September 10, 1793, northern Saint-Domingue. Toussaint Louverture, still allied with Spain, attacks the camp of La Tannerie held by the Black officer Bramant Lazzary, loyal to the Republic. An overlooked skirmish that reveals the fractures, hesitations, and impossible choices of a revolution ablaze.
In the furnace of Saint-Domingue
September 10, 1793. Between Dondon and Grande-Rivière, in northern Saint-Domingue, the rumble of weapons mingles with the echoes of total war. There, a Black leader, still little known but destined for immense renown, attempts a bold strike against those who were yesterday his allies: Toussaint Louverture.
The island is plunged into chaos. Since the 1791 slave uprising, nothing has been stable: plantations burn, colonists are divided, free people of color fight for their rights, and the great European powers (Spain and England foremost) hasten to fan the flames. In this whirlwind, former rebel slaves transform into disciplined armies, capable of pushing back the most seasoned soldiers arriving from Europe.
The Battle of La Tannerie, seemingly modest, reveals a profound tension: Black loyalties are not univocal. Toussaint, the future liberator, is still fighting under the Spanish flag, while another man, Bramant Lazzary—an ex-slave turned Republican officer—chooses to remain loyal to revolutionary France, which has just proclaimed abolition. Two paths, two convictions, two faces of the same struggle for freedom.
Saint-Domingue in 1793
In 1793, Saint-Domingue is the burning heart of the revolutionary Atlantic. The world’s foremost sugar colony and pillar of the French economy, the island has become a battlefield where slave revolt, civil war, and imperial rivalries intersect.
Since the 1791 uprising, tens of thousands of insurgent slaves hold the countryside, organized first in bands, then in actual regiments. Against them, white colonists—supported by metropolitan troops poorly acclimated to the climate—struggle to regain control.
Adding to this are neighboring powers: Spain, which owns the eastern part of the island (Spanish Santo Domingo), has declared war on the French Republic and seeks to rally Black insurgents to its cause. England, fearful of seeing the fire spread to its own sugar colonies, is also preparing its intervention.
In this context, allegiances constantly shift. Some Black leaders rally to the Spanish banner, seduced by offers of weapons, ranks, and land. Others choose to remain loyal to the Republic, convinced that the French Revolution can bring universal emancipation. Between these poles, thousands of men hesitate, negotiate, or change sides according to circumstances.
It is in this maelstrom that Toussaint Louverture emerges, still a lieutenant serving the king of Spain. And it is here, too, that his future adversary at La Tannerie rises: Bramant Lazzary, a Black officer who believes in the Republican promise. Two figures who, in September 1793, embody the fractures of a revolution-torn island.
Marmelade, Ennery, and the retreat
Before La Tannerie, the summer 1793 campaign had already highlighted Toussaint Louverture’s military skill. On July 27, commanding his Black troops allied with Spain, he seized Marmelade, delivering a serious setback to Republican forces. A few weeks later, on August 13, he struck again at Ennery, where his cavalry and infantry scattered the French troops in a demonstration of mobility and discipline.
But glory is short-lived. The Republicans, commanded by General Chanlatte, regain the initiative. Their vigorous counterattack forces Louverture to retreat, abandoning part of his recent conquests. In this shifting game of war, nothing is ever assured: a victory calls forth a revenge, and each side strives to wear the other down.
Facing this pressure, Toussaint opts for a strategic withdrawal to his bases in Dondon and Marmelade—mountainous regions he knows well and which offer solid defensive positions. But he has a target in mind: the fortified camp of La Tannerie, a critical chokepoint between Dondon and Grande-Rivière. Holding this position means controlling a key passage and asserting dominance over the colony’s northern region.
Thus, it is toward this Republican stronghold, commanded by the Black officer Bramant Lazzary, that Toussaint now directs his gaze and his forces. Confrontation is inevitable.
Loyalty to the Republic or rallying to the Spaniards?
At the heart of the La Tannerie episode lies less a battle than a civilizational choice. The camp is held by Bramant Lazzary, an ex-slave turned Republican officer. For him, the French Revolution—with all its ambiguities—opens an unprecedented breach: the possibility of freedom for the Black people of Saint-Domingue.
Aware of the fort’s strategic importance and of its commander’s value, Toussaint Louverture first attempts persuasion. Still loyal to Spain in the summer of 1793, he sends a letter to Lazzary inviting him to join his camp. The argument is clever: rallying to the Spaniards means immediate access to weapons, ranks, and recognition—far from the hesitations of a French Republic besieged on all fronts.
But the response, dated September 1, 1793, is unequivocal. In a fiery letter, Lazzary proclaims his attachment to revolutionary ideals and recalls the general abolition proclaimed a few weeks earlier by the civil commissioner Sonthonax in Cap-Français. For him, betraying the Republic would mean betraying the freshly won freedom. He firmly rejects what he calls a “step backward” into monarchy, refusing to deliver his men to the Spanish crown.
Thus, La Tannerie crystallizes a symbolic opposition. On one side stands Toussaint Louverture, who prioritizes military pragmatism and chooses Spain as a springboard to strengthen his troops and authority. On the other stands Bramant Lazzary, who clings to the proclaimed universalism of the French Revolution, convinced that the future of Black people lies with the Republic.
In short, two paths clash: opportunistic alliance and ideological loyalty. And the battlefield of La Tannerie becomes the arena where these two irreconcilable visions collide.
The battle of september 10
At dawn on September 10, 1793, the hills surrounding La Tannerie fill with heavy silence, soon broken by drums and the shouts of Toussaint Louverture’s men. Commanding several hundred seasoned fighters, the former coachman turned strategist advances toward the Republican camp. His goal is clear: break Bramant Lazzary’s resistance and topple this key position that locks down the north.
The assault is swift. The first Spanish volleys, supported by Toussaint’s Black troops, sow panic in the Republican lines. Inside the fort, Lazzary attempts to galvanize his soldiers, reminding them that they defend the freedom proclaimed by the Republic. But the shock is too violent. Within hours, discipline collapses and the ranks break.
Facing numerical superiority and the ardor of the attackers, the defenders scatter. Lazzary himself must abandon the camp, carrying with him a handful of loyal men in a frantic escape through the bush. For the Republicans, it is a humiliating rout; for Toussaint, a clear but not decisive victory.
For Louverture, far from occupying the captured camp, chooses instead to destroy it. La Tannerie is set ablaze, its palisades torn down, its buildings demolished. Rather than hold the position, he prefers to deny it forever to his enemies. The terrain, now scorched, becomes a symbol: the Republic has lost a stronghold, but Toussaint has not truly gained it.
The Battle of La Tannerie, brief and brutal, leaves behind a landscape of ashes—and a political fracture deeper than ever.
Immediate and symbolic consequences
Toussaint Louverture’s victory at La Tannerie, though tactically brilliant, proves fragile in its effects. True, he dispersed the local Republican forces, humiliated Bramant Lazzary, and demonstrated once more his military genius. But by razing the camp, he does not hold the ground: the Republic can eventually reoccupy the position.
What marks the episode most is its symbolic charge. In refusing to yield to Spanish promises, Lazzary embodies a political choice: loyalty to the French Revolution and its abolition decree. His letter of September 1 becomes a foundational document—a rare testimony of former slaves’ faith in Republican universalism.
Conversely, Toussaint appears as a pragmatic leader, ready to ally with the Spanish monarchy to strengthen his troops and expand his autonomy. This paradox—of a future liberator fighting in the name of a Catholic king—illustrates the complex paths taken by Black leaders in this miniature world war.
Ultimately, La Tannerie is not a mere skirmish. It lays bare the diversity of Black loyalties: some choose Spain, others the Republic, still others follow local or communal logic. Far from a united front, Saint-Domingue in 1793 is a field of shifting alliances where each chief negotiates his survival and future.
An erased but revealing battlefield
The Battle of La Tannerie, seemingly modest, was far more than a local skirmish. It concentrated the tensions of a world on fire: between Republican loyalty and Spanish pragmatism, between proclaimed ideals and immediate survival.
In the dust of that razed camp, two visions of the future of the Black people of Saint-Domingue clashed: that of an officer who believed in the universalism of the Revolution, and that of a strategist choosing opportunistic alliances to prepare his own ascent. A few months later, history would vindicate each in turn: Lazzary for his faith in abolition, Toussaint for his ability to survive and triumph.
If La Tannerie has faded from popular memory today, it remains a revealing moment—a discreet but eloquent scar of the Haitian Revolution. It contains the hesitations, contradictions, and the strength of a struggle that, despite its detours, would open the path to the world’s first free Black republic.
“At La Tannerie, it was not only weapons that clashed, but two rival visions of Black freedom—foreshadowing the tumult of Haitian independence.”
Notes and references
Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution, Harvard University Press, 2004.
C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint Louverture and the San Domingo Revolution, Vintage Books, 1989 [1938].
David Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, Indiana University Press, 2002.
Philippe Girard, Toussaint Louverture: A Revolutionary Life, Basic Books, 2016.
Carolyn Fick, The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below, University of Tennessee Press, 1990.
John D. Garrigus, Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti, Port-au-Prince, 1847–1848.
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, Beacon Press, 1995.
Summary
In the Furnace of Saint-Domingue
Saint-Domingue in 1793
Marmelade, Ennery and the Retreat
Loyalty to the Republic or Rallying to the Spaniards?
The Battle of September 10
Immediate and Symbolic Consequences
An Erased but Revealing Battlefield
Notes and References
