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The African Soldiers of Napoleon's Army
While history often casts Napoleon Bonaparte as a European conqueror, his armies were far more diverse than textbooks suggest. This episode explores the presence of Black soldiers in the French military during the early nineteenth century, focusing on the complex legal and social status of Africans living in France at that time. We examine the case of Jean-Baptiste Belley, a former enslaved man from Saint-Domingue who became a general and was later immortalized in a portrait by Anne-Louis Girodet. Through his story, we trace the paradoxes of revolutionary France: a nation preaching liberty…
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