NAPOLEON'S POLISH LEGIONS & THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION

When the emperor sent his elite Polish fighters to put down an uprising, the Poles instead joined the rebels

- MAREK SOBIERALSKI

In 1802, Napoleon sent a Polish legion of about 5,200 men to join the French forces in Saint-Domingue to put down the Haitian slave rebellion, having actually been told there was a revolt of prisoners there. The Poles had initially fought with Napoleon in the hope of receiving French support in restoring their own country’s independence from its partitioners and oppressors – Prussia, Russia and Austria – who had divided Poland between them in the late 18th century.

After arriving in Saint-Domingue following a gruelling journey across the Atlantic Ocean, and being thrown straight into battle, the Poles quickly learned that the French were, in fact, trying to brutally crush an uprising by enslaved Africans fighting for freedom from their ruthless white masters. Many sympathised with their struggle and joined the ranks of the revolutionaries against the French.

Today’s Polish Haitians (Poloné or La Pologne, in Haitian Creole) are Haitian people of Polish and African ancestry that dates back to those events, after which some 400-500 of these Poles are believed to have settled there after the war. They had been given special status as ‘Noir’ by the governor-general and emperor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and full citizenship under the Haitian constitution.