Léger-Félicité Sonthonax

Léger-Félicité Sonthonax (1763–1813) is a French Girondist and abolitionist during the French Revolution who controls 7,000 French troops in Saint-Domingue during part of the Haitian Revolution.

His official title is Civil Commissioner.

From September 1792 to December 1795, he is the de facto ruler of Saint-Domingue's non-slave populace.

Within a year of his appointment, his powers are considerably expanded by the Committee of Public Safety.

He is recalled in 1795, largely due to the resurgence of conservative politics in France.

Sonthonax believes that Saint-Domingue's whites are royalists or separatists and therefore he attacks the military power of the white settlers; in so doing, he alienates the colonial settlers from their government.

Many gens de couleur (mixed-race residents of the colony) assert that they can form the military backbone of Saint-Domingue if they are given rights, but Sonthonax rejects this view as outdated in the wake of the August 1791 slave uprising.

He believes that Saint-Domingue will need ex-slave soldiers among the ranks of the colonial army if it is to survive.

Although he did not originally intend to free the slaves, by October 1793 he is forced into ending slavery in order to maintain his own power.

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