Benoit Joseph André Rigaud (17 January 1761 – 18 September 1811) was the leading mulatto military leader during the Haitian Revolution.

He was a successor to Vincent Ogé and Julien Raimond as a champion of the interests of free people of color in Saint-Domingue, as colonial Haïti was known.

Rigaud aligned himself with revolutionary France and an interpretation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen that ensured the civil equality of all free people.

[6] They were fearful of the masses of former slaves, led by the likes of Romaine-la-Prophétesse, with whom Rigaud refused to ally, and sided instead with the French commissioners[7] who abolished slavery in Saint-Domingue in 1793.

[citation needed] Although Rigaud respected Louverture, the leading general of the former black slaves of the North and his superior rank in the French Revolutionary Army, he did not want to concede power in the South to him.

[citation needed] That led to the bitter "War of Knives" (La Guerre des Couteaux) in June 1799, when Toussaint's army invaded Rigaud's territory.

Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a black man from the North, led Saint-Domingue to victory and independence and declared Haiti the new name of the nation.