André Rigaud

French First Republic state institutions 1761–1811 ○ Died

Mulatto leader who led the free coloured army of the South against the British and lost the War of the South to Louverture in 1799–1800

Born in Les Cayes in 1761 to a wealthy French planter and an enslaved mother, he was trained as a goldsmith in Bordeaux. Back in the colony he succeeded Ogé and Raimond as the champion of the free people of colour, led an army in the West and South from the mid-1790s with authority granted by Polverel, and checked the British, retaking Léogâne and Tiburon in 1794. Unwilling to concede power in the South to Toussaint Louverture, and encouraged by Hédouville, he fought the War of the South from June 1799. After his defeat he left for France in 1800, returned with Leclerc's expedition in 1802 and was deported again, held in the Fort de Joux like Toussaint. In December 1810 he returned to Haiti a third time and made himself president of the State of the South against both Pétion and Christophe, but died in September 1811.

Also known as: Benoit Joseph André Rigaud · Andre Rigaud