were reserved for their
support, and the rest went to the chiefs, the king, the general
government, and the army. The army was under stern discipline and
military service was compulsory. Women did much of the agricultural labor.
Under Toussaint the administration of this system was committed to
Dessalines, who carried it out with rigor; it was afterward followed by
Christophe. The latter even imported four thousand Negroes from Africa,
from whom he formed a national guard for patrolling the land. These
regulations brought back for a time a large part of the former prosperity
of the island.

The severity with which Dessalines enforced the laws soon began to turn
many against him. The educated mulattoes especially objected to submission
to the savage African _mores_. Dessalines started to suppress their
revolt, but was killed in ambush in October, 1806.

Great Britain now began to intrigue for a protectorate over the island and
the Spanish end of the island threatened attack. These difficulties were
overcome, but at a cost of great internal strain. After the death of
Dessalines it seemed that Hayti was about to dissolve into a number of
petty subdivisions. At one time Christophe was ruling as king in the
north, Petion as president at Port au Prince, Rigaud in the south, and a
semi-brigand, Goman, in the extreme southwest. Very soon, however, the
rivalry narrowed down to Petion and Christophe. Petion was a man of
considerable ability and did much, not simply for Hayti, but for South
America. Already as early as 1779, before the revolution in Hayti, the
Haytian Negroes had helped the United States. The British had captured
Savannah in 1778. The French fleet appeared on the coast of Georgia late
that year and was ordered to recruit men in Hayti. Eight hundred young
freedmen, blacks and mulattoes, offered to take part in the expedition,
and they fought valiantly in the siege and covered themselves with glory.
It was this legion that made the charge on the British and saved the
retreating American army. Among the men who fought there was Christophe.

When Simon Bolivar, Commodore Aury, and many Venezuelan families were
driven from their country in 1815, they and their ships took temporary
refuge in Hayti. Notwithstanding the embarrassed condition of the
republic, Petion received them and gave them four thousand rifles with
ammunition, provisions, and last and best a printing press. He also
settled some international quarrels