Eseosa

"Please guide me to victory."

- Eseosa in his letters to Adéwalé.

Eseosa was the grandson of the Assassin Adéwalé and Bastienne Josèphe, and a member of the Assassin Brotherhood in the French colony of Saint-Domingue at the start of the 19th century. He is an ancestor of Milton Jones.

He was a friend of Dutty Boukman, and a leading figure of the Haitian Revolution. He was also responsible for recruiting Toussaint Louverture, who led the liberation of Haiti's slaves from their masters. Eseosa wrote a Codex to his grandfather sometime prior to the revolution.

Biography
The result of a union between Adéwalé's son and an woman, Eseosa reformed the Brotherhood in Saint-Dominigue by 1776. He hoped to succeed where François Mackandal's Assassins had failed, in creating a nation where black and white citizens lived alongside one another.

He recruited Georges Biassou, Boukman, and Toussaint Bréda, for whom Eseosa arranged to be freed from slavery, to accrue resources for the Assassins. He also sent a request for help to Guillaume Beylier, a member of the French Assassins, but Beylier responded that with their own problems brewing, they were unable to send reinforcements.

By 1791, as the revolution commenced, Toussaint, using the training Eseosa gave him, took command of Biassou's troops. However, their fellow commander Jeannot Bullet massacred white and mulatto civilians, violating the Creed. Biassou and Jean-François Papillon, the third commander appointed by Boukman, captured Bullet, and Eseosa sentenced him to death.

Two years later, Eseosa acted as trainer for Toussaint's men, and manuevered him into the position of leadership by secretly instigating violent uprisings only his men could subdue. The year after, the French Revolutionary government abolished slavery, but Eseosa and Toussaint's work was not over, as the British and Spanish tried to claim Saint Dominigue: Papillon and Biassou sided with the Spanish, leaving Eseosa saddened.

By 1801, after ridding themselves of the Templar governor Jean-Louis Villatte, Toussaint became absolute ruler of Saint-Dominigue. Under his command, Eseosa helped conquer the Spanish territory of, bringing the entire island under their control and liberating all of its slaves.

Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, saw Toussaint as undermining his authority, and sent General Charles Leclerc to remove him from power. Leclerc claimed he was not revoking abolition, but Eseosa retrieved orders from Napoleon revealing they planned to disarm the black soldiers and force ex-slaves to return to working on plantations.

By May 1802, Leclerc emerged victorious over most of the rebel leaders, and Toussaint surrendered himself, agreeing to be deported to France. Eseosa wrote a letter to the Assassins there to free him, but he received no response, and Toussaint died in prison a year later.

However, Leclerc opted not to disarm Toussaint's troops, allowing them to rise up again. Eseosa poisoned Leclerc, using a special mixture devised by Mackandal to give him -like symptoms. By 1804, Toussaint's lieutenant Jean-Jacques Dessalines drove the French out of the colony and became the new ruler of an independent Saint-Dominigue, but marked the beginning of his brutal reign by exterminating the white colonists.

Appalled, Eseosa accepted an invitation from Connor, the leader of the Colonial Assassins and grandson of Adéwalé's captain Edward Kenway, to receive additional training at the Davenport Homestead in Massachusetts. He vowed to return to kill Dessalines.

Personality and characteristics
Eseosa did not practise like Boukman, but they shared a belief in a distant god that meant they had to turn to spiritual guidance from angels, saints or ancestors: thus, Eseosa wrote his Codex as a way to pray to his grandfather for strength.

Eseosa described himself as proficient in military tactics, but lacking in political skills, which is why he recruited Toussaint into the Brotherhood.

Trivia

 * Eseosa is an alternate spelling of the Nigerian name Esosa, meaning "gift or blessing of God".

Reference

 * Assassin's Creed: Initiates - Letters to the Dead