François Capois

National liberation and anti-colonial movements 1766–1806 ✕ Assassinated

Haitian revolutionary officer whose charge at Vertières in 1803 drew a salute even from Rochambeau

Born in 1766 on a plantation at Port-de-Paix in Saint-Domingue, he took his name from the plantation owner's. His military career began in 1793 after he met Toussaint Louverture at Port-de-Paix, and under Colonel Jacques Maurepas he rose to lieutenant and captain in the 9th brigade. Forced out of Port-de-Paix by the Leclerc expedition, he stormed the Petit-Fort for its ammunition, retook Port-de-Paix in April 1803 and seized Tortuga with a raft of planks. On 18 November 1803, ordered by Dessalines to take the fort of Vertières, he led four assaults; when a cannonball felled his horse he drew his sword and ran on shouting "Forward! Forward!", and Rochambeau called a brief cease-fire to compliment him, sending him a horse the next day for "the black Achilles". On 8 October 1806 he was killed near Limonade by assassins acting on Henri Christophe's orders.