NAPOLEON'S MAN IN HAITI.

The article focuses on the complex historical figure of André Rigaud, a free man of mixed French and African ancestry and Haitian revolutionary general, whose return from exile in 1810 significantly altered Haiti's political landscape. While Rigaud was historically portrayed by some contemporaries and later writers as a color-prejudiced rival to Black revolutionaries like Toussaint Louverture and accused of collaborating with French efforts to reinstate slavery, Rigaud himself denied such claims and emphasized his commitment to republican values and the abolition of slavery. His 1810 return, allegedly under Napoleon Bonaparte's orders, intensified divisions within Haiti, contributing to the fragmentation of the country into three factions and prompting Henry Christophe to establish the Kingdom of Haiti, a monarchy opposed to the southern republic led by Alexandre Pétion. Rigaud's true motives remain unclear due to the lack of his own account regarding this period, leaving his legacy contested between interpretations of patriotism and betrayal.