Vincent Ogé jeune (1757–91): History, Biography, and the Haitian Revolution

In October 1790, Vincent Ogé jeune raised an unsuccessful revolt to win voting rights for free people of color like himself in French Saint-Domingue. Captured and brutally executed in February 1791, Ogé instantly became a potent symbol of racial injustice. The image of his tortured death was an important influence on the May 15, 1791 decision of the French National Assembly to extend civil rights to freeborn men of color in the colony. On the other hand, those who opposed this reform saw Ogé's influence when a massive slave uprising broke out in Saint-Domingue in mid-August of 1791. The symbolic weight of the Ogé episode was so great that in two centuries the historiography of the Haitian Revolution has never clearly established even the basic biographical facts about this central figure. This paper will discuss the process of uncovering those facts and use them to reinterpret Ogé's goals and his impact on the Haitian Revolution.