Marquis de Lafayette
France's American general
Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834), was a French aristocrat and military officer who became a hero of both the American and French Revolutions.
He volunteered to serve in the Continental Army at age nineteen, becoming a close ally of George Washington and fighting in key battles including Brandywine and Yorktown.
Lafayette used his wealth and influence to secure French military support for American independence.
He later played a prominent role in the early French Revolution, commanding the National Guard and drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
- Benjamin FranklinColonial American polymath statesman
- American RevolutionColonial separation from Britain
- Statue of LibertyIsland colossus near Manhattan
- abolitionismMovement to end oppression
- Haitian RevolutionSuccessful slave rebellion, 1790s
constitutional government · Alexander Hamilton · Continental Army · French Revolution · Bastille Day · Valley Forge · citizen soldier · freedom of speech · civic virtue · Napoleon Bonaparte · Sons of Liberty · human rights · Jean-Jacques Rousseau · transatlantic alliance · egalitarianism · republicanism · Declaration of Independence · French nobility
- Revolutionary WarGeorge Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Paul Revere, Betsy Ross flag
- 18th Century NoblesMarie Antoinette, Louis XVI, Catherine the Great, Frederick the Great, Madame de Pompadour
- military leadersGeorge Washington, Napoleon, generals, general, commander
- Patriotspatriot, Paul Revere, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, founding father
- Colonial WritersBenjamin Franklin, William Bradford, John Smith, William Penn
- British Marquesses
Marquis de Lafayettecounter-revolutionary
Opposes radical political upheaval