Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau (7 April 1755 – 20 October 1813) was a French military commander. He was the son of

Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau Marshal Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, 1 July 1725 – 10 May 1807, was a French nobleman and general whose army played the decisive role in helping the United States defeat the British army at Yorktown in 1781 during the ...

Biography

He served in the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

as an '' aide-de-camp'' to his father, spending the winter of 1781–1782 in quarters at Williamsburg, Virginia. In the 1790s, he participated in an unsuccessful campaign to re-establish French authority in

Martinique Martinique ( , ; gcf, label= Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in ...

and

Saint-Domingue Saint-Domingue () was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city in the island, Santo Domingo, which came to ref ...

. Rochambeau was later assigned to the

French Revolutionary Army The French Revolutionary Army (french: Armée révolutionnaire française) was the French land force that fought the French Revolutionary Wars from 1792 to 1804. These armies were characterised by their revolutionary fervour, their poor equipme ...

in the Italian Peninsula, and was appointed to the military command of the Ligurian Republic. In 1802, he was appointed to lead an expeditionary force against

(

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and s ...

) after General

Charles Leclerc Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc (; born 16 October 1997) is a Monégasque racing driver, currently racing in Formula One for Scuderia Ferrari. He won the GP3 Series championship in 2016 and the FIA Formula 2 Championship in . Leclerc ...

's death. His remit was to restore French control of their rebellious colony, by any means. Historians of the

Haitian Revolution The Haitian Revolution (french: révolution haïtienne ; ht, revolisyon ayisyen) was a successful insurrection by self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolt began on ...

credit his brutal tactics for uniting

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...

and '' gens de couleur'' soldiers against the French. After Rochambeau surrendered to the rebel general

Jean-Jacques Dessalines Jean-Jacques Dessalines ( Haitian Creole: ''Jan-Jak Desalin''; ; 20 September 1758 – 17 October 1806) was a leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ruler of an independent Haiti under the 1805 constitution. Under Dessalines, Haiti be ...

in November 1803, the former French colony declared its independence as Haïti, the second independent state in the

Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America, North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. ...

. In the process, Dessalines became arguably the most successful military commander in the struggle against Napoleonic France.Christer Petley, ''White Fury: A Jamaican Slaveholder and the Age of Revolution'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), p. 182. At the surrender of Cap Français, Rochambeau was captured aboard the frigate ''Surveillante'' by a British squadron under the command of Captain John Loring and returned to England as a prisoner on

parole Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...

, where he remained interned for almost nine years. He was exchanged in 1811, and returned to the family ''

château A château (; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions. No ...

'', where he resumed the work of classifying the family's growing collection of maps, which his father had begun. He also enriched the collections with new acquisitions, in particular ones contributed by the military campaigns of his son, Auguste-Philippe Donatien de Vimeur, who served as the aide-de-camp for

Joachim Murat Joachim Murat ( , also , ; it, Gioacchino Murati; 25 March 1767 – 13 October 1815) was a French military commander and statesman who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. Under the French Empire he received the ...

and was with Murat's cavalry in the Russian campaign in 1812. He was mortally wounded in the

Battle of Nations The Battle of Leipzig (french: Bataille de Leipsick; german: Völkerschlacht bei Leipzig, ); sv, Slaget vid Leipzig), also known as the Battle of the Nations (french: Bataille des Nations; russian: Битва народов, translit=Bitva ...

, and died three days later at

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

, at the age of 58. In addition to his legitimate son, Vimeur was survived by an illegitimate son,

Lewis Warrington Lewis Warrington (3 November 1782 – 12 October 1851) was an officer in the United States Navy during the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812. He later became a Captain. He temporarily served as the Secretary of the Navy. His highest rank ...

, conceived in

Williamsburg, Virginia Williamsburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 15,425. Located on the Virginia Peninsula, Williamsburg is in the northern part of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. It is ...

, when Vimeur was a young officer serving with his father in America during the Revolutionary War.

Motto and coat of arms

Sources

* *

References

External links

A Guide to the Donatien Marie Joseph de Vimeur Rochambeau Papers

The Louverture Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rochambeau, Donatien-Marie-Joseph De Vimeur, Vicomte De French people of the American Revolution People of the Haitian Revolution 1755 births 1813 deaths Military personnel from Paris Viscounts of France Names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe Governors of Saint-Domingue 1800s in Guadeloupe 18th-century French military personnel 19th-century French military personnel French Governors of Martinique Governors general of the French Antilles French commanders of the Napoleonic Wars French military personnel killed in the Napoleonic Wars