André Rigaud

André Rigaud

André Rigaud (* 1761 in Les Cayes , Haiti ; † September 18, 1811 ibid) was a Haitian politician and one of the leaders of the Mulatto ethnic group during the Haitian Revolution .

Early life and exile

Rigaud was born as the son of a wealthy French plantation owner and a slave in the south of what was then the French colony of Saint-Domingue , today's Haiti. After training as a goldsmith in Bordeaux , Rigaud rose to become the most important representative of the interests of the free colored people in Saint-Domingue as the successor to Vincent Ogé and Julien Raimond . As such, he made the ideas of the French Revolution his own. In particular, he welcomed the declaration of human and civil rights and the civil equality of all free people enshrined in it.

In the mid-1790s, Rigaud formed an army that developed into the leading force in the west and south of the colony. His followers included u. a. the later Haitian presidents Alexandre Sabès Pétion and Jean-Pierre Boyer , who were also mulattos. Étienne Polverel , one of the commissioners sent to the colony by the French revolutionary government, who banned slavery there in 1793, gave Rigaud a power of attorney.

From 1793 to 1798, Rigaud played an important role in repelling a British invasion and in re-establishing the plantation economy . Rigaud got into a conflict with the black general Toussaint L'Ouverture , who ruled the north of the colony as a representative of the former slaves. Rigaud refused to cede his competences in the part of the country ruled by him to L'Ouverture, although the latter held a higher rank in the French revolutionary army. As a result, L'Ouverture's troops marched into Rigaud's territory in June 1799 and the bitter war of the knives between the former slaves and the mulattoes began. The conflict between L'Ouverture and Rigaud was fueled by Gabriel Marie Joseph d'Hédouville , the French governor of the colony. The conflict ended in 1800 with the victory of L'Ouverture and Rigaud had to go into exile in France.

Return and death

In 1802, Rigaud returned to Saint-Domingue in the wake of a French invasion force led by Charles Victoire Emmanuel Leclerc , brother-in-law Bonaparte Napoleon I. The aim of the campaign was the disempowerment of L'Ouverture and the unrestricted restoration of French rule and slavery. The abolition of slavery had led to the collapse of the colonial economy and the export of plantation products such as sugar and coffee had declined steadily. The company was initially successful. L'Ouverture was captured and deported to France. However, the French continued to face resistance from local troops, now led by L'Ouverture's officers. Some followers of Rigaud, such as Pétion, also switched sides. After two more years of war, the local armed forces finally triumphed under General Jean-Jacques Dessalines , who proclaimed Saint-Domingue an independent state under the name Haiti and who soon thereafter crowned himself Emperor of Haiti.

Faced with the failure of the invasion, Rigaud was taken back to France and imprisoned for some time in Fort de Joux , where his rival L'Ouverture was imprisoned until his death in 1803.

In 1810, Rigaud returned to Haiti again, where he declared himself president of the southern province in opposition to both Pétion, who had meanwhile ruled the south of the country, and Henri Christophe , who was then ruling northern Haiti established itself on the southern peninsula of Haiti. Rigaud died the following year, however, and his domain reverted to Pétion.

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• CLR James : The Black Jacobins. Second Edition Revised, 1989.