Black Auxiliaries beyond Saint-Domingue: Critiques of the French Nation in the Revolutionary Atlantic

During the early years of the Haitian Revolution self-liberated insurgents under the command of ex-slave generals Jean-François and Georges Biassou formed the most potent fighting force on the island. Their allegiance to Spain as “Black Auxiliaries” tipped the balance of power toward Spain, which nearly succeeded in toppling the French Republic’s presence on Hispaniola. Despite defections to France after the emancipations of 1793 and 1794, at least several hundreds of these angry and motivated anti-French black troops remained loyal to Spain and spread, via resettlement at exile, across Santo Domingo, other colonies in Latin America, and Iberia. From their enslavement under French masters, to their warfare against the French Republic, they refused to reconcile with the arch enemies of their adult lives.

Their adherence to monarchy and the church endured despite this dispersal. Drawn from archival sources predominantly in Spain, but also Haiti and the Dominican Republic, this paper will interrogate how they responded to the circulation of ideas on the popularity of French republicanism and abolition. It will consider how their diametric opposition to the French nation, whether the ancien regime or Republic, to other populations of color in the Spanish empire and served as a counterweight to rising popularity of French ideals in the Atlantic more broadly. The narrative arch of the paper, which will stretch from roughly 1795 through the first decade of the nineteenth century, will consider the resonance of their circulation of ideas about French impiety, insincerity, and instability in various Atlantic contexts.