Louis Delgrès

{{short description|French military officer and anti-slavery rebellion leader}}

{{Expand language|topic=bio|langcode=fr|otherarticle=Louis Delgrès|date=May 2020}}

File:Buste Louis Delgrès à Petit-Bourg.JPG]]

Louis Delgrès (2 August 1766 – 28 May 1802) was a leader of the movement in Guadeloupe resisting reoccupation and thus the reinstitution of slavery by Napoleonic France in 1802.

Biography

=Early life=

Delgrès was born a free mulatto in Saint-Pierre, Martinique.{{cite web |title=Louis Delgrès, le colonel anti-esclavagiste |trans-title=Louis Delgrès, the anti-slavery colonel |website=L'histoire des Antilles et de l'Afrique |url=https://pyepimanla.blogspot.com/2009/07/louis-delgres-le-colonel-anti.html |language=fr |access-date=2020-05-28}} It is supposed that he was the natural son of the métis woman Élisabeth Morin by Louis Delgrès, the Director-General of the Royal Domains in Tobago.

=Military career=

Delgrès joined the colonial militia in November 1783 and was soon made a sergeant in the Martinique garrison. He fought for France against Great Britain in the Caribbean, and was captured and imprisoned with other French soldiers in Portchester Castle.

=Revolution=

After his release and his return to the Caribbean, Delgrès took over the resistance movement from {{Ill|Magloire Pélage|fr}} after it became evident that Pélage was loyal to Napoleon. Delgrès believed that the "tyrant" Napoleon had betrayed both the ideals of the Republic and the interests of France's colored citizens, and intended to fight to the death. The Jacobin government had granted the slaves their freedom, in Guadeloupe and the other French colonies, but Napoleon reinstated slavery throughout the French Empire in 1802.C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint Louverture and the San Domingo Revolution, 1st ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1963.

File:Passe de la Pointe-à-Pitre, par Louis Le Breton, milieu XIXe siècle.jpg

The French army, led by Richepanse, drove Delgrès into Fort Saint Charles, which was held by formerly enslaved Guadeloupeans. After realizing that he could not prevail and refusing to surrender, Delgrès was left with roughly 1000 men and some women. At the Battle of Matouba on 28 May 1802, Delgrès and some of his followers ignited their gunpowder stores, committing suicide in the process, in an attempt to kill as many of the French troops as possible.

{{cite journal

|title=Slave women and Resistance in the French Caribbean

|first=Bernard

|last=Moitt

|journal=More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas

|editor=David Barry Gaspar

|page=[https://archive.org/details/morethanchattelb0000unse/page/243 243]

|year=1996

|publisher=Indiana University Press

|isbn=0-253-33017-3

|url=https://archive.org/details/morethanchattelb0000unse/page/243

}} One of his followers was the fearless pregnant heroine warrior Solitude, who was injured in the explosion, and later captured and decapitated by the French on November 30, 1802, the day after the birth of her child at the age of 30. Her last words were "live free or die", which became the mantra of the resistance movement, and in poems, songs, libraries, historical markers, museums and statues, and today symbolizes the spirit of the country.{{cite web |last=Taylor |first=Mildred Europa |title=Meet the great warrior woman of Guadeloupe who fought against French troops in 1802 while pregnant |website=Face2Face Africa |date=2018-08-09 |url=https://face2faceafrica.com/article/meet-the-great-warrior-woman-of-guadeloupe-who-fought-against-french-troops-in-1802-while-pregnant |access-date=2024-02-27}}

Legacy and honours

In April 1998, Delgrès was officially admitted to the French Panthéon, although the actual location of his remains is unknown.

{{cite journal

|title=Haunting Delgrès

|first=Laurent

|last=Dubois

|journal=Contested Histories in Public Space: Memory, Race, and Nation

|editor=Daniel J. Walkowitz, Lisa Maya Knauer

|publisher=Duke University Press

|year=2009

|page=312

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s6fMgeAPXIIC&pg=PA312

|isbn=978-0822391425

}} Delgrès' memorial is opposite that of Toussaint Louverture, leader of the Haitian Revolution, the location of whose remains is also a mystery.

In 2002, the bicentenary of the rebellion, a memorial to Delgrès was erected at Basse-Terre.{{cite web|url=https://www.mmoe.llc.ed.ac.uk/en/memory/memorial-homage-delgr%C3%A8s-basse-terre|title=Memorial in homage to Delgrès - Basse Terre - Cartographie des Mémoires de l'Esclavage|website=www.mmoe.llc.ed.ac.uk|accessdate=13 August 2018}}

He is honoured in street names in Menilmontant, Paris; Vaureal, Val d'Oise; and at Saint-Francois, Petit-Canal and Basse-Terre in Guadeloupe.

The contemporary French Caribbean blues trio Delgres is named after Delgrès.{{cite web|url=https://www.delgresmusic.com/about|title=Delgres │Official Website │About|website=Delgres - Official Website - Home|accessdate=13 August 2018}}