A force of Dominican and Puerto Rican of 1,850 troops led by Gen. Juan Sánchez Ramírez, with a naval blockaded by British Commander Hugh Lyle Carmichael, besieged and captured the city of Santo Domingo after an 8 months garrisoning of 2,000 troops of the French Army led by General Joseph-David de Barquier.

Upon hearing the news of Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808, Juan Sánchez Ramírez launched a war against the French troops who were nominally controlling the island.

After some initial defeats, the loyalists managed a key victory in November, in the Battle of Palo Hincado, where Sánchez Ramírez's 2,000 soldiers overwhelmed Gen. Jean-Louis Ferrand's 600.

There, with his numbers diminished owing to the desertion of Dominicans, the French commander faced certain defeat.

Only with the help of the British Jamaicans could the loyalists expel the French, an event that would finally come to pass in 1809, the year in which British gunships fired into Santo Domingo, prompting Barquier to surrender the island.