ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the 19th century, Poland did not exist on the map of Europe due to its partition between Prussia, Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, 35,000 Polish soldiers fled to pro-French Lombardy where in 1797 they formed the Legions hoping that he would keep his promise to restore freedom to Poland. When evacuating, the French left behind many Polish soldiers, some of whom had deserted to fight together with Haitians against French oppression; others became simply prisoners of war. The decisive moment for Polish-Haitian relations might have been the St. Marc massacre in October 1802, when Polish soldiers refused to execute an unarmed battalion of 400 Haitians. The rumours of massive desertions resulted from irregular Polish record-keeping in Port-au-Price. The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affaires has also over the past few decades established a couple of small-scale education projects in the ‘Polish’ communities.
