{{Short description|French Army officer and colonial administrator}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2020}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Donatien de Rochambeau | birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1755|04|7}}<ref name="Haynsworth">{{cite book | url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/300662866/ | title=The early career of Lieutenant General Donatien Rochambeau and the French campaigns in the Caribbean, 1792--1794 | publisher=Florida State University | author=Haynsworth IV, James Lafayette | year=2003}}</ref> | death_date = {{Death date and age|1813|10|20|1755|04|07|df=yes}} | birth_place = Paris, France | death_place = Leipzig, Saxony | image = Donatien de Rochambeau.jpg | image_size = 220 | caption = 19th century portrait of Rochambeau | office = Governor of Saint-Domingue | term_start = 21 October 1792 | term_end = 2 January 1793 | predecessor = Jean-Jacques d'Esparbes | successor = Léger-Félicité Sonthonax (commissioner) | allegiance = Kingdom of France <br /> French First Republic <br /> First French Empire | branch = French Army | service_years = 1769–1813 | rank = Divisional-General | battles = American Revolutionary War<br/>French Revolutionary Wars<br/>Napoleonic Wars<br/>Haitian Revolution<br/>Battle of Leipzig {{KIA}} | awards = Name inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe | relations = Son of Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau | laterwork = | module = {{Infobox officeholder | embed = yes }} }}
Divisional-General '''Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau''' (7 April 1755 – 20 October 1813) was a French Army officer and colonial administrator who served in the American Revolutionary War and French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He was the son of Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau.
==Life== [[File:Général de Rochambeau.jpg|thumb|upright|Illustration of Rochambeau during the Saint-Domingue expedition]]
He served in the American Revolutionary War 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 and Saint-Domingue. Rochambeau was later assigned to the French Revolutionary Army 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 Saint-Domingue (Haiti) after General Charles Leclerc's death. His remit was to restore French control of their rebellious colony, by any means. Historians of the Haitian Revolution credit his brutal tactics for uniting black and ''gens de couleur'' soldiers against the French. After Rochambeau surrendered to the rebel general Jean-Jacques Dessalines in November 1803, the former French colony declared its independence as Haïti, the first independent black republic and second independent state in the Americas. In the process, Dessalines became arguably the most successful military commander in the struggle against Napoleonic France.<ref>Christer Petley, ''White Fury: A Jamaican Slaveholder and the Age of Revolution'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), p. 182.</ref>
During his time in Haiti, Rochambeau waged a war of extermination, massacring thousands of blacks of all ages and genders.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Boot |first1=Max |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zd-vKJ9RTQoC&pg=PA99 |title=Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present |date=15 Jan 2013 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0-87140-424-4 |edition=hardcover 1st |location=New York |page=99 |access-date=25 Apr 2020}}</ref> Though the largest massacres of black men and women took place under Leclerc's leadership, Rochambeau was notable for the brutality of his methods of execution; historians generally accept accounts of blacks being burned at the stake and fed to dogs in makeshift arenas, while some disputed accounts also mention crucifixion.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Girard |first=Philippe R. |date=June 2013 |title=French atrocities during the Haitian War of Independence |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14623528.2013.789181 |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |language=en |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=133–149 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2013.789181 |issn=1462-3528|url-access=subscription }}</ref> At the surrender of Cap Français, Rochambeau was captured aboard the frigate ''Surveillante'' by a Royal Navy squadron under the command of Captain John Loring and returned to England as a prisoner on parole, where he remained interned for almost nine years.
He was exchanged in 1811, and returned to the family ''château'', 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 and was with Murat's cavalry in the Russian campaign in 1812. He was mortally wounded in the Battle of Nations, and died three days later at Leipzig, at the age of 58.
==Motto and coat of arms== {{Infobox COA wide |image=100px<br />100px |escutcheon =Azure, a chevron Or between three rowels of the same |motto=VIVRE EN PREUX, Y MOURIR<ref>Johannes Baptist Rietstap, Armorial général : contenant la description des armoiries des familles nobles et patriciennes de l'Europe : précédé d'un dictionnaire des termes du blason, G.B. van Goor, 1861, 1171 p</ref> <br /> (To live and die valiantly) }}
==Sources== *{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Rochambeau, Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur |volume=23 |page=425 |short=1}} *{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=American War of Independence |volume=1 |pages=843–844 |short=1}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [https://www.library.ufl.edu/spec/manuscript/guides/rochambeau.htm A Guide to the Donatien Marie Joseph de Vimeur Rochambeau Papers] * [http://thelouvertureproject.org/index.php?title=Donatien-Marie-Joseph_Rochambeau The Louverture Project]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rochambeau, Donatien-Marie-Joseph De Vimeur, Vicomte De}} Category:1755 births Category:1813 deaths Category:French military personnel of the American Revolutionary War Category:People of the Haitian Revolution Category:Military personnel from Paris Category:Viscounts of France Category:Names inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe Category:Governors of Saint-Domingue Category:1800s in Guadeloupe Category:18th-century French military personnel Category:19th-century French military personnel Category:French governors of Martinique Category:French commanders of the Napoleonic Wars Category:French mass murderers Category:French military personnel killed in the Napoleonic Wars Category:French war criminals Category:Genocide perpetrators Category:Governors general of the French Antilles Category:18th-century French inventors