Benoit Joseph André Rigaud (1761–1811) was the leading mulatto military leader during the Haïtian Revolution. Among his protégés were Alexandre Pétion and Jean-Pierre Boyer, both future presidents of Haïti.
Contents |
Rigaud was born on 17 January 1761 in Les Cayes, to a French planter,[1] André Rigaud and a slave woman, Rose Bossy Depa. At a young age, his father legitimised and sent him to Bordeaux, where he was trained as a goldsmith.[1] He was a successor to Vincent Ogé and Julien Raimond as champion of the interests of free people of color in Saint-Domingue (as colonial Haïti was known). Rigaud aligned himself with revolutionary France and with an interpretation of the Rights of Man 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 and South. He was given authority to govern by Étienne Polverel, one of the three French Civil Commissioners who had abolished slavery in Saint-Domingue in 1793.[2] 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.[3]
In the South and West, from 1793 to 1798, Rigaud played an important role in defeating a British invasion and re-establishing the plantation economy. 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, 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.[4]
Rigaud returned to Saint-Domingue in 1802 with the expedition of General Charles Leclerc, 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, 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 and Henri Christophe. Shortly after Rigaud's death the following year, the South returned to Pétion's power.