Before his capture, the Haitian leader Toussaint Louverture, knowing that the only way to defeat a vastly superior army was through a scorched-earth strategy, ordered his troops: Don’t forget that the only resources we have until the rainy season rids us of our enemies are destruction and fire. Know that the earth worked by our own sweat must not provide a single morsel of food to our enemies. Obstruct trails, throw cadavers and horses in all the springs; annihilate and burn everything, so that those that come to put us back in bondage always encounter here a portrayal of the hell they all
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