Vertières, 18 November 1803: the last battle
By November 1803 the French army in Saint-Domingue was worn down by two years of war and by yellow fever. Its commander, General Rochambeau, held the city of Cap-Français behind a ring of forts. One of them stood on a rise called Vertières.
The assault
On 18 November, Jean-Jacques Dessalines ordered the attack. The task of taking the fort fell to François Capois. He led his men uphill into cannon fire again and again. When a cannonball killed his horse, he got up and charged on foot. The story goes that Rochambeau paused the battle to send an officer across the lines with his compliments.
The end of the war
The fighting lasted all day. That night a heavy rain fell, and by morning the French asked for terms. Within days they agreed to leave Cap-Français, and soon after the French army was gone from the colony.
What followed
Six weeks later, on 1 January 1804, Dessalines proclaimed the independence of Haiti. 18 November is a national holiday, and Vertières is remembered as the day an army of people who had been enslaved defeated one of the strongest armies in the world.
