Unlikely Co-Conspirators - French Spy Desbardes & Maroon Warrior Diédoné

Diédoné never trusted the French spy and vowed to kill him if betrayed

The war was over. The French were defeated. The new Governor General and Supreme Commander of the Indigenous Revolutionary Army, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, was working to bring peace and stability to Ayiti (Haiti) But not if these two men had any say about it.

Desbardes was a French spy sent by the powerful French Ambassador to the United States, Louis-André Pichon, to destabilize the new government in any way he could. One of his accomplices was the maroon warrior Diédoné who had been an ally and devoted follower of Lamour Desrances before his death at the hands of Dessalines.

Lamour Desrances was a fearless and powerful Maroon leader who defeated Dessalines in battle which would later cost him his life

Desrances was born in Africa and brought to Saint-Domingue as a slave who had shortly afterward escaped for the mountains to join the maroon bands. He had mixed loyalties throughout his lifetime. At the time of the Civil War of Knives, Desrances was loyal to André Rigaud in his battle against Toussaint Louverture and was one of the few black officers in the predominantly mulatto Rigaud-loyal army.

After Rigaud's defeat by Louverture, Desrances accumulated power and mobilized the maroon warriors in the mountains surrounding Port-au-Prince and Saint Marc. Following the French invasion, he changed his loyalty to the French under Général Pampile de Lacroix to fight against Dessalines' forces, defeating Dessalines’ army at the outskirts of Port-Républicain and forcing his retreat, a victory that finally convinced Toussaint to surrender to the French and seek retirement before his arrest, deportation, imprisonment, and subsequent death in France.  Dessalines had made good on his word to kill Desrances by 1803.

Desbardes plan was three-fold. Did it work? Find out in Book Four

Desbardes plan was simple; destabilize Dessalines by assassinating his top generals or making them suspicious of each other, getting French plantation owners still left on the island to support an uprising with arms and money, organize the many French soldiers who had remained on the island after the war, and recruiting retired Spanish colonial soldiers in the East to join a squadron of the French army that stayed there in waiting.

You’ll have to read Book Four to find out what eventually happened. Book Four - The Clash of Pétion and Christophe - opens on New Year's Day of 1804, in three different cities - Cap Français, Gonaïves, and Port Républicain - where our main characters and principal protagonists begin to navigate their way through the aftermath of liberation, not knowing that their paths would soon cross at dangerous intersections. As they strive to establish stability and peace in their homeland, they will soon realize that this may be even more challenging than fighting for their freedom.