Independence was a last resort, not the goal of the revolution

Haitian historians have often argued that Louverture aimed all along at an independent state. Geggus reports that most scholars disagree and sets out the reasoning. He already had independence in fact, and a formal break would have brought a French attack and probably a naval blockade by the slaveholding British and Americans as well. In a hostile world, as long as the French Republic stood against slavery and racial discrimination, people of colour in its colonies were better off remaining colonial subjects. On this reading independence was adopted in the Haitian Revolution as a last resort and only to protect what the revolution had already won. It was Bonaparte's aggression that precipitated the separation. Geggus also notes that the citizenship promised in 1794 proved illusory, since the constitutional provision making the colonies part of France was never enforced before Bonaparte annulled it in 1799. Where this account departs from the standard one: Against a long tradition in Haitian historiography, Geggus holds that Louverture did not seek independence and that secession was forced on the revolution from outside.

Jefferson entered office and American policy shifted just as Bonaparte began preparing the expedition. Girard explains the change through interest rather than sentiment. Adams had favoured the commercial interests of New England merchants; Jefferson, in the wake of the Gabriel conspiracy, had every reason as a southern slave owner to fear the example of a society governed by former slaves. The young French ambassador raised the expedition at his first meeting with the new president and reported with pleasure that Jefferson had compared the colony to the piratical Barbary states and asserted, incorrectly, that Louverture had no support in the United States and that his example was dangerous for two thirds of the states. Girard notes this was the diplomatic assurance Talleyrand needed, though Jefferson later had second thoughts and Madison ordered strict neutrality.

Lartigue accused Dessalines of sending emissaries to St Thomas to raise the Danish islands, and later described a plan to descend on Martinique and Guadeloupe, kill the inhabitants, burn the towns, raise the enslaved and free people of colour and form fourteen regiments. Gaffield traces the chain. An Englishman named Yong told him that at Jacmel General Moreau had said Haiti expected news at any moment that the enslaved of the French islands had risen. From that Lartigue concluded Dessalines was organising the risings, and he began describing passing travellers of colour as emissaries and their meeting place as a Haitian club. Gaffield notes the motive: on 25 September Lartigue had written acknowledging Ferrand's complaint that he had so far been of no use. Geggus treats the expedition as a rumour spread by a colonist; Jenson thinks there is too much smoke for no fire. Where this account departs from the standard one: Gaffield argues the conspiracy theory that Dessalines was exporting revolution originated in one agent's need to prove his own usefulness, and she sets Geggus's dismissal against Jenson's partial defence of it.

In 1809 New Orleans took in 9,059 people from Saint Domingue who had been living in Cuba: 2,731 whites, 3,102 free people of colour and 3,226 enslaved. Louisiana already held the largest refugee population in the United States, spread through New Orleans and the parishes around it, and it drew people a second time from New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore who went there to join relatives and the French speaking population already in place. Others reached it after stays in Jamaica, Martinique, Guadeloupe or Cuba. The arrivals raised the number of skilled and professional workers across the lower South. They also carried their religion with them, and the organised practice known in New Orleans as voodoo is most likely owed to this influx. Their descendants stayed a distinct group of free people of colour for generations, which is why a committee in New Orleans could still act as a community in the 1890s.