“The same way that Napoleon kidnapped Toussaint Louverture, and put him in captivity, he also finishes his life in captivity. He also sees an irony in the way in which the most famous Frenchman died. For Bonaparte’s role in rolling back abolition, Michel sees the military leader as a man who was “a criminal against humanity.” “Napoleon reinstated slavery in 1802 and the French parliament, in 2001, declared by law that colonial slavery was a crime against humanity,” says Georges Michel, a Haitian historian in Port-au-Prince. It also would forever seal a legacy for Bonaparte that remains a source of contention 200 years after his death. The events of 1802 would give birth to the world’s first Black-led independent nation post colonialism: Haiti. Suddenly the resistance movement that began in 1791 with a series of slave rebellions on the island-though roiled by internal conflicts, shifting alliances, and the arrest and deportation of Louverture-was ignited. Their purpose was to reinstate slavery, and reassert French control over the entire island after slave revolt leader Toussaint Louverture published an 1801 constitution proclaiming himself governor-general for life and codifying the abolishment of slavery.

Unauthorized use is prohibited.Īfter eight years of freedom, Black Guadeloupeans were now back in bondage.īlack fighters as well as those of mixed race-known across the Caribbean as mulatto-quickly realized that the mighty expedition of French troops deployed under the command of Bonaparte’s brother-in-law, Army General Charles Leclerc, weren’t in Saint-Domingue just to restore order.

Where was napoleon born