Vincent Ogé

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Vincent Ogé (c. 1757 – 6 February 1791) was a Creole revolutionary, merchant, military officer and goldsmith who had a leading role in a failed uprising against French colonial rule in the colony of Saint-Domingue in 1790. A mixed-race member of the colonial elite, Ogé's revolt occurred just before the Haitian Revolution.

Born on Saint-Domingue into a family of the planter class, Ogé was sent at the age of eleven to the city of Bordeaux, France by his parents to be apprenticed to a goldsmith. Returning to the colony after seven years, he settled down in Cap‑Français as a coffee merchant in the employ of his uncle, acquiring partial ownership of his family's plantation. By the 1780s, Ogé's business dealings had made him the richest merchant of African descent in the city.

While visiting France in 1789, the French Revolution began, and he joined the revolutionary camp. After absentee white planters rejected his proposals for abolishing discriminatory colonial laws against Gens de Couleur free people of color, he joined an advocacy group whose members demanded political representation in the national assembly.

On March 1790, deputies of the assembly approved a law granting voting rights to Gens de Couleur in French colonies. In the same month, Ogé returned to Saint-Domingue, where he rebelled against the colonial government after it refused implement the law. The uprising was suppressed, and Ogé was captured and executed.