What was the job of a high-ranking official? Some might say collecting taxes, conscripting soldiers, and conveying government decrees.
Toussaint Louverture himself owned slaves, and before the French expeditionary force arrived, he had even killed his own nephew to suppress a rebellion.
At its height, Saint-Domingue had supplied the French treasury with an annual income of 180 million francs, employed 1,640 ships, and recruited tens of thousands of sailors.
After experiencing such prosperity, then suddenly seeing empty ports without a single ship and towns containing no outsiders besides the locals, perhaps the people of Saint-Domingue would change their minds.
Of course, they could continue to disregard everything. Toussaint Louverture's confidence might have had something to do with the trade agreements Britain and America had signed with him. He could bypass France and step onto the international stage as the leader of an independent nation.
Under the Treaty of Mortefontaine, signed in September 1800, France promised to respect American shipping, while America abandoned its claims for compensation over its vessels.
If America insisted on trading with Saint-Domingue, Napoleon, five thousand miles away, could do nothing about it. But if America recognized Saint-Domingue as a nation made independent by a slave uprising, America itself would descend into chaos. Even if France recognized Saint-Domingue's independence, America would not. The premise of their trade relationship was that Saint-Domingue remained a French colony.
Perhaps Saint-Domingue would seek independence again in two or three years, but by then circumstances would have changed. The French were very good at forgetting; no one would pay attention to something so far away. As long as they got past the issue of public debt, that would be enough.
By then, Saint-Domingue might become a piece of land that could not be marked on any map. No one would go there,