Jean-François Papillon

Jean-François Papillon (died in the early 1800s) was one of the principal leaders in the Haitian Revolution against slavery and French rule. He led the initial uprising of enslaved workers and later allied with Spain against the French.

He was born in Africa but enslaved and taken in captivity to the North Province of Saint-Domingue (the future nation of Haiti). There he worked in the plantation of Papillon in the last decades of the 18th Century. He escaped from that plantation and became a maroon, so when the revolution started in August 1791 he had already enjoyed a direct experience of freedom.