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. Ascent to power Right after the tragic death of Boukman Dutty, the insurgent slaves’ first leader, Jean-François Papillon imposed his authority over the other black generals, especially Georges Biassou, Jeannot Bullet, and Toussaint Bréda (later Toussaint Louverture), and became commander-in-chief of the Haitian former slaves. By late 1791, some weeks after the revolutionary outbreak, Jean-François and Biassou set their rivalry aside in order to oppose Jeannot, who not only massacred the French but also all the black soldiers that contested his authority. For that reason, Biassou and Jean-François arrested and executed him by November 1791. It has often been assumed that Jean-François and his men rose up in rebellion to win universal freedom, but their real intention was to gain as much power as possible and return the rest of the slaves to the plantations when the revolution was over and the generals had already achieved power. Jean-François confessed his convictions to the North American agents in Le Cap Français: “[...] that General told us that he had not created himself General of the negroes, that those who had that power had confered [sic] upon him that title; that in taking up arms, he never pretended to fight for General Liberty, which he knew to be an illusion”. Relation with Spain There are many reasons that the Spaniards backed the Haitian revolution from the beginning, providing the insurgents with food and weapons: they knew that the episode would cause chaos in Saint-Domingue, giving Spain the chance to send troops to that territory and re-annex it, since it had been a Spanish possession taken by the French in the Peace Treaty of Ryswick (1697). In October 1791, the black General Toussaint Bréda admitted his contacts with the Spaniards, who had promised them provisions. As Spain was officially neutral towards