Polish Legionnaires Fighting Along The Affranchi For The Black Independent Nation Of Haiti

The Haitian Revolution of 1791 to 1804 is commonly remembered as the most successful slave revolution of all time, resulting in the establishment of the first black nation of independence in the West Indies. However, less known is the crucial role that Polish legionnaires, originally brought across the Atlantic by Napoleon, played in the banishment of the French presence from an island regarded contemporaneously as the Pearl of the Antilles. This is the incredible story of one of the most unlikely partnerships of the colonial era, and of two completely different nations who found unity despite the enormous distance, cultural gaps, and linguistic gulfs that separated them.

The caption reads “the petit blanc whom I love.” Intermarriage between Africans and Europeans created a multiracial Creole population in Saint-Domingue. (Julien Vallou de Villeneuve/CC BY-SA 4.0)