Charles René Gaston Gustave de Raousset-Boulbon (May 5, 1817 – August 13, 1854) was a French adventurer, filibuster and entrepreneur and, by some accounts a pirate, and a theoretician of colonialism.

[2] It was there where his first theories about colonialism were born; the French Revolution of 1848 killed his hopes of making a new fortune on Africa and he returned to Paris, where he failed to integrate into a society where aristocrats were fading and giving way to a new bourgeoisie.

Ruins, mendicants, racial degradation, the haphazard mixture of all kins of blood, vagabonds playing guitar... naked children, little savages running everywhere amongst dogs... All of it in an admirable state of Nature.Raousset-Boulbon arrived in San Francisco and felt deeply disillusioned after not receiving the treatment he thought was deserved for a Count.

A group of mercenaries under the command of the Count Raousset-Boulbon sailed from the port of San Francisco, California, attempting two separate filibuster expeditions, in 1852 and 1854, against the government of Sonora, Mexico.

Don José Márquez, an eye-witness to the execution, stated that Raousset-Boulbon's remains were buried in Guaymas until 1866, when, while Mexico was under the rule of Maximilian, they were exhumed by French naval officers and taken to France for final burial.