Władysław Franciszek Jabłonowski

Brigadier-General Władysław Franciszek Jabłonowski (25 October 1769 – 29 September 1802) was a mixed black-Polish military officer who served in the French Revolutionary Wars. He is the first known Polish general of African descent.

After joining the French army, he died of yellow fever in 1802 in Saint-Domingue, after being sent there as part of the Saint-Domingue expedition, which saw Polish troops fighting alongside the French to restore slavery in the colony.

After the French and Polish suffered heavy losses from yellow fever and the unfamiliar asymmetrical warfare of their enemies, they withdrew their surviving forces from Saint-Domingue, with some Polish soldiers defecting to the Haitian revolutionaries.

Early life

Władysław Franciszek Jabłonowski was born on 25 October 1769 in Gdańsk, Poland. His mother was Princess Maria Franciszka Dealire, a British woman who had married into the Polish nobility, and his father was an unknown Black footman; the conception had occurred while Maria was visiting Paris.

Dealire's husband, a Crown Army officer named Konstanty Aleksander Jabłonowski who was also known to engage in extramarital affairs, was "blithely unperturbed" when it became apparent the newborn was not his son. Possibly due to Konstanty's desire for a male heir, he accepted the child as his son, naming him Władysław Franciszek Jabłonowski. During the boy's early childhood, he was nicknamed "Murzynek", a common Polish term for Black people.

Jabłonowski began studying at Paris' École Militaire on 25 February 1783. During one schoolyear, his classmates included Napoleon and Louis-Nicolas Davout; the former subjected Jabłonowski to racist abuse, to which he responded that it was "[better] to be a Negro with a white heart than a white man with a black heart." Jabłonowski's relationship with Davout was much better, and the two became friends.

On graduating 20 February 1786, Jabłonowski was commissioned into the French Royal Army's Royal German Cavalry Regiment in the rank of second lieutenant. However, he lost the commission after going on an extended stay in Poland. When the French Revolution began in 1789, he supported it in Paris and survived the Reign of Terror.

Military career In 1794 Jabłonowski fought in Tadeusz Kościuszko's uprising against Tsarist Russia. and commanded a legion in the Alps. There he fought against Black rebels who had revolted against French rule in mid-1802. Jabłonowski died from yellow fever on 29 September 1802 in Jérémie.