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Editor’s note: This is the eleventh in a series of articles leading up to the Lafayette Farewell Tour Bicentennial celebration. Previous articles are available at suffolkva250.com/history.

By Frank and Gloria Womble

Throughout his life, Lafayette was a proponent of the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment. These included the rights of the individual, the natural equality of all people, and the view that all legitimate political power must be “representative” and based on the people’s consent. Lafayette was the author of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789 and a staunch opponent of slavery. He made his position clear on this controversial topic through letters addressed to friends and colleagues such as Washington and Jefferson. The anti-slavery movement, however, was just one of many human rights causes Lafayette supported. He lobbied for the restoration of civil rights to French Protestants and Jews, supported and promoted women writers and reformers, was a friend to Native Americans, and opposed solitary confinement and the death penalty. 

The public perception of Lafayette in the United States was derived from his fighting without pay for the freedom of a country that was not his own. Samuel Adams praised him for “foregoing the pleasures of Enjoyment of domestic Life and exposing himself to the Hardship and Dangers” of war when he fought “in the glorious cause of freedom.” During the French Revolution in 1789, Americans viewed him as an advocate for American ideals, seeking to transport them from the New World to the Old.

In 1824, Lafayette returned to the United States when Americans were questioning the republic’s success. There had been a disastrous economic panic in 1819 and also the sectional conflict over the expansion of slavery into new states, resulting in the 1820 Missouri Compromise. Layette’s hosts considered him a judge of how successful independence had become. According to cultural historian Dr. Lloyd Kramer, Lafayette “provided foreign confirmations of the self-image that shaped America’s national identity in the early nineteenth century and that has remained a dominant theme in the national ideology ever since: the belief that America’s Founding Fathers, institutions, and freedom created the most democratic, egalitarian, and prosperous society in the world.”

Lafayette’s love for America was so great that he wished to be buried in American soil. After his thirteen-month visit, he returned to France with barrels of earth taken from Bunker Hill. Upon his death in 1834, his son, Georges Washington Lafayette, scattered the earth around his casket when he was interred in Picpus Cemetery in Paris. The United States flag has flown at the site continuously since 1890, even during German occupation in World War II.

Lafayette’s efforts began the Franco-American friendship that our two nations enjoy today. Official U.S.-French relations began during the early stages of the American Revolution when Louis XVI’s regime came to America’s aid by providing money, soldiers, and arms. French assistance, best symbolized by Lafayette, was essential in the revolution’s success. The French gift of the Statue of Liberty in the late 19th century solidified Franco-American bonds, which became even more secure during World War I. 

Marc Leepson concluded his study of Lafayette’s life: “The Marquis de Lafayette was far from perfect. He was sometimes vain, naive, immature, and egocentric. But he consistently stuck to his ideals, even when doing so endangered his life and fortune. Those ideals proved to be the founding principles of two of the world’s most enduring nations, the United States and France. That is a legacy that few military leaders, politicians, or statesmen can match.” 

The American Friends of Lafayette is partnering with Suffolk 250, the Constantia Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, and Riddick’s Folly to commemorate the Bicentennial of Lafayette’s Farewell Tour with events in Suffolk in early 2025: A memorabilia exhibit from January 23 to March 1 at the Suffolk Center for the Cultural Arts; Lafayette’s arrival on February 23 at the Suffolk Visitor Center/Riddick’s Folly; a banquet on February 25 at the Hilton Garden Inn Suffolk Riverfront; and a reception on February 26 at the Washington Smith Ordinary in Historic Somerton.

Frank and Gloria Womble are life members of the American Friends of Lafayette. Frank is a retired Army lieutenant colonel. Gloria is the America250 chair of Constantia Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, in Suffolk.