It was fought on 18 November 1803 between the enslaved Haitian army and Napoleon's French expeditionary forces, who were committed to regaining control of the island.

From the ship that would lead him to his prison cell, and eventual death, Louverture said: “In overthrowing me, you have done no more than cut down the trunk of the tree of black liberty in St. Domingue.

It will spring back from the roots, for they are numerous and deep.”[1] After L'Ouverture’s death, Jean Jacques Dessalines continued the fight for liberty by leading the resistance to the French.

During the night of 17–18 November 1803, the Haitians positioned their few guns to blast Fort Bréda, located on the habitation where Louverture had worked as a coachman under François Capois.

Capois, mounted on a great horse, led his Haitian demi-brigade forward despite storms of bullets from the forts on his left.

But Gabart, Capois, and Clervaux, the last fighting with a French musket in hand and with one epaulette shot away, repulsed the desperate counterattack.

Under cover of the storm, Rochambeau pulled back from Vertières, knowing he was defeated and that Saint-Domingue was lost for France.