This Guy Sucked – Napoleon Bonaparte (Redux) with Marlene Daut
Podcast: This Guy Sucked
Host: Dr. Claire Aubin
Guest: Prof. Marlene Daut (Yale, Haitian and French Caribbean History)
Date: December 11, 2025
Overview: Revisiting Napoleon—A Colonial Lens
In this episode, host Dr. Claire Aubin and guest Professor Marlene Daut revisit the legacy of Napoleon Bonaparte, focusing acutely on his colonial policies and catastrophic impact on the Caribbean, particularly Haiti. Unlike previous conversations which center Napoleon’s European exploits, this discussion lifts the scholarly curtains to reveal the brutal reality of French colonialism, genocide, and the deliberate erasure of Black Caribbean resistance and intellectual life. They dissect how contemporary narratives still whitewash Napoleon’s violence and examine why, even two centuries later, France obsesses over his image.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Setting the Scene: The Caribbean Before Napoleon
Contextualizing Saint Domingue’s Realities
- French Saint Domingue (later Haiti) was the “pearl of the Antilles”—rich, ruthless, and entirely dependent on enslaved African labor.
- By 1791, 90% of the population were enslaved Africans. Saint Domingue was more “African-majority under French occupation” than French society.
- Everyday life for enslaved people was marked by extreme brutality, high death rates, physical mutilations, and widespread resistance.
Notable Quote
“In between 1697, when they formally take over the western side, and 1791 when the Haitian revolution breaks out, [the French] forcibly transport more than 900,000 captive Africans to this tiny sliver of the island.”
– Daut [07:52]
Unacknowledged Intellectual Life & Ongoing Resistance
- Resistance took many forms: sabotage, running away, forming maroon communities, and maintaining African languages and religious practices.
- The colony—not merely a site of suffering, but also a locus of vibrant intellectual and cultural exchange among Africans.
2. Dissecting Myths: Enlightenment, Slavery & the Haitian Revolution
Reframing Intellectual History
- The Caribbean (and Haiti in particular) was a dynamic site of philosophical thought—contrary to the Eurocentric Enlightenment canon.
- Daut asserts that talk of “liberty” and resistance in Saint Domingue predates (and even informs) Enlightenment ideals, not the other way around.
Notable Quote
“Even many of the philosophes, the French philosophes, only derive these theories after learning about slave revolts and rebellions, after learning about indigenous resistance.”
– Daut [19:17]
3. Napoleon’s Catastrophic Turn: Restoring Slavery
The Premise:
- The French abolished slavery in their colonies in 1794 after years of bloody revolt (and pragmatism). This could have been history’s turning point, notes Daut:
“This is where the story could have ended...if it weren’t for one single man, and that is Napoleon Bonaparte. And I’m not even being hyperbolic.”
– Daut [27:44]
Napoleon’s Role:
- In 1802, Napoleon reimposed slavery in Guadeloupe and other territories, and attempted brutally (but unsuccessfully) to do the same in Haiti.
- The reimposition led to decades more slavery—until 1848 in French colonies.
Staggering Human Cost
“During the 40 years that one of these people...delayed the abolition of slavery...500,000 more people were enslaved. 40 years is so long in terms of a lifespan...”
– Aubin [30:54]
France’s Shameful Duality
- France boasts of being the first European country to abolish slavery, yet uniquely reversed course and reinstated it—an historical hypocrisy rarely acknowledged.
4. Confronting Excuses: Race, Commerce, and “Men of Their Time”
Whitewashing Napoleon’s Motives
- Napoleon wasn’t simply a “man of his time” or a cold pragmatist. In his own words:
“Napoleon is a white supremacist. ‘I am for the whites because I am white.’”
– Daut [33:54]
- Daut and Aubin call out spurious commercial rationale: To defend economic motives is still to dehumanize enslaved people.
Notable Quotes
“In order to make the commercial argument, you have to yourself, personally be engaging in dehumanization of these people.”
– Aubin [34:53]
“Not everyone was racist...In most slave societies, enslaved people outnumbered the enslavers by a lot. So who are the real people of their time?”
– Daut [36:46]
5. Erasing Atrocity: French & Global Narratives
Genocidal Violence Ignored
- Napoleon’s regime orchestrated atrocities in the Caribbean: poisonings, mass drownings, and the use of sulfur “vapor ships.”
- Yet, French commemoration of Napoleon skips these crimes, and still frames him as a hero despite “millions of people” dying under his policies.
Notable Quote
“Napoleon and his army...try to perpetuate another genocide...allow the hold to fill with sulfur and they would trap people down there...mass drownings.”
– Daut [39:52]
- Even in contemporary museums and film, the suffering of France’s colonial subjects remains sidelined or erased.
6. Contemporary Memory: Why Napoleon Still Gets a Pass
French Obsession with Napoleon
- Despite other figures worth celebrating, French institutions continue to center Napoleon.
“France has a million other people that you could think were great...Why does it have to be him?”
– Aubin [43:36]
A Stubborn, Orchestrated Silence
- The deliberate exclusion of the Haitian Revolution from “world-changing” narratives and insistence on Napoleon’s glory is an “orchestrated silence...meant to prop up one story at the expense of another truer story.”
– Daut [30:45]
Cultural Depictions
- Films and exhibits glamorize Napoleon’s European failures but erase colonial massacres and his defeat by the Haitian army (which he never personally faced).
- Even Josephine, his wife from Martinique, offered more sensible advice about the colonies than Napoleon heeded—whose “regret” post-defeat was losing profit, not moral reflection.
Notable Quotes & Moments
-
On Haitian Society:
“It’s an African majority society under French occupation at this point.”
– Aubin [13:44] -
On Slavery’s Reality:
“They always find a way to skirt it [Code Noir]...only one person was potentially ever punished for killing an enslaved person.”
– Daut [09:58] -
On White Genocide Narrative:
“Europeans commit hundreds of years of genocide on this island. The Haitian revolutionaries fight back, and they’re the genocidal maniacs.”
– Daut [59:46] -
On Historical Memory:
“If you wanted to tell a story about modern genocide, most people would say...the Holocaust. But...Napoleon...try to perpetuate another genocide.”
– Daut [39:52]
Key Timestamps
- [04:42] – Prof. Daut contextualizes the Caribbean world before Napoleon
- [09:00–11:00] – The brutality of slavery in Saint Domingue; resistance and heartbreak
- [17:10] – Intellectual life and maroon societies in Saint Domingue
- [27:44] – Abolition of slavery in French colonies and Napoleon’s singular reversal
- [30:54 & 32:36] – The devastating, measurable human cost of Napoleon’s actions
- [33:54] – Napoleon’s explicit white supremacy
- [39:52] – Napoleon’s orchestration of genocide in Haiti
- [43:36] – The stubborn modern glorification of Napoleon
- [51:59] – Josephine’s role and missed opportunities for less blood-soaked choices
- [61:55] – Closing condemnation and final quote
Closing Reflection:
A Reason to Hate Napoleon In the words of 19th-century Haitian writer Julien Prévost (read by Daut at [61:55]):
“Whether or not Napoleon has the qualities of a great man hardly matters to me if he has done great things, so be it...I see and want to see in him only the enemy of my country, who through his agents covered it with ruins, blood, dead bodies and wreckage.”
Host Claire Aubin concludes:
“He is also officially the enemy of our podcast.”
[62:46]
TL;DR
Napoleon Bonaparte is globally hailed as a hero—but his true legacy in the Caribbean was catastrophic, marked by the reimposition of chattel slavery, genocidal violence, and unending silence on the suffering he caused. Aubin and Daut argue that the story of modern human rights—and resistance to oppression—belongs not to Napoleon, but to the Black revolutionaries he attempted to destroy and erase.
For further reading, check:
Marlene Daut, The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henri Christophe
Marlene Daut, New York Times op-ed "Napoleon Isn’t a Hero to Celebrate" (2021)