The war between the French republic and Spain had naturally called forth hostilities between the two parts of the island inhabited on one side by French, on the other by Spaniards. The negro insurgents saw their opportunity and did not let it go by without exploiting it for their purposes. The unfortunate jealousies between the President and Captain-General of Santo Domingo and the General of the Navy, Aristizabel, who had captured Bayaja, had weakened the Spanish forces, and when they attempted to take Guarico, they had to retire at Yazique before a force of five hundred undisciplined negroes. This encouraged the negro commanders and in quick succession they captured San Rafael and Las Caobas, and had the satisfaction to see San Miguel, Bonica and Incha evacuated before they even reached these places. Bayaja was strongly fortified and garrisoned; but the climate of that place being very unhealthy, the Spanish troops were decimated by sickness, until they numbered only about four hundred men. The negro general Juan Francisco on the other hand could increase his troops at will. In order to enforce the Spanish it was proposed to send them a regiment of white Frenchmen. Seven legions of these men arrived at Bayaja on the morning of the seventh of July, 1794. But Juan Francisco surprised the place half an hour before, and placing artillery in the principal streets and squares, informed the commandant that all white Frenchmen were to leave Bayaja before three o'clock that afternoon. When the commandant remonstrated saying that the time was too short to provide barges for their transportation, the negro leader left the government house and gave the signal for the massacre of all Frenchmen in the place. The terrible slaughter lasted until far into the afternoon, when the governor and the venerable priest of the place so urgently implored the negro troops to have mercy, that they moderated their savage rage. While this wholesale murder, which cost the lives of seven hundred and forty-two Frenchmen, not counting those who were drowned in flight, was going on in the streets, military conferences were held at which, after some irresolute wrangling, it was decided to withdraw to Fuerte Dolfin, about five hundred varas (rods) distant from Bayaja, in order to save the garrison from being at the mercy of a negro mob, intoxicated with the victory won over their adversaries. They succeeded in holding Fuerte Dolfin, until Bayaja itself was evacuated by Juan Francisco on the thirteenth of July. The loss of the Spanish troops, including deserters and those that died from privations, was about three thousand men. The national treasury suffered during the revolt a defalcation of some fifty thousand pesos. The negroes were at first charged with the embezzlement of that sum, but there were rumors to the contrary, which in view of the only too well-known turpitude of many colonial officials, were quite plausible.