Étienne Polverel

Étienne Polverel (1740–1795) was a French lawyer, aristocrat, and revolutionary. He was a member of the Jacobin club. In 1792, he and Leger Felicite Sonthonax were sent to Saint-Domingue to suppress a slave revolt. Polverel was an abolitionist and after a few years he had emancipated the slaves of the colony and given them political equality.

Born in Bearn, Polverel served as syndic for the region, then served as a jurist for the Parlement of Paris.

Etienne Polverel came from a wealthy, aristocratic background. By profession he was a lawyer. Polverel was also a Freemason and a member of the Jacobin Club. Some of the members in his Masonic lodge in Bordeaux were free blacks from Saint-Domingue, so he had early contacts with them before being sent to the colony on September 17, 1792.

Polverel was sent to Saint-Domingue along with Leger Felicite Sonthonax to enforce a law passed on April 4, 1792, which decreed that free blacks and whites in the colony were to have equal rights. Jacques Pierre Brissot, a prominent abolitionist at the time, lobbied for them to be sent and ensured that they were. The rights that were then denied to free blacks were the franchise and the right to hold office in the Colonial Assembly (the legislative body that ran internal affairs in the colony). The Assembly was at the time run only by whites. About 10,000 French troops went with Polverel and Sonthonax to help enforce the April 4th decree.

In 1795, after issuing emancipation proclamations in Saint-Domingue, Polverel was recalled to France. The National Convention had passed its own abolition of slavery, which vindicated Polverel and Sonthonax. However, plantation owners in France were furious with Polverel for having done so, so they put him on trial once he returned to France. The Committee of Public Safety deliberated for a few months on what to do about Sonthonax and Polverel, but Polverel got sick and died before a verdict on his fate was reached.

Like many Jacobins, Polverel was a fervent supporter of the Revolution and its ideals. He was also a nationalist. Polverel was primarily committed to upholding the laws of the French assembly. In the Jacobin view, those who dissented from passed laws were not in the opposition, they were counter-revolutionaries to be dealt with harshly. Polverel seemed to have agreed with this view.

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