French military officer and anti-slavery rebellion leader
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Louis Delgrès (2 August 1766 – 28 May 1802) was a leader of the movement in Guadeloupe resisting reoccupation and thus the reinstitution of slavery by Napoleonic France in 1802.[1]
Biography
Delgrès was mulatto, born free in Saint-Pierre, Martinique.[2] A military officer for Revolutionary France he fought for France against Great Britain in the Caribbean, during which he was captured and imprisoned with other French soldiers in Portchester Castle. After his release and his return to the Caribbean, Delgrès took over the resistance movement from Magloire Pélage [fr] after it became evident that Pélage was loyal to Napoleon. Delgrès believed that the "tyrant" Napoleon had betrayed both the ideals of the Republic and the interests of France's colored citizens, and intended to fight to the death. The Jacobin government had granted the slaves their freedom, in Guadeloupe and the other French colonies, but Napoleon reinstated slavery throughout the French Empire in 1802.[3]
Attack by Napoleonic troops against insurgents in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, during the Richepance expedition of 1802 aimed at reestablishing slavery on the island
The French army, led by Richepanse, drove Delgrès into Fort Saint Charles, which was held by formerly enslaved Guadeloupians. After realizing that he could not prevail and refusing to surrender, Delgrès was left with roughly 1000 men and some women. At the Battle of Matouba on 28 May 1802, Delgrès and some of his followers ignited their gunpowder stores, committing suicide in the process, in an attempt to kill as many of the French troops as possible.[4] One of his followers was the fearless pregnant heroine warrior Solitude, who was injured in the explosion, and later captured and decapitated by the French on November 30, 1802, the day after the birth of her child at the age of 30. Her last words were "live free or die", which became the mantra of the resistance movement, and in poems, songs, libraries, historical markers, museums and statues, and today symbolizes the spirit of the country.[5]
Legacy and honours
In April 1998, Delgrès was officially admitted to the French Panthéon, although the actual location of his remains is unknown.[1] Delgrès' memorial is opposite that of Toussaint Louverture, leader of the Haitian Revolution, the location of whose remains is also a mystery.
In 2002, the bicentenary of the rebellion, a memorial to Delgrès was erected at Basse-Terre.[6]
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Dubois, Laurent (2009). Daniel J. Walkowitz, Lisa Maya Knauer (ed.). "Haunting Delgrès". Contested Histories in Public Space: Memory, Race, and Nation. Duke University Press: 312. ISBN978-0822391425.
