Anglo-Haitian victory France The Saint-Domingue expedition was a large French military invasion sent by Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, under his brother-in-law Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc in an attempt to regain French control of the Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue on the island of Hispaniola, and curtail the measures of independence and abolition of slaves taken by the former slave Toussaint Louverture.

[4] However, he went too far in hunting down governor Don Joaquín García y Moreno (27 January 1801), who had remained in what had been the Spanish part of the island following the 1795 Peace of Basel.

In early 1801, Napoleon decided to appoint his sister Pauline's husband, general Charles Leclerc, as head of a military expedition to reassert French authority over Saint-Domingue.

By October, however, Napoleon's opinion had shifted, as he interpreted Toussaint's July constitution as an unacceptable offense to French imperial authority.

Henceforth, Napoleon secretly directed Leclerc to disarm Toussaint's black-controlled government and deport his military officers to France.

In the following months even more ships left France with fresh troops, including over 4,000 men from the artillerie de marine, a Dutch division and the Polish Danube Legion.

In total 31,131 troops were landed on Saint-Domingue, including some non-white figures such as André Rigaud and future Haitian president Alexandre Pétion, both of whom Toussaint had expelled from the colony two years earlier in the War of Knives (after the Saint-Domingue expedition's failure, Rigaud would be imprisoned at the Fort de Joux by Napoleon, a few cells away from Toussaint himself).

Landing at Santo Domingo with 2,000 men, General Kergerseau took possession of a large part of the Spanish area of the island, then headed by Toussaint's brother Paul Louverture.

At the same time General Humbert was to land at Port-de-Paix to climb up Les Trois Rivières gorge, and Boudet move up from south to north.

General Boudet occupied Saint-Marc, also on fire, and filled with the blood of the throats cut on the orders of Dessalines, who managed to escape the trap.

Christophe offered to lay down his arms in exchange for being given the same lenient treatment as had been given Laplume and Maurepas and his surrender led to that of Dessalines and finally of Toussaint.

At the end of April and start of May order was re-established little by little on the island, trade resumed at the ports, and the rebels (seemingly reconciled to their situation) held onto their lands and ranks.

In retirement under house arrest at Ennery, Toussaint contemplated his revenge and saw the French forces (especially those who had only just arrived on the island) ravaged by his best ally, yellow fever, with around 15,000 dead in only two months.

Sensing danger, in June Leclerc called Toussaint to an interview, arrested him, put him on a ship and sent him to Europe, where he was held at the Fort de Joux.

After the recently defected Christophe massacred several hundred Polish soldiers at Port-de-Paix, Leclerc ordered the arrest of all remaining black colonial troops in Cap-Haïtien, and executed 1000 of them by tying sacks of flour to their neck and pushing them off the side of ships.

That led to larger revolts against the French, as a submissive slave diligently working in the fields would suddenly be devoured by dozens of hungry pit bulls.

On 1 January 1804 Dessalines proclaimed the colony of Saint-Domingue to be the second independent state in the Americas, under the name of Haiti, and was first made governor general for life before (on 6 October 1804) being crowned emperor as Jacques I.