On 17 September 1792, the commissars Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, Étienne Polverel and Jean-Antoine Ailhaud landed in Cap-Français with 6,000 men from the French Republican army.

Their mission was to pacify Saint-Domingue and enforce the law of April 4, which proclaimed the right to vote for free people, including blacks and mulattoes, and imposed the dissolution of the white-only colonial assembly.

Sonthonax arrested Governor Philippe François Rouxel de Blanchelande on September 20, suspected of conspiracy, who was then deported to France where he was guillotined on April 11, 1793.

[7][3] These measures, favorable to the mulattoes and the free people of color, provoked the irritation of the grands blancs who fear the abolition of slavery.

[8] On January 25, 1793, in Port-au-Prince, the colonists, led by Borel, armed their slaves, joined forces with the soldiers of the Artois regiment and made themselves masters of the city.

The colonists then sent a courier to London and declare themselves ready to pass under the suzerainty of the Kingdom of Great Britain in exchange for the conservation of their laws.

[9][10] The colonists of Jérémie in the south of the island revolt in their turn, they form a government which takes the name of "Federation of Grande Anse", arm their slaves and make massacre the free of color, whose heads are brought on spades and exposed at Fort Lapointe.

[10][11] On May 7, 1793, while the commissioners were busy fighting the rebellion in the south, Brigadier General François-Thomas Galbaud du Fort, of the Republican army, landed in Cap-Français to hold the post of governor.

The colonists show more and more openly their opposition to the commissioners, and Sonthonax and Polverel must hastily return to Cape Town on June 10.

Shortly afterwards a ship entered the harbor carrying 25 to 30 colonists and about 40 soldiers of the Artois regiment taken prisoner during the insurrection of Port-au-Princes, who were to be deported to France "to learn how to lose their color prejudice," According to one observer.

[13][14] Exasperated, settlers and sailors sent a delegation to Galbaud on June 19 asking him to take the lead in the insurgency that was being prepared against the commissioners and mulattoes.

[16]The proclamation was entrusted to the Mulatto officer Antoine Chanlatte who, accompanied by two white adventurers, Ginioux and Galineux Degusy, gave it to the rebel slaves who camped on the heights of Morne du Cap.

[17] On June 21, 10,000 rebel slaves commanded by Macaya and Pierrot arrive on Cap-Français, where the white insurgents were completely overwhelmed.

They fled and boarded the ships in great confusion in the retirement of the sailors get drunk and plundered several houses and shops they occupied.

[20] Most of the white civilian population (as well as some of the rich gens de couleur libres) took refuge on the ships which had crowded in the city harbor awaiting the commissioner's permission to depart, and left the island with them.

[20] On 24 June, du Fort and survivors, numbering several thousand, embarked on the ships the Aeolus and Jupiter and several frigates in the harbor of Cape Town.