War of Knives | |||||||
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Part of the Haitian Revolution and the Quasi-War | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Strength | |||||||
45,000 | 15,000 |
The War of Knives (French: Guerre des couteaux), also known as the War of the South, was a civil war from June 1799 to July 1800 between the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture, a black ex-slave who controlled the north of Saint-Domingue (modern-day Haiti), and his adversary André Rigaud, a mixed-race free person of color who controlled the south.[1] Louverture and Rigaud fought over de facto control of the French colony of Saint-Domingue during the war. Their conflict followed the withdrawal of British forces from the colony earlier during the Haitian Revolution. The war resulted in Toussaint taking control of the entirety of Saint-Domingue, and Rigaud fleeing into exile.