The Haitian Revolution was a shockingly brutal conflict. While the Haitian people were prepared to fight to the end for their freedom, the French army was determined to use extreme brutality to put down the slave uprising. One figure that was notorious for brutality was Donatien De Rochambeau, the first military officer to use poison gas in the history of warfare.
Donatien Marie Joseph De Vimeur was born in 1755 in Paris, France. He was the son of Jean Baptiste Donatien De Vimeur, a legendary French general that had greatly helped the Thirteen Colonies win their independence from Great Britain. Donatien would follow in his father’s footsteps in the military, serving as his assistant during the American Revolution and beyond. By the time he had reached his mid-thirties, the Haitian Revolution had begun.
In 1802 Donatien De Rochambeau was made second in command of the Saint-Domingue Expedition. With Charles LeClerc made commander of French forces, the expedition was launched by Napoleon Bonaparte with the goal of reconquering Haiti. While their stated goals were to reestablish French control over the island, in actuality their intentions were to reinstitute slavery.
Arriving in Haiti in February, the expedition was at first successful in their campaign to restore French rule. By May of 1802, with many of his fighters having surrendered to LeClerc, Toussaint L’Overture, the prominent leader of the Haitian Revolution, was forced to do the same. He was subsequently betrayed by the French and captured. From there he would live out the rest of his days as a prisoner in France.
With the leader of the revolution out of the picture, LeClerc then began to reimplement slavery on the African population of the island. The French planned on deporting high-ranking officers of the revolution, thereby depriving the revolutionary army of its leadership. His initial attempts at reinstituting slavery caused a backlash among the island’s formerly enslaved African population, and war resumed. However, like many French soldiers had before him, LeClerc would contract yellow fever. His sickness would prove to be fatal.
With the death of LeClerc, Donatien assumed command of French forces on the island. The latter had been specifically recommended to Napoleon because of his intense anti-black views. De Rochambeau would frequently order surrendering prisoners shot. This was a violation of the rules of war but was ignored by the French during their campaign.
Taking things a step further, he would begin to implement even more sadistic measures against the rebelling population of Haiti. Drowning began to replace shooting, with one such event occurring at the Bay of Le-Cap in Northern Haiti. After a mass-drowning had taken place, the bay was unsuitable for fishing for months.
De Rochambeau would additionally order several hundred Cuban Bullmastiffs to be imported to Saint Domingue. These dogs had been specifically trained to maul Africans to death and would perform that very action against captured Haitians.
The most infamous act that Rochambeau carried out during the late stage of the war would be the use of poison gas against Haitian civilians. While the use of poison gas is mostly associated with the horrors of the First World War and the Holocaust, its first use was by French forces during the Haitian Revolution.
Captured Haitians were crammed into the holds of French warships, where Rochambeau ordered oil to be burned, producing deadly sulfur dioxide gas. The toxic fumes filled the air below deck, killing all those shackled inside. This is the first known instance of human beings being sent to the gas chambers in recorded history, and remains one of the lesser-known details of the Haitian Revolution.
De Rochambeau had ordered such brutal methods as a way of bringing slavery back to the island. The French hoped that their campaign of mass killing would wipe out the adult population that had experienced freedom for a short period of time and leave only young and terrified survivors to work on the plantations of Saint Domingue.
These methods produced the complete opposite result. While the rebelling Africans had splintered into several different factions over the last several years of the revolution, the brutality that they received at the hands of the French united them in opposition to their enemy. There would be no more negotiations or alliances with the French.
The various factions of Haitian rebels rallied behind the leadership of Jean Jacques Dessalines and committed themselves to victory or death. Dessalines would go on to lead a successful campaign against the French army, where in November of 1803 he would win the Battle of Vertieres. This was the conclusive battle of the revolution, with the French giving up on their plans to reinstitute slavery after this defeat.
In January of 1804 Dessalines declared the independence of Haiti, while Rochambeau returned to Europe as an English prisoner. He would go on to serve in the Napoleonic Wars, where he would eventually be killed at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813.
Sources:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09670106241226630
https://shs.cairn.info/revue-napoleonica-la-revue-2012-3-page-80?lang=en
https://islandluminous.fiu.edu/part02-slide11.html
