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Haïti
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 André Rigaud b.1761 – d.1811 |
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| In 1779 he fought as a chasseur
against the British in support of the American Revolution in Georgia and
the Carolinas with France's West Indian expeditionary force under
Compte d'Estaing. In the south of Haiti he led the mulâtres in the wars that liberated
Haiti, first from the British then from the French. He was appointed by the French as General on 22 January 1793 commanding the Légion d'Egalité. His forces blew up the British sloop H.M.S. King Gray and with his army of 3000 expelled the British from Fort Tiburon. After defeating the British the economy and the plantations were in ruins. Rigaud re-instituted slavery in order to rebuild the south. In September 1794 Rigaud expelled the Royalist French from Léogane. On 2 October 1798 the "Union Jack came down for the last time over Haitian soil, and Admiral Bligh (he of the Bounty) embarked the British survivors of the long campaign and a shipload of loyalist planters for exile in America"(1) With the appointment of Gabriel-Théodore-Joseph Hédouville as Commissioner by France, Rigaud was given special attention because of his love of France. Educated, but vain, he believed in the superiority of mulattoes to defeat the French. In a letter sent by Rigaud to General Geffrard, head of the insurgent army in the South, he asked Geffrard to kill all the French in the colony with the certainty that France would not be able to retaliate for the next twelve years. The interception of this letter by the French troops resulted in Rigaud's deportation by Charles Leclerc in 1803. It has been reported that Rigaud's escape from prison in France was engineered by Napolean, in order to establish France's control over Haiti. On 7 April 1810 Rigaud returned to Haiti, landing at Les Cayes to a hero's welcome. Rigaud was to take advantage of his appointment by President Alexandre Petion as administrator of the province of the South. On 3 November 1810 he issued a "Proclamation to the people of the South", establishing an "Etat du Sud," independent from the "Republic of Haiti" in the West and the "Kingdom of Haiti" in the North. Rigaud appointed himself General-in-Chief and sought unsuccessfully to wrest the leadership from Toussaint L’Ouverture. Rigaud was General-in-Chief from 3 November 1810 to 9 January 1811 when he was appointed President of the Council of the South until 18 September 1811 when he died. Various accounts say he died of sickness on his plantation, Habitation Laborde. While other accounts say he died in prison, presumably by starving himself to death. After Rigaud's death, Jérôme-Maximilien Borgella became President of the Council of South Haiti until it was reincorporated in March 1812. 1) Written in Blood, The Story of the Haitian People 1492-1971, Robert Debs Heinl Jr., Nancy Gordon Heinl, Houghton Mifflin Company Boston © 1978 ISBN 0-395-26305-0 |
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President
of South Haiti