Fort Royal on Martinique in 1794, but Rochambeau explicitly excludes them from the praise he later gave to the French defenders. They performed little better at Fort Desaix 15 years later. Here there were an impressive 3,500 of them in the garrison. According to Admiral Louis Thomas Villaret, they started promisingly but soon melted away, led by the free blacks.
Whilst the troops of the line gave such a good example the gardes nationales who had been brought together from various locations, disbanded entirely and returned to their homes. That of Saint-Pierre, which the day before had shown up so well, refused to cooperate in the defence of Fort-de-France and also disappeared abandoning their senior officer Després and two or three officers who remained.
In 1802, a number of corps of local Gendarmerie were raised. They were never particularly large, perhaps a hundred strong on Martinique. A return for the troops on Guadeloupe in 1807 includes the Gendarmerie Impériale, but this was composed of only 23 men. Other distinct local regular corps were raised in somewhat greater numbers. As early as May 1793, a body of Chasseurs de Martinique was formed. This was 400 strong and in the pay of the Republic. Similar local chasseur forces were formed during the conflict, especially on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Further initiatives included the creation of a corps of black Pioneers drawn from local slaves and the formation of companies of black Ouvriers who were generally under the direct orders of artillery and engineer officers.2
It was very quickly obvious that Republican France could not rely upon regular European forces to wage war in the Caribbean. The ruthless civil commissioner Victor Hugues responded by emancipating the slaves and calling them into his service. This, as will be detailed in a later chapter, fundamentally changed the nature of the war in the region, meaning that British soldiers would be facing a different sort of enemy. Hugues’s success in driving this strategy and mobilising the blacks and mulattoes of the islands is clear from a return of Republican forces on Guadeloupe at the end of 1796 which shows that out of 4,600 ‘regulars’ only a thousand were white soldiers (2,500 blacks, 1,000 whites, 1,000 mulattoes and other mixed race). More bodies of black and mulatto troops, described as being ‘well disciplined’, were in place on St Lucia and Grenada.
British troops, assembled at Barbados in 1794, were informed by General Adam Williamson that they would not be facing the elite troops of Republican France, ‘…the enemy being made up chiefly of negroes and mulattoes with a very small proportion of regular troops, to be beat by whom would be so disgraceful that he cannot entertain the most distant thought of it’. Eyewitness accounts confirm that the British were often facing a non-white and diverse foe. In Saint Domingue in 1794, Ensign Harry Ross-Lewin of the 32nd watched the enemy march out of a captured fort; ‘…they were men of all shades of complexion from white to black’. John Moore noted enemy casualties at Morne Chabot on St Lucia in 1796; ‘Among the killed were two whites, the rest blacks and men of colour, but chiefly the former’. We have seen that some black troops in French service, notably those raised as National Guard, were unreliable but it is important not to over-generalise regarding their fighting abilities. The French commander on St Lucia, Gaspard Goyrand, had to rely increasingly on his black soldiers at the subsequent stubborn defence of Morne Fortune where, he tells us, ‘…the [British] companies of grenadiers and several others were repelled three times over by African citizens who had never held a rifle…’ After the capitulation to the British, Goyrand met his opponent, Sir Ralph Abercromby.
He treated me with great estimation; he admitted that our prolonged defence was designed to humiliate a victor, since I [Goyrand] had not even 90 European soldiers. He then said to the English officers, ‘These poor Africans that you have seen go past without stockings and shoes, have proved to us in the defence of this dump that they can distinguish good from bad when they are well led’.3
The most famous predominantly black army faced by the British in the Caribbean was that of Toussaint Louverture in Saint Domingue. Toussaint, born a slave in 1746, became the dominant black leader in the country, his sudden conversion to the Republican cause in the summer of 1794 being a major factor in Britain’s eventual evacuation of the colony. By 1797, he was recognised as ‘General in Chief’ of the armies of Saint Domingue by the French. After the British departure in 1798, Toussaint was to fight a war against Napoleon’s troops which culminated in his banishment to France and death in 1803. There is no doubt that he was an inspiring and capable military leader, his mere presence being enough to ‘electrify’ the men under his command.
Toussaint’s regular army was substantial. During the struggle against the British, his increasingly disciplined force, in part reinforced and armed from France, was divided into twelve colonial infantry demi-brigades, these corps operating in the north, the centre and the south. At the height of his power in 1801, his total force, including infantry, cavalry and artillery, amounted to over 20,000 men. The great majority were blacks but there were around a thousand mulattoes and perhaps 5−600 French troops. These men were led by black or mulatto generals. Most regimental officers were also non-European, although there were a few white Republican officers.
Toussaint left little to chance. His men were brave, had natural fighting ability, and knew the country. To these natural assets, he added discipline and drill. Marcus Rainsford, later a captain in the 3rd West India Regiment, witnessed a review of Toussaint’s forces.
Two thousand officers were in the field, carrying arms, from the general to the ensign, yet with the utmost attention to rank…Each general officer had a demi-brigade, which went through the manual exercise with a degree of expertise seldom witnessed, and performed equally well several manoeuvres applicable to their method of fighting. At a whistle a whole brigade ran three or four hundred yards, then separating, threw themselves flat on the ground, changing to their backs or sides, keeping up a strong fire for the whole of the time, till they were recalled; they then formed again, in an instant, into their wonted regularity. This single manoeuvre was executed with such facility and precision, as totally to prevent cavalry from charging them in bushy and hilly countries. Such complete subordination, such promptitude and dexterity, prevailed the whole time, as would have astonished any European soldier who had the smallest idea of their previous situation.
Toussaint was adept at tactics, marshalling his troops in such a way as to negate the advantages of European regulars. He relied on the terrain, on weight of numbers and the element of surprise. This was guerrilla-like warfare designed to frustrate and confuse his opponents. His black soldiers often operated in small squads of 10 to 12 men which would converge on the enemy from different directions, perhaps emerging from the woods at dawn in an attack en masse, scattering if there was significant resistance, continuing to snipe from behind trees and undergrowth. Larger bands of mounted raiders, 60 to 70 horsemen, would suddenly appear to attack a convoy or plantation before slipping through the fingers of their weary pursuers. Toussaint never missed an opportunity to exaggerate the strength of his forces and he was skilful in selecting his own battlefield. Later in the wars, he became more proficient at defending his captured territories. That Toussaint and his army became capable of sophisticated movement in the field is apparent from his account of an encounter with Dessource’s Volunteers in 1798.
The enemy had not taken the precaution to establish on the St Marc road reserve camps to protect his retreat. I used a trick to encourage him to pass by the highway; this is how. From the town of Verrettes he could see all my movements, so I made my army defile on the side of Mirebalais, where he could see it, so as to give him the idea that I was sending large reinforcements there: while a moment after I made it reenter the town of Petit-Rivière behind a hill without his perceiving it. He fell right into the snare, seeming even to hasten his retreat. I then made a large body of cavalry cro
ss the river, putting myself at the head of it in order to reach the enemy quickly and keep him busy, and in order to give time to my infantry which was coming up behind with a piece of cannon to join me. This manoeuvre succeeded marvellously.
Toussaint’s army had already proved that it was capable in conventional warfare, successfully storming and capturing several forts.
British officers were at first dismissive of Toussaint’s men. They complained that they ‘fought like apes and were worse than Arabs’. The black troops were regarded as ‘brigands’, a derisory catch-all term used to describe all black and other disaffected elements who opposed the British. Toussaint was ‘contemptible’ and the guerrilla tactics he employed were considered to be underhand and cowardly. Any acknowledgement of the enemy’s successes was grudging, generally attributed to perceived ‘slavish’ attributes such as cunning, toughness and an intimate knowledge of the ground. They thrived in the ‘poisonous air’ that the whites were unable to breathe. This perception changed with time, intelligent officers such as Thomas Phipps Howard still slow to praise but ultimately convinced of the daring, skill and military knowledge of the black and mulatto soldiers he faced. French officers were more forthcoming. Jean-Baptiste Lemonnier-Delafosse first encountered Toussaint’s army in 1802.
Fatal error! The French regarded these men as savages…Alas! Their perseverance in the struggle, their courageous resistance, destroying European science, proved the opposite to be true, and one could from that point predict the [French] failure which, later, would lead to the abandonment of the island.4
The British faced other redoubtable enemies in Saint Domingue. The mulatto leader, André Rigaud, was also a thorn in their side. Born in France, the son of a French lawyer and a mulatto woman, he was a natural convert to the Republican cause and his largely independent Légion de Sud operated against the British from the south of the colony. Rigaud had a reputation for cruelty, but he was also a talented and determined leader able to effectively manoeuvre his men. He was quoted as saying that the mulattoes’ ‘intuition’ arose from the combination of black and white in their souls. They were well adapted to the warfare of the country, able to survive on a minimal diet, to operate barefoot, and skilled as horseman and sharpshooters. The Légion de Sud was a sizeable enemy force, perhaps numbering 5,000 infantry and 1,200 cavalry in 1796 and around 8,000 strong in 1798. British officers had respect for the mulatto army, General Simcoe comparing it favourably with the local militia. Another commander in the colony, Thomas Maitland, believed that Rigaud was a finer soldier than Toussaint and that the mulattoes were more dangerous than black troops.5
On St Vincent, British forces were resisted by the native Carib population, who favoured the French and who welcomed the Republican emissaries of Victor Hugues in 1795. It seems that that they were regarded by British troops as being good jungle fighters, but less reliable in the open. Private John Simpson found the Caribs to be an elusive foe. They were, he says, ‘excellent climbers’ who were capable of launching attacks from the densest forest. Whenever the British retreated, the Caribs followed them ‘with as much rapidity as if they had sprung like monkeys from tree to tree’. We get a more rounded account of Carib fighters from French Republican Lieutenant of Artillery Alexandre Moreau de Jonnès, who was sent to St Vincent by Hugues to encourage action against the British.
Already for a long time had the Caribs adopted the use of firearms, though from necessity and custom they continued to use bows, tomahawks, and a cutlass which they handled every cleverly. I had obtained from Guadeloupe powder, balls, and some muskets, and I extracted from the wrecked frigate ten times as much by means of the Carib swimmers. At the same time, my artillerymen became instructors, teaching the Caribs to handle their muskets and to manoeuvre like our light troops. Success was prompt and effective. These were no dull peasants, but active hunters, with a straight eye and sure foot, who had only to learn to work together.
Moreau de Jonnès says that the Caribs soon became expert shots. He thought them to be superior to the motley reinforcements sent to the colony by Hugues; ‘They [the Caribs] were better disciplined than the soldiers, not so fierce as the negroes, and, besides, not so fond of drink as the sailors’.6
The Maroons of Jamaica were among the most daunting of Britain’s adversaries. They were descended from slaves who had fled to the hills from their Spanish masters when Britain conquered the island in 1655. Under the terms of a treaty signed with the British in the early eighteenth century, the Maroons were granted an apparent degree of independence and limited land in return for their cooperation in suppressing the King’s enemies and hunting down runaway slaves. It was a one-sided treaty, in the words of a modern historian the triumph ‘of a literate, sophisticated, cynical society motivated by expediency and gain, over an illiterate, vigorous but simple community skilled only in warfare and physical survival’. The uneasy peace was finally broken in 1795. It is unclear how many Maroons there were at this time, possibly around 1,500. There were five Maroon towns including Trelawny Town in the parish of St James and Accompong Town in St Elizabeth.
Contemporary historians, including Robert Dallas who penned a famous history of the conflict on Jamaica published in 1803, were quick to denounce the Maroons, but they had to admit that they were formidable warriors. Dallas believed them to be superior to other races of African descent.
…erect and lofty…vigour appeared upon their muscles and their motions displayed agility. Their eyes were quick, wild and fiery… [and] they possessed most, if not all, of the senses in a superior degree.
West Indian planter Bryan Edwards, whose History of the West Indies appeared in 1806, broadly agreed with Dallas although he thought the Maroons’ taste to be ‘depraved’ as they preferred rum to wine, a judgment he does not apply to British soldiers.
Allied to these physical attributes, the Maroons were willing to rally behind a good leader and were capable of, in Dallas’s words, a ‘regular and concerted system of warfare’. They used ammunition cautiously and fully exploited the Cockpits, narrow valleys enclosed by rocks and mountains which formed natural fortifications. Most of the island’s paths led to a Cockpit entrance where the Maroons lay in wait.
At this mouth which looks like a great fissure made through the rock by some extraordinary convulsion of nature, from two hundred yards to half a mile in length, and through which men can only pass in single file, the Maroons, whenever they expected an attack, disposed of themselves on the ledges of the rocks on both sides. Sometimes they advanced a party beyond the entrance of the defile, frequently in a line on each side, if the ground would admit; and lay covered by the underwood, and behind rocks and the roots of trees, waiting in silent ambush for their pursuers, of whose approach they had always information from their out-scouts. These [British soldiers], after a long march, oppressed by fatigue and thirst, advance towards the mouth of the defile, through the track obscured by trees and underwood, in an approach of many windings, which are either occasioned by the irregularity of the ground, or designedly made for the purpose of exposing the assailants to the attacks of the different parties in ambush. A favourable opportunity is taken, when the enemy is within a few paces, to fire upon them from one side. If the party surprised return the fire on the spot where they see the smoke of the discharge, and prepare to rush on towards it, they receive a volley in another direction. Stopped by this, and undecided which party to pursue, they are staggered by the discharge of a third volley from the entrance of the defile. In the meantime the concealed Maroons, fresh, and thoroughly acquainted with their ground, vanish almost unseen before their enemies have reloaded. The [British] troops, after losing more men, are under the necessity of retreating; and return to their posts, frequently without shoes on their feet, lame, and for some time unfit for service.7
British soldiers faced similar challenges on Grenada and St Lucia. On the former island, the local revolutionary forces were led by the feared Julien Fédon. Again, officers were surprised by
the obduracy of their mostly black adversaries, William Dyott admitting that Fédon’s men were capable of stiff resistance. They were, he said, able to bear much suffering and were also extremely mobile; ‘It is astonishing with what incredible alacrity the negroes got through the woods, and how nimbly they scrambled up and down the hills’. When Fédon’s posts were captured, his notepaper, which was found to be headed ‘Liberté, Égalité, La Loi’, left no doubt as to the insurrectionists’ sympathies. British forces on St Lucia also endured prolonged periods of guerrilla-type warfare. When Thomas Henry Browne captured 500 prisoners he found, to his ‘mortification’, that there was not a single white soldier among them. John Moore confirms the commitment of the insurgents.
Their attachment and fidelity to the cause is great; they go to death with indifference. One man the other day denied, and persevered in doing so, that he had ever been with them or knew anything of them. The instant before he was shot he called out ‘Vive le république’.
Moore says that the insurgents carried out numerous atrocities, a fact he attributed to them being directed by ‘vagabonds’ from France.8
Finally, in this brief overview of Britain’s enemies in the Caribbean, we should consider the troops of other European nations. The Dutch had significant interests in the region, including the colonies of Surinam and Demerara on the South American mainland. After the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, a number of light infantry (Jager) battalions and artillery detachments were sent to strengthen these garrisons. When the British captured Surinam in 1804 the prisoners were a mix of two Jager regiments (shown as chasseurs in the return) and Colonial White Chasseurs and Colonial Black Rangers in addition to engineers and artillery. Ralph Abercromby’s assaults on Trinidad and Puerto Rico in 1797 brought his army into contact with Spanish forces. At Trinidad, the larger part of the garrison was actually made up of naval forces, but there was also a small army contingent consisting of the Trinidad Regiment and supporting artillery and engineers, in all about 600 troops. The raising of local militia and an uneasy combination of French Royalists and Republicans meant that it was a typically polyglot Caribbean force. On Puerto Rico, the Spanish garrison was both better motivated and stronger, including 1,200 regular soldiers. Denmark and Sweden both had minor possessions in the West Indies but they were only weakly garrisoned by their European troops who caused little trouble to the British.9
Death Before Glory Page 4
