Donatien-Marie-Joseph Rochambeau

Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau (also Vicomte de Rochambeau ) (April 7, 1750 Chateau Rochambeau, France - October 18, 1813 Leipzig, Germany) French General and landowner in Saint-Domingue. In 1802, he was appointed to lead an expeditionary force against Saint-Domingue after General Leclerc's death. Historians of the Haitian Revolution credit his brutal tactics (see: Napoléon's Caribbean Genocide) for uniting black and mulatto soldiers against the French.

His father Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (July 1, 1725 – May 10, 1807), fought in the American Revolution with the younger Rochambeau as his aide-de-camp. On July 9 1792, Rochambeau was made a Lieutenant General in the French army.

Rochambeau was a Governor-General of Saint-Domingue from October 21, 1792 to January 2, 1793 and from November 2, 1802 to November 30, 1803.

"Rochambeau, the commanding general, from the landing of Napoleon's expedition to the entire expulsion of the French, was a hard-hearted slaveholder, many of whose years had been spent in St. Domingo, and who, from the moment that he landed with his forces, treated the colored men as the worst of barbarians and wild beasts. He imported bloodhounds from Cuba to hunt them down in the mountains. When caught, he had them thrown into burning pits and boiling caldrons. When he took prisoners, he put them to the most excruciating tortures and the most horrible deaths. His ferocious and sanguinary spirit was too much for the kind heart of Toussaint, or the gentlemanly bearing of Christophe. His only match was Dessalines." (Wells Brown p. 111)

Rochambeau and Napoléon Bonaparte's Caribbean Genocide
This monstrous agent [Rochambeau] ''of Bonaparte, a worthy accomplice of the colonists, polluted himself with every species of crime: he spared neither sex, nor infancy, nor age; he surpassed in cruelty the most accomplished villains of ancient or modern times. Gibbets were every where erected; drownings, burnings, the most horrible punishments, were practiced by his orders. He invented a new machine of destruction, in which victims of both sexes, heaped one upon another, were suffocated by the smoke of sulphur... In his insensate rage, he procured from Cuba, at a great expense, a multitude of blood-hounds.'' (Barskett p.262) This is only one example of reports of the French cruelties under Rochambeau. Even the earliest accounts of the fighting put spacial emphasis on Rochambeau's sadistic and cruel methods.

The Battle of Vertières
After Rochambeau surrendered to the rebel general Dessalines in November of 1803 after losing the crucial Battle of Vertières, the former French colony declared its independence as Haiti, the second independent state in the Americas. On his way home, Rochambeau was captured by the English and returned to England as a prisoner on parole, where he remained interned for almost nine years.

Dessalines subsequently declared independence for Haiti and became the first ruler of the independent republic.

Rochambeau's death
Rochambeau was mortally wounded in the Battle of Nations (German: Völkerschlacht, and succumbed to his injuries three days later in Leipzig, Germany.

gibbet n.
 * 1. A device used for hanging a person until dead; a gallows.
 * 2. An upright post with a crosspiece, forming a T-shaped structure from which executed criminals were formerly hung for public viewing..

Documents

 * Leclerc Saint-Domingue proclamation - 1802 declaration by Rochambeau's predecessor, outlawing Henry Christophe and Toussaint Louverture.
 * French Capitulation in Saint-Domingue (1803) - Rochambeau's capitulation to the victorious Haitian forces.

Battles of the Haitian Revolution

 * Category: Battles of the Haitian Revolution:
 * The Battle of Ravine-à-Couleuvres - Rochambeau participated in this battle near Gonaïves.
 * The Battle of Crète-à-Pierrot - An important battle of the Haitian revolution, fought in 1802 between Rochambeau's troops and that of Toussaint Louverture, led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines.
 * The Battle of Vertières (1803) - The final and victorious battle against the French troops under Rochambeau, who then conceded defeat.

Lists

 * List of Saint-Domingue Rulers

Speeches

 * Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Haytian Revolutions - 1841 speech by McCune Smith.