Who, outside of Haiti, has ever heard of the Battle of Vertières, the culmination of the Haitian War of Independence? Who knows that this confrontation ended, in 1803, with one of the worst Napoleonic defeats? That the Blacks claimed the ideals of the Revolution? However, this battle should have been a historic one: its outcome, disastrous for the French colonial power, would irreparably crack the foundations of slavery.

In this book, Jean-Pierre Le Glaunec describes the incredible violence of this war between masters and former slaves, between the forces of Generals Leclerc and Rochambeau and the so-called "native" army of Jean-Jacques Dessalines. He questions the meaning of its concealment by French historiography, but also the troubled relationship that the Haitian power elite maintains with its memory, a symbol of emancipation that is sometimes cumbersome for those who wish to keep the populations enslaved.

The Native Army won the Research and Creation Prize from the University of Sherbrooke (2015) and the Grand Prix du livre from the City of Sherbrooke (2016).