[3] They were given special status as Noir (legally considered to be black, not white despite actual race) and full citizenship under the Haitian constitution by Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the first ruler of an independent Haiti.
After they arrived and began to be thrown into battle, the Polish platoon learned that the French were trying to suppress an uprising by enslaved Africans fighting white slaveholders for their freedom.
[6] Out of those Polish soldiers who remained alongside the French, some intentionally failed to properly follow orders and refused to murder captured prisoners.
After Haiti gained its independence, Dessalines recognized the Poles and spared them when he ordered the massacre of most French whites and many free blacks (mulattos) on the island.
[14] Haiti's first head of state Jean-Jacques Dessalines would join Boisrond-Tonnerre in calling the Polish people "the White Negroes of Europe" in recognition of their plight.
About 160 years later, in the mid-20th century, François Duvalier, the president of Haiti who was known for his black nationalist and Pan-African views, used the same concept of "European white Negroes" while referring to Polish people and glorifying their patriotism.
For this visit, two Catholic priests went up to Cazale and asked a number of Polish Haitians (though historical sources cannot agree on how many were invited) to dress up in "traditional clothes" and attend the Papal speech and associated ceremonies.