Jean-François Papillon

Jean-François Papillon (died 1820), was an African-born slave who had worked in the plantation of Papillon in the last decades of the 18th Century, in the North Province of Saint-Domingue. He escaped from that plantation and became a maroon, so when the Haitian Revolution started in August 1791 he had already enjoyed a direct experience of freedom.

Right after the tragic death of Boukman Dutty, the insurgent slaves’ first leader, Jean-François Papillon imposed his authority over the other black generals, especially Georges Biassou, Jeannot Bullet and Toussaint Bréda (later Toussaint Louverture), and became commander-in-chief of the Haitian former slaves. By late 1791, some weeks after the revolutionary outbreak, Jean-François and Biassou set their rivalry aside in order to oppose Jeannot, who not only massacred the French but also all the black soldiers that contested his authority. For that reason, Biassou and Jean-François arrested and executed him by November 1791. It has usually been assumed that Jean-François and his men rose up in rebellion to conquer universal freedom, but their real intention was to conquer as much power as possible and return the rest of the slaves to plantation when the revolution was over, and the generals had already achieved power. Jean-François confessed his convictions to the North American agents in Le Cap Français: “[...] that General told us that he had not created himself General of the negroes, that those who had that power had confered [sic] upon him that title; that in taking up arms, he never pretended to fight for General Liberty, which he knew to be an illusion”.

There are many chances that the Spaniards backed the Haitian revolution from the beginning, providing the insurgents with food and weapons: they knew that the episode would cause chaos in Saint-Domingue, giving Spain the chance to send troops to that territory and re-annex it, since it had been a Spanish possession taken by the French in the Peace Treaty of Ryswick (1697). In October 1791, the black General Toussaint Bréda admitted his contacts with the Spaniards, who had promised them provisions. As Spain was officially neutral towards the French revolution, of which Saint-Domingue’s revolution was regarded as a mere echo, it kept its contacts with the black leaders in secret.

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Wikipedia