[109] In a Wall Street Journal article Johnson states: "The stories have a lot of similarities. He believes the greatest difference between America and Rome is that compared to Rome, America has only spent a short time on the world stage. [61][62] The American journalist James Perry notes that the great irony of the British campaign in Saint-Domingue was that it ended as a complete debacle, costing the British treasury millions of pounds and the British military thousands upon thousands of dead, all for nothing. Most returned to France as soon as possible, hoping to avoid the dreaded yellow fever, which regularly swept the colony. [53], By 1792, slave rebels controlled a third of Saint-Domingue. Arthur S. | Kate Hodgson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in French at the University of Liverpool, Tim Lockley, Reader in American Studies at the University of Warwick, Karen Salt, Fellow in History in the School of Language and Literature at the University of Aberdeen, Kate Hodgson at the University of Liverpool, Joan Dayan, Haiti, History and the Gods (University of California Press, 1998), Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Harvard University Press, 2004), Carolyn E. 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), David P. Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies (Indiana University Press, 2002), David P. Geggus (ed. Although the series of events during these years is known under the name of "Haitian Revolution", alternative views suggest that the entire affair was an assorted number of coincidental conflicts that ended with a fragile truce between free men of color and blacks. If anyone Is looking for a good Map visualization to keep track while hearing the podcast. Site includes teaching tools and resources. [115], Women and children were generally killed last. [102] Leclerc sent Toussaint letters promising him: "Have no worries about your personal fortune. 35 min playlist_add Dec 4, 2022 Appendix 10- The. [2], Describing himself as "a complete history geek," Duncan also has an interest in American history. [155] Other planters, however, were confident they had the situation under control.[156]. [110][111][112] Posted by: He united the maroon bands and established a network of secret organizations among plantation slaves, leading a rebellion from 1751 through 1757. In February 1797, General John Graves Simcoe arrived to replace Forbes with orders to pull back the British forces to Port-au-Prince. Many of them joined Toussaint's army. [119] Commodore Loring, however, refused the French permission to sail and agreed terms with Dessalines that permitted them to safely evacuate provided they had left the port by 1 December. More. Having made himself master of the island, however, Toussaint did not wish to surrender too much power to France. This map will be handy. [19], The larger groups of runaway slaves who lived in the hillside woods away from white control often conducted violent raids on the island's sugar and coffee plantations. Such an interesting revolution. You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post. The U.S. [119] One of Rochambeau's ships was almost wrecked while leaving the harbour, but was saved by a British lieutenant acting alone, who not only rescued the 900 people on board, but also refloated the ship. In November 1803 slaves managed to defeat the greatest European military power. And then, with the beginning of the revolution, the grand blancs started seeking local autonomy. The British force that landed in Saint-Domingue in 1793 was too small to conquer the colony, being capable only of holding only few coastal enclaves. Barred from using the whip, many instead turned to lianes, which were thick vines abundant throughout the island, to persuade the laborers to keep working. 4.0 Another Revolutions Podcast Update | The new governor of Jamaica, Alexander Lindsay, 6th Earl of Balcarres, urged Maitland not to withdraw from Mole St Nicholas. [86] Rigaud took control of Jeremie without any cost to his forces, as Maitland withdrew his southern forces to Jamaica. [83] Under a storm of artillery, the Haitians placed ladders on the walls and were driven back four times, with heavy losses. . "Causes of the Haitian Revolution." White women were "often raped or pushed into forced marriages under threat of death". The average life span of a slave in Haiti was 7 years. Led by charismatic leaders such as Toussaint Louverture it was the only example of a successful slave revolution and the state that was founded was one free of slavery. All the best. They introduced slavery at about the same time; the first slave revolt in the New World happened on the island in 1522, which seems to foreshadow what would happen a few centuries later. "Napolon Bonaparte and the Emancipation Issue in Saint-Domingue, 17991803," French Historical Studies 32:4 (Fall 2009), 587618. [165] The activities of the revolutions sparked change across the world. A limited amount, he concludes, for slavery flourished in the western hemisphere for many more decades. State of the Revolution. Mulatto domination of politics and economics, and urban life after the revolution, created a different kind of two-caste society, as most Haitians were rural subsistence farmers. In this kind of situation, the last priority for food distribution is the slaves, and as a result, there was a large population of slaves that was not well-fed and mistreated. I'm psyched for this one. Tour dates and links: Sept. 6 Madison -- Mystery to Me Sept. 7 Chicago -- Seminary Co-Op Sept. 8 Portland -- Powell's Books Sept. 9 Seattle -- Elliott Bay Book Company Sept. 12 Boulder -- Boulder Book Store Sept. 13 Denver -- Tattered Cover (Aspen Grove) Sept. 14 Dallas -- Interrobang Books Sept. 15 Austin -- Bookpeople Sept. 16 Houston -- Brazos Books Sept. 19 New Orleans -- Garden District Book Shop Sept. 20 Atlanta -- Carter Center w/ A Capella Books Sept. 21 Chapel Hill -- Flyleaf Books Sept. 22 Raleigh -- Quail Ridge Books Sept. 24 Winston-Salem -- Bookmarks Book Festival, For tickets to the October dates: Oct. 3 Austin TX @ Paramount Theater Oct. 4 San Francisco @ Palace of Fine Arts Oct. 5 Seattle @ Town Hall Oct. 25 Chicago @ Vic Theater Oct. 26 Boston @ The Wilbur Oct. 27 Washington DC @ Lisner Auditorium Oct. 29 Newark NJ @ New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Appendix 3- From Equilibrium to Disequilibrium, Probably wouldn't be a revolution if everything just kept on being cool and stable. Then there were the petit blancs, or the Little Whites. These were tradespeople: shopkeepers, merchants, overseers, the former indentured servants who had gotten their freedom and now worked in smaller aspects of the economy. They were hoping to have those freedoms. Baur, John. King Louis XIV of France passed the Code Noir in 1685 in an attempt to regulate such violence and the treatment of slaves in general in the colony, but masters openly and consistently broke the code. [104] A visibly shocked General Pamphile de Lacroix after seeing the ruins of Logne wrote: "They heaped up bodies" which "still had their attitudes; they were bent over, their hands outstretched and beseeching; the ice of death had not effaced the look on their faces". Now: The French Revolution. [105] During the battle, Toussaint personally took part in the fighting to lead his men in charges against the French. The third group, outnumbering the others by a ratio of ten to one, was made up of mostly African-born slaves. Through the struggle, the Haitian people ultimately won independence from France and thereby became the first country to be founded by former slaves. [86] On 31 August, Maitland and Toussaint signed an agreement whereby in exchange for the British pulling out of all of Saint-Domingue, Toussaint promised to not support any slave revolts in Jamaica. Download programmes from the huge In Our Time archive. Ed. [105] All of the French assaults ended in total failure, and after the failure of their last attack, the Haitians charged the French, cutting down any Frenchmen. He lost interest in commanding his army and as James wrote, he "amused himself with sexual pleasures, military balls, banquets and the amassing of a personal fortune".[114]. "[9], Duncan began The History of Rome in 2007, after failing to find any good podcasts about ancient history. The French had built a deep defensive ditch with palisades and Forbes had neglected to bring along heavy artillery. Blacks outnumbered whites fifteen times over. The podcast covers the time period from the origin of the Roman Kingdom to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, focusing on the most accepted chain of events according to historical consensus. [46] Within the next ten days, slaves had taken control of the entire Northern Province in an unprecedented slave revolt. As someone who was born and raised in Haiti and moved back there a couple of years ago (Cap-Haitien), I am so stoked for this series! Dessalines had specifically stated that France is "the real enemy of the new nation." Despite his orders, the massacres were often not carried out until he personally visited the cities. The unrest in Haiti moved France to send various agents there to try to quell the uprising. The Haitian Revolution, which took place between 1791-1804, is significant because Haiti is the only country where slave freedom was taken by force, and marks the only successful slave revolt in modern times. [14] The livelihood of 1 million of the approximately 25 million people who lived in France in 1789 depended directly upon the agricultural imports from Saint-Domingue, and several million indirectly depended upon trade from the colony to maintain their standard of living. [29] The book was received positively by numerous important outlets including The New Yorker,[30] Publishers Weekly[31] and The New Republic. [48][49][50][51], The planters had long feared such a revolt, and were well armed with some defensive preparations. Accessed 25 March 2015. [173] However, newspapers like the Columbian Centinel took extra steps to support the revolution, comparing it to the American Revolution. The series covered the English Civil War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, Simon Bolivar and Gran Colombia, the July Revolution, the Revolutions of 1848, the Paris Commune, the Mexican Revolution, and finally the Russian Revolution, ending its run of narrative episodes in July 2022. The Revolution is still talked about all the time in Haiti, so I haven't heard anything I didn't know yet but it will be interesting to hear fact separated from fiction moving forward. [146], Historians continue to debate the importance of the Haitian Revolution. [106] Over the following days, the French kept on bombarding and assaulting the fort, only to be repulsed every time while the Haitians defiantly sang songs of the French Revolution, celebrating the right of all men to be equal and free. 06 April 2017 at 12:46 PM, 6.03- Help Yourself And Heaven Will Help You. Dessalines paid large sums of money to liberate slaves on slave ships near the Haitian coast. Du Bois said that the Haitian Revolution was an economic pressure without which the British parliament would not have accepted abolitionism as readily. He sent a general, who tricked Toussaint LOuverture, arrested him, and shipped him off to France where he eventually died in prison, but the revolution did not end. [39] Rian Johnson was listening to the History of Rome podcast as he was writing the script for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. The end of French rule and the abolition of slavery in the former colony was followed by a successful defense of the freedoms the former slaves won and, with the collaboration of already free people of color, their independence from white Europeans. [106], After the Battle of Crte--Pierrot, the Haitians abandoned conventional warfare and reverted to guerrilla tactics, making the French hold over much of the countryside from Le Cap down to the Artibonite valley very tenuous. Listen to Revolutions on Spotify. These valedictory moments assess, with poignant but unsparing clarity, both the rulers who ultimately couldn't save the old order and the revolutionary firebrands . These texts also generally fell into two campsone being proslavery authors who warned of a repetition of the violence of St. Domingue wherever abolition occurred; and the other being abolitionist authors who countered that white owners had sown the seeds of revolution.[175]. Posted by: The revolution has revolved. The book was published 24 August 2021 and in September of that same year, it reached number three on the New York Times Bestseller List. Posted by: Whites kept control of only a few isolated, fortified camps. [2] Duncan and his wife have two children. Main, Here is a link to the map if you don't like the embed: The July Revolution Map. [125] The affranchi lite, who continued to rule Haiti while the formidable Haitian army kept them in power. In the 1660s, the French began to settle in the west part of the island, and they established a colony. Louverture agreed to this on 6 May 1802. Many of the free people of color, by contrast, were raised in French culture, had certain rights within colonial society, and generally spoke French and practiced Catholicism (with syncretic absorption of African religions. [164] The Enlightenment ideals and the initiation of the French Revolution were enough to inspire the Haitian Revolution, which evolved into the most successful and comprehensive slave rebellion in history. In 1807, Haiti was divided into two parts, the Republic of Haiti in the south, and the Kingdom of Haiti in the north. Saint-Domingue was a society seething with hatred, with white colonists and black slaves frequently coming into violent conflict. To better understand the historical . The French colony of Saint-Domingue was the single most lucrative colony in the New World. dahoud andre. 07 December 2015 at 01:41 AM. Most historians classify the people of the era into three groups: The first group were white colonists, or les blancs. Toussaint tried to stop Rochambeau at Ravine--Couleuvre, a very narrow gully up in the mountains that the Haitians had filled with chopped down trees. Soon, large-scale crop production would dominate the landscape, and the only people you would see working the farms were the slaves. They were killed by guillotine, "breaking at the wheel", mobs and other death machines: death toll estimates range from 18,000 to 40,000. On 16 November 1803, Dessalines began attacking the French blockhouses outside of Le Cap. The podcast covered modern political revolutions, beginning with the English Revolution. [131][132] The massacrewhich took place in the entire territory of Haitiwas carried out from early February 1804 until 22 April 1804. [5] It is now widely seen as a defining moment in the history of the Atlantic World. This kept their culture more African and separate from other people on the island. At Mle-Saint-Nicolas, General Louis de Noailles refused to surrender and instead sailed to Havana, Cuba in a fleet of small vessels on 3 December, but was intercepted and mortally wounded by a Royal Navy frigate. [63] Of Grey's 7,000 men, about 5,000 died of yellow fever while the Royal Navy reported losing "forty-six masters and eleven hundred men dead, chiefly of yellow fever". In addition, Haiti was the first country in Latin America to gain independence, second only to the United States in the Americas as a whole. With Napoleon's inability to send the requested massive reinforcements after the outbreak of war on 18 May 1803 with the British, the Royal Navy immediately despatched a squadron under Sir John Duckworth from Jamaica to cruise in the region, seeking to eliminate communication between the French outposts and to capture or destroy the French warships based in the colony. Listen on Spotify Message. Enslaved blacks watched from the sidelines.[18]. [105] General Dugua was killed, Leclerc was wounded and the French lost about 800 dead. [114] Dessalines marched into Port-au-Prince, where he was welcomed as a hero by the 100 whites who had chosen to stay behind. Next: The Haitian Revolution. In 1791 an uprising began in the French colonial territory of St Domingue. [66], To prevent military disaster, and secure the colony for republican France as opposed to Britain, Spain, and French royalists, separately or in combination, the French commissioners Sonthonax and tienne Polverel offered freedom to the slaves who would agree to fight alongside them. On 1 January 1804, Dessalines, the new leader under the dictatorial 1805 constitution, declared Haiti a free republic in the name of the Haitian people,[121] which was followed by the massacre of the remaining whites. Posted by: Many on both sides had come to see the war as a race war where no mercy was to be given. [19][pageneeded]. Then sugar was introduced. Sylvia Musto, "Portraiture, Revolutionary Identity and Subjugation: Anne-Louis Girodet's Citizen Belley". [133] Reportedly, also people with connections to Haitian notables were spared,[115] as well as the women who agreed to marry non-white men. Rochambeau waged a near-genocidal campaign against the Haitians, killing everyone who was black. Slavery sustained sugar production under harsh conditions; diseases such as malaria (brought from Africa) and yellow fever caused high mortality, thriving in the tropical Caribbean climate. [99], Toussaint Louverture, although a self-educated former domestic slave, was one of the most successful black commanders. They temporarily abolished slavery in parts of Haiti to deal with their own problems because they were being attacked by the British and the Spanish, who wanted into the colony as well. The economy was based on small multi-crop ventures. Others fled to towns, to blend in with urban slaves and freed blacks who often migrated to those areas for work. The revolution was the only slave uprising that led to the founding of a state which was both free from slavery (though not from forced labour)[4] and ruled by non-whites and former captives. How were they able to successfully fight off one of the worlds strongest military powers? [82] By 1 June 1796, of the 1,000 from the 66th Regiment, only 198 had not been infected with yellow fever; and of the 1,000 men of the 69th Regiment, only 515 were not infected with yellow fever. [15] Saint-Domingue was the most profitable French colony in the world, indeed one of the most profitable of all the European colonies in the 18th century. [92] In June 1799, Rigaud initiated the War of Knives against Toussaint's rule, sending a brutal offensive at Petit-Gove and Grand-Gove. S2 Ep 2: Les . [14] The death rate from yellow fever was such that at least 50% of the slaves from Africa died within a year of arriving, so while the white planters preferred to work their slaves as hard as possible, providing them only the bare minimum of food and shelter, they calculated that it was better to get the most work out of their slaves with the lowest expense possible, since they were probably going to die of yellow fever anyway. "I sort of stumbled into it, so I was reading a ton of Livy at the time, and a ton of Suetonius, and then I had just gotten into Tacitus. Nearly two thirds of those slaves were African born. A Muddy Knees Media production for BBC Radio 4. [29][pageneeded], Like Louverture, Jean-Baptiste Belley was an active participant in the insurrection. And the length of Rue . Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. [82] As more ships arrived with British troops, more soldiers died of yellow fever. In the 2010 Podcast Awards, The History of Rome won best educational podcast.[11]. Theyre about family dynamics and family politics. Jan 29, 2023 40:37. A weekly podcast series examining great political revolutions. 03 April 2017 at 04:48 AM. Among Saint-Domingue's 40,000 white colonists, European-born Frenchmen monopolized administrative posts. Michael William Duncan is an American political history podcaster and author. The series covered the English Civil War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, Simon Bolivar and Gran Colombia, the July Revolution, the Revolutions of 1848, the Paris Commune, the Mexican Revolution, and finally the Russian Revolution, ending its run of narrative episodes in July 2022. This allowed certain categories of whites to be excluded from massacre who had to pledge their rejection to France: the Polish soldiers who deserted from the French army; the group of German colonists of Nord-Ouest who were inhabitants before the revolution; French widows who were allowed to keep their property;[132] select male Frenchmen;[136] and a group of medical doctors and professionals. [126] Likewise, the working day was shortened by a third. The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World. Haiti was Frances wealthiest colony, as you mentioned, so, presumably the government in France did not react well to this uprising. Also Place Hotel de Ville. Its very timely."[40]. [82] Ultimately, 10,000 British soldiers arrived in Saint Domingue by June, but aside from some skirmishing near Bombarde, the British remained in Port-au-Prince and other coastal enclaves, while yellow fever continued to kill them all off. This was a special, public punishment dealt out because the whites in Haiti didnt want to extend full rights to the gens de couleur. [25] In an interview with the Washington Post Worldview, Duncan claimed his aim for the book was to "pull back two generations [from the time of Caesar] and ask, 'What was it that opened the cracks in the foundation of the Republic? Upon arrival and the first fights, the Polish platoon soon discovered that what was actually taking place in the colony was a rebellion of slaves fighting off their French masters for their freedom. [169], The role of women in the Haitian Revolution was for a long time given little attention by historians, but has in recent years garnered significant attention.[170][171][172]. [119] Dessalines thanked them all for their kindness and belief in racial equality, but then he said that the French had treated him as less than human when he was a slave, and so to avenge his mistreatment, he promptly had the 100 whites all hanged. The comedy podcast that takes history seriously is back with a new series. After the British had invaded Saint-Domingue, Louverture decided to fight for the French if they would agree to free all the slaves. [65] However, everywhere the British went, they restored slavery, which made them hated by the mass of common people. The grands blancs in Saint-Domingue, unhappy with Sonthonax, arranged with Britain to declare British sovereignty over the colony, believing that the British would maintain slavery. The French were particularly cruel to their slaves. Georges Danton, one of the Frenchmen present at the meeting of the National Convention, expressed this sentiment: Representatives of the French people, until now our decrees of liberty have been selfish, and only for ourselves. [122] His secretary Boisrond-Tonnerre stated, "For our declaration of independence, we should have the skin of a white man for parchment, his skull for an inkwell, his blood for ink, and a bayonet for a pen! Theyre about war and the mechanisms of war. King Louis issued the Code Noir in 1685 to regulate slavery and punishment, but it was never really followed in the colony. The British, led by Commodore John Loring gave chase, but one French ship of the line and a frigate escaped. [41] While Og was not fighting against slavery, his treatment was cited by later slave rebels as one of the factors in their decision to rise up in August 1791 and resist treaties with the colonists. If a page linked from a footnote that cites the Haiti study bears a title different from that cited next to the link, consult, United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti, Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, Polish Legions (Napoleonic period) The Haitian campaign, occupying forces of Russia, Prussia, and Austria that began in 1772, Learn how and when to remove this template message, An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President, "Why Haiti should be at the centre of the Age of Revolution Laurent Dubois", "The Polish Influence in Casale, Haiti and Contribution to the Haitian Revolution", "Slave Hounds and Abolition in the Americas", "Chapter 6 "Haiti: Historical Setting", in, "The History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, Volume 2", "Dominican Republic Haiti and Santo Domingo", "A Country Study: Haiti Boyer: Expansion and Decline", "La premire ambassade franaise en Hati", "The Realities in Africa: European Profit or Negro Development? [102] When Christophe refused, the French assaulted Le Cap and the Haitians set the city afire rather than surrender it. Joan Dayan, Haiti, History and the Gods (University of California Press, 1998) Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Harvard University Press, 2004). He sent a letter to slaves all over the island introducing himself. As such, they were demanding their rights as Frenchmen which had been granted by the king. The parallels with modern times, and particularly contemporary America, leap off the page". [79] Forbes's attempt to take the French-held city of Logne ended in disaster. [88] British morale had collapsed with the news that Toussaint had taken Port-au-Prince, and Maitland decided to abandon all of Saint-Domingue, writing that the expedition had become such a complete disaster that withdrawal was the only sensible thing to do, even though he did not have the authority to do so. Download the best of Radio 3's Free Thinking programme. Some had identified more with the French colonists than the slaves. Studies in the History of Political Thought, "Freedom at All Cost: Remembering History's Greatest Slave Rebellion", "Invade Haiti, Wall Street Urged. S2 Ep 5: Nouveaux Dsordres Coloniaux. distinguish the Haitian Revolution from the French Revolution. While the exiles found themselves in a peaceful situation in the United Statessafe from the violence raging in both France and Haititheir presence complicated the already precarious diplomatic relations among Britain, France, and the U.S. [71] The British lost about 300 soldiers, and Rigaud's forces took no prisoners, executing any British soldier or sailor who surrendered. Many of the whites and free people of color who left Saint-Domingue for the United States settled in southern Louisiana, adding many new members to its French-speaking, mixed-race, and black populations. An interactive 17-map progression and timeline project tracing power and shifting alliances across geography and time from precolonial kingdoms through the Revolution and up to Haiti's current borders with the Dominican Republic. There was growing frustration between the workers, the elites, and Dessalines. [56] Louverture, the ablest of the Haitian generals, had joined the Spanish, accepting an officer's commission in the Spanish Army and being made a knight in the Order of St. Two-thirds of the slaves were African born, and they tended to be less submissive than those born in the Americas and raised in slave societies. I love this idea, it's so helpful - thank you! [159], Despite the idealist, rational and utopian thinking surrounding both uprisings, extreme brutality was a fundamental aspect of both uprisings. He further thought that taking Saint-Domingue, the richest of the French colonies, would be a useful bargaining chip in eventual peace negotiations with France, and in the interim, occupying Saint-Domingue would mean diverting its great wealth into the British treasury. However, the social conflict cultivated under slavery continued to affect the population for years to come. [126] Many of the workers likened the new labor system to slavery, much like Toussaint L'Ouverture's system, which caused resentment between Dessalines and his people. The masters and mistresses were dragged from their beds to be killed, and the heads of French children were placed on pikes that were carried at the front of the rebel columns. [52] In September 1791, the surviving whites organized into militias and struck back, killing about 15,000 blacks. His theory was that if French forces were able to capture Toussaint LOuverture everything else would fall apart afterward. An average of 600 ships engaged every year in shipping products from Saint-Domingue to Bordeaux, and the value of the colony's crops and goods was almost equal in value to all of the products shipped from the Thirteen Colonies to Great Britain. This page was last edited on 28 April 2023, at 18:43. The end of the Haitian Revolution in 1804 marked the end of French colonialism on the island. [43] One such sign was the action of the French revolutionary government to grant citizenship to wealthy free people of color in May 1791. They often received education or artisan training, and sometimes inherited freedom or property from their fathers. Here is an episode indexfor his fabulous The History of Rome Podcast Episode 000: Introduction The English Civil War The American Revolution The French Revolution The Haitian Revolution In addition, he led an invasion of neighboring Santo Domingo (December 1800), and freed the slaves there on 3 January 1801. A conspiracy led by the mulatto elites ultimately led to Dessalines assassination and two separate sovereign states of Haiti. john | [106] Despite Bonaparte's attempt to keep his intention to restore slavery a secret, it was widely believed by both sides that was why the French had returned to Haiti, as a sugar plantation could only be profitable with slave labour. A retrouver aussi dans la Playlist Decolonisations-Haiti. In cooperation with their former mulatto rivals, blacks ended the Revolution in November 1803 when they decidedly defeated the French Army at the Battle of Vertires.