This Portrait of Citizen Jean-Baptiste Belley by the famous French artist Anne-Louis Girodet, caught my eye, even though I knew nothing of the model. This painting is - literally - revolutionary.

Not because it represents a Black man. Representations of Black men and women in French paintings were not uncommon prior to the Revolution. But these people had no name. They were simply "generic" Blacks, usually depicted in a subservient position.

In this portrait not only does Citizen Belley have a name, but he also holds public office, as attested by the tricolor sash tied around his waist. Who was he? I wanted to know.

The most detailed information I was able to find about him was on the site of the Association de Généalogie d’Haiti
(in French.)

It seems that Belley was born on the coast of West Africa in 1746 or 1747. Around the age of two, he was abducted and sold into slavery in Saint-Domingue, modern-day Haiti.

Little is known of his life as a slave, except that he was allowed to pursue a trade and earn enough money to eventually purchase his own freedom. He clearly received an education, either before or after his emancipation.

After the Revolution erupted in France in 1789, the inhabitants of Saint-Domingue followed the news from Paris very closely. The ideals of liberty and equality resonated deeply with the slaves and free Blacks alike. Soon they revolted against the plantation owners and seized power.

Belley became one of the leaders of the insurrection. Commissioners of the Republic arrived in the island in 1793 and proclaimed the abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue. Since 1791, free Blacks had already been enfranchised in all French territories.

When elections were held in Saint-Domingue in 1792, Belley was elected as a Representative to the National Convention for the island. He became the first Black to be elected a Representative of the French Republic. He sailed for Paris and, a few months later, cast his vote in favor of the historic decree passed by the Convention on February 2, 1794. It is terse, much more so than the American Emancipation Proclamation almost seventy years later, and to the point:

The National Convention decrees the abolition of the Negroes' slavery in all of the Colonies. Therefore, it orders that all men, without any distinction of color, domiciled in the Colonies, shall be free citizens and enjoy all the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

That's it! This portrait of Belley must have been painted around that time. The marble bust behind him is that of Father Raynal, a contemporary French abolitionist. Father Raynal will get his own post later.

As for Belley, he remained a Representative of the Nation until 1799. As such, he fought tirelessly the influence of the lobby of plantation owners, who had regained hope of a reinstatement of slavery after the fall of Robespierre and the ensuing reaction.

Then in 1799 Bonaparte seized power. He had married Joséphine de Tascher de la Pagerie, born into a slave-owning family from the Martinique. Can his wife's influence be blamed for his racist views? Some say so, but I tend to doubt it.

What is sure is that Bonaparte reinstated slavery in May 1802. This was soon followed by a flurry of racial measures that eerily anticipate the Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany. The most disgraceful was the dismissal of all Black officers from the Army. This measure targeted no less than twelve Black Generals, including General Dumas, father of the great novelist, and countless officers.

How did Belley, like any prominent Black person, fit in Napoleonic France? He was already emancipated before the Revolution, so he could not be shipped back to his former master. Bonaparte had him imprisoned, without trial of course, in the fortress of Belle-Ile.

Belley wrote letters from jail as late as 1806, and then history loses his trace. Did he die in prison? Probably, but we don't know when. His death went as unrecorded as his birth.

Fortunately Girodet's portrait is here to remind us of Citizen Jean-Baptiste Belley.