André Rigaud
Encyclopedia
Gens de couleur
Gens de couleur is a French term meaning "people of color." The term was commonly used in France's West Indian colonies prior to the abolition of slavery, where it was a short form of gens de couleur libres ....
military leader during the Haïtian Revolution
Haïtian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution was a period of conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian republic...
. Among his protégés were Alexandre Pétion
Alexandre Pétion
Alexandre Sabès Pétion was President of the Republic of Haiti from 1806 until his death. He is considered as one of Haiti's founding fathers, together with Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and his rival Henri Christophe.-Early life:Pétion was born in Port-au-Prince to a Haitian...
and Jean-Pierre Boyer, both future presidents of Haïti.
The revolutionary
Rigaud was born on 17 January 1761 in Les CayesLes Cayes
Les Cayes , is a town and seaport in southwestern Haiti, with a population of approximately 45,904 people . Estimates from 2008 place the population at close to 70,000 people...
, to a French planter, André Rigaud and a slave woman, Rose Bossy Depa. At a young age, his father legitimised and sent him to Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, where he was trained as a goldsmith. He was a successor to Vincent Ogé
Vincent Ogé
Vincent Ogé was a wealthy free man of color and the instigator of a revolt against white colonial authority in French Saint-Domingue that lasted from October to December 1790 in the area outside Cap-Français, the colony's main city...
and Julien Raimond
Julien Raimond
Julien Raimond was an indigo planter in the French colony of Saint-Domingue .-Early activism:He was born a free man of color, the son of a French colonist and the mulatto daughter of a planter, in the isolated South province of the colony. Raimond owned over 100 slaves by the 1780s, and was one of...
as champion of the interests of free people of color
Free people of color
A free person of color in the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, is a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved...
in Saint-Domingue
Saint-Domingue
The labour for these plantations was provided by an estimated 790,000 African slaves . Between 1764 and 1771, the average annual importation of slaves varied between 10,000-15,000; by 1786 it was about 28,000, and from 1787 onward, the colony received more than 40,000 slaves a year...
(as colonial
French colonial empires
The French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...
Haïti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
was known). Rigaud aligned himself with revolutionary
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and with an interpretation of the Rights of Man
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is a fundamental document of the French Revolution, defining the individual and collective rights of all the estates of the realm as universal. Influenced by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of man are held to be universal: valid...
that ensured the civil equality of all free people.
Rigaud's army established itself during the mid-1790s as a leading force in the West
Ouest Department
Ouest is one of the ten departments of Haiti. It is the jurisdictional seat of the national capital, the city of Port-au-Prince. It has an area of and a population of 3,093,698 . It borders the Dominican Republic to the east.It is the second largest department in Haiti after the Artibonite...
and South
Sud Department
Sud is one of the ten departments of Haiti. It has an area of and a population of 745,000 . Its capital is Les Cayes. A large part of the population of Haitians in this department is of mixed race, mulattoes along with other mixtures such as Arabs and East Indians...
. He was given authority to govern by Étienne Polverel
Étienne Polverel
Étienne Polverel was one of two French Revolutionary Civil Commissioners who ended slavery in Saint-Domingue in 1793 during the Haïtian Revolution.-Life:...
, one of the three French Civil Commissioners who had abolished slavery in Saint-Domingue in 1793. Rigaud's power came from his influence with the colored planters who were fearful of the masses of former slaves, although his army contained blacks and white also.
In the South and West, from 1793 to 1798, Rigaud played an important role in defeating a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
invasion and re-establishing the plantation economy
Plantation economy
A plantation economy is an economy which is based on agricultural mass production, usually of a few staple products grown on large farms called plantations. Plantation economies rely on the export of cash crops as a source of income...
. Although Rigaud respected Toussaint Louverture, the leading general of the former black slaves of the North, and his superior rank in the French Revolutionary Army
French Revolutionary Army
The French Revolutionary Army is the term used to refer to the military of France during the period between the fall of the ancien regime under Louis XVI in 1792 and the formation of the First French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804. These armies were characterised by their revolutionary...
, he did not want to concede power in the South to him. This led to the bitter "War of the Knives" (La Guerre des Couteaux) in June 1799, when Toussaint's army invaded Rigaud's territory. Comte d'Hédouville, sent by France to govern the island, encouraged Rigaud's rivalry with Toussaint. In 1800, Rigaud left Saint-Domingue for France after his defeat by Toussaint Louverture.
With Leclerc and death
Rigaud returned to Saint-Domingue in 1802 with the expedition of General Charles LeclercCharles Leclerc
Charles Victoire Emmanuel Leclerc was a French Army general and husband to Pauline Bonaparte, sister to Napoleon Bonaparte.-To 1801:...
, Napoleon's brother-in-law, who sought to unseat Toussaint and re-establish French colonial rule and slavery in Saint-Domingue. After the First French Republic abolished slavery in 1794, the colonial system based on exports of commodities from sugar cane and coffee plantations had been undermined. After LeClerc's initial success and the capture and deportation of Toussaint, opposition from Haitian indigenous troops led by Toussaint's officers resulted in two more years of war. In the end Jean-Jacques Dessalines led Saint-Domingue to victory and independence, declaring the new name of the nation as Haiti.
Rigaud was sent back to France after the failure of the expedition in 1803-1804. For a time he was held a prisoner in Fort de Joux
Fort de Joux
The Fort de Joux or Château de Joux is a castle, transformed into a fort, located in La Cluse-et-Mijoux, in the Doubs département, in the Jura mountains of France. It commands the mountain pass "Cluse de Pontarlier"....
, the same fortress as his rival Toussaint, where the latter died in 1803.
Rigaud returned to Haiti yet a third time in December 1810, establishing himself as President of the Department of the South, in opposition to both Alexandre Pétion
Alexandre Pétion
Alexandre Sabès Pétion was President of the Republic of Haiti from 1806 until his death. He is considered as one of Haiti's founding fathers, together with Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and his rival Henri Christophe.-Early life:Pétion was born in Port-au-Prince to a Haitian...
and Henri Christophe
Henri Christophe
Henri Christophe was a key leader in the Haitian Revolution, winning independence from France in 1804. On 17 February 1807, after the creation of a separate nation in the north, Christophe was elected President of the State of Haiti...
. Shortly after Rigaud's death the following year, the South returned to Pétion's power.