Lamour Desrances (also spelled L'Amour Desrances, Lamour Derance, and Lamour Dérance) was a Haitian revolutionary leader. A former maroon, he was born in

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and brought to Saint-Domingue as a slave. During the revolution, when local figures often gained power in control of small armed forces, Desrances became a local military leader in the mountains surrounding Port-au-Prince and

Saint-Marc Saint-Marc ( ht, Sen Mak) is a commune in western Haiti in Artibonite departement. Its geographic coordinates are . At the 2003 Census the commune had 160,181 inhabitants. It is one of the biggest cities, second to Gonaïves, between Port-au-P ...

. At the time of the

War of Knives 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-Domi ...

, Desrances was loyal to André Rigaud in his battle with

Toussaint Louverture François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture (; also known as Toussaint L'Ouverture or Toussaint Bréda; 20 May 1743 – 7 April 1803) was a Haitian general and the most prominent leader of the Haitian Revolution. During his life, Louverture ...

, and was one of the few black officers in the predominantly mulatto northern Rigaud-loyal army. After Rigaud's defeat by Louverture, Desrances is referred to as a rebel in Louverture's autobiography. Céligny Ardouin argues that Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines saw Desrances as a growing rival due to his power in the region, and determined to defeat him. Louverture marched on Desrances' forces in November 1801, and they scattered into the local forest. Two months later, the French forces arrived under

Charles Leclerc Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc (; born 16 October 1997) is a Monégasque racing driver, currently racing in Formula One for Scuderia Ferrari. He won the GP3 Series championship in 2016 and the FIA Formula 2 Championship in . Leclerc ...

and during L'Ouverture's open conflict with the French, Desrances notably changed his loyalty to the French under General Pampile de Lacroix to fight against Dessalines' forces. An enemy of L'Ouverture in both instances, L'Ouverture wrote of him: "L’Amour Desrances, who had caused all the inhabitants of the Plain of Cul-de-Sac to be assassinated; who urged the laborers to revolt; who pillaged all this part of the island."L'Ouverture also records that Leclerc raised Desrances to the rank of brigade commander. The combined force of French and Desrances' and others' local militias defeated

Dessalines Dessalines ( ht, Desalin) wrongly referred to as ''Marchand-Dessalines'' ( ht, Machan Desalin), is a commune in the Artibonite department of Haiti. It is named after Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ru ...

army at Port-au-Prince and forced their retreat.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Desrances, Lamour Haitian rebel slaves People of the Haitian Revolution