Service in the American Revolution
Born at Chavaniac on 6 September 1757, Lafayette travelled to North America at his own expense in 1777. Commissioned a Continental major general at nineteen, he was wounded at Brandywine and earned Washington's confidence. A return to France helped preparations for a French expeditionary force; he sailed back in 1780.
In 1781 he commanded Continental forces in Virginia and served as a division commander at Yorktown. The siege combined Washington's army, Rochambeau's French troops and de Grasse's fleet. Lafayette's role in this cooperation contributed to his subsequent diplomatic work and reputation on both sides of the Atlantic.
The National Guard, imprisonment and return
After the fall of the Bastille, Lafayette led the National Guard and supported constitutional monarchy. The Guard's firing on demonstrators at the Champ de Mars in 1791 damaged his standing. His break with revolutionary radicals in 1792 was followed by flight and imprisonment; released in 1797, he returned to France in 1799.
He later participated in the parliamentary liberal opposition and made a celebrated American visit in 1824. During the July Revolution of 1830 he supported Louis-Philippe and again commanded the National Guard, before breaking with the new king. He died in Paris on 20 May 1834.
References: [2]
Antislavery advocacy and a plantation experiment
Lafayette sought membership in antislavery associations and joined France's Society of the Friends of Blacks in 1788. His correspondence with Jefferson later opposed the expansion of slavery into new American states.
In 1785 he purchased a plantation and enslaved people in French Guiana, attempting paid labour, education and restrictions on resale as steps toward gradual emancipation. His wife Adrienne helped manage it. After his imprisonment, confiscation led to the people's resale: the experiment's reforming aims coexisted with continued slave ownership.