Mauduit was the French colonial officer who repeatedly enforced white authority against free-colored mobilization in the West Province during 1790-1791.
Ardouin records that the governor ordered him to dissolve the free-colored committee by force of arms, and that he broke free-colored organization, disarmed men in the West, and delivered a paternalist lecture to Rigaud's followers at Camp Prou. He was assassinated by whites in Port-au-Prince in 1791 — on the eve of which Pinchinat, Rigaud, and other mulattoes imprisoned by Blanchelande were released, making his death one of the hinge moments between administrative repression and the armed radicalization of the gens de couleur.
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 Mauduit within the turbulent politics of the white colonial military in Saint-Domingue — a figure whose assassination by his own troops in 1791 demonstrates how completely the revolution had fractured the colonial military's capacity for internal discipline. Mauduit's position as a royalist officer who tried to maintain the colonial military's loyalty to the metropolitan government in the face of both planter autonomy and revolutionary mobilization placed him in an impossible position. His murder reveals the colonial military as an institution that the revolutionary crisis had already begun to disintegrate before the 1791 insurrection gave the process its most dramatic expression.
Mauduit's assassination by his own troops demonstrates how completely the revolution had fractured the colonial military's internal discipline — the institution was already disintegrating before the 1791 insurrection gave the process its most dramatic expression.
TimelineAcross the historical record.
- 1790
Colonel, Port-au-Prince Regiment
Commanded the regiment in Port-au-Prince and was repeatedly deployed to suppress free-colored political organization in the West Province during 1790-1791.
- 1790-10
Ogé Revolt 1790
His suppression of free-colored political organization in the West Province was part of the same colonial repression that triggered Ogé's revolt in the North.
RelationshipsPeople connected to this life.
- OpposedPierre Pinchinat
Pinchinat was among the mulatto leaders imprisoned under Blanchelande and released on the eve of Mauduit's assassination — his fall from power directly enabled the gens de couleur's resumption of organization.
- OpposedBauvais
Opposed the free-colored mobilization in the West Province that Bauvais later led.
- OpposedAndré Rigaud
Disarmed and lectured Rigaud's followers at Camp Prou; his suppression of free-colored organization was part of what drove Rigaud toward armed mobilization.