Lambert was a free Black officer from Martinique whom Bauvais named second captain-general at the Diegue assembly on August 26, 1791, when the West Province gens de couleur mobilized under Bauvais's overall command.
His elevation was a deliberate gesture of racial solidarity — the appointment of a Black man to command inside a coalition dominated by free coloreds — even as later events around the Suisses controversy exposed the limits of that solidarity. He participated in the West Province campaigns including the Battle of Pernier and the gens de couleur entry into Port-au-Prince, and he belongs to the same military world as Bauvais, Daguin, and the young André Rigaud.
In the ScholarshipHow historians have read this figure.
How historians and scholars have interpreted this figure across different analytical traditions.
Dubois's Avengers of the New World situates figures like Lambert within the free-colored and free-Black military leadership of the western province's commissioner era — officers whose careers trace the complex path from affranchis militia service to republican army command. Lambert's trajectory in the western province exemplifies the pattern Dubois identifies: military service as the pathway through which the free-colored and free-Black communities built the authority and experience that eventually allowed them to shape the revolution's direction. His role in the western province during the years of maximal instability places him within the coalition that the commissioner system built between metropolitan republican authority and the free-colored military leadership.
Lambert represents the western province's free-colored military leadership — officers whose careers trace the path from affranchis militia service to republican army command through the coalition the commissioner system built.
TimelineAcross the historical record.
- 1791
Second Captain-General, West Province Army
Named second captain-general by Bauvais at the Diegue assembly in August 1791; co-commanded the West Province gens de couleur forces through the campaigns of 1791.
- 1791
The Suisses
Lambert appears in the controversy over the fate of the Suisses — the episode that exposed tensions inside the free-colored coalition's relationship to enslaved people.
- 1791-09-02
Battle of Pernier
Participated in the Battle of Pernier as part of the West Province gens de couleur army.
- 1791-11
Burning of Port-au-Prince (1791)
Part of the gens de couleur forces active in the West Province during the period that included the burning of Port-au-Prince.
RelationshipsPeople connected to this life.
- Allied withDaguin
Fellow officer in the West Province free-colored military command structure.