Jean Pierre Boyer

Infobox Officeholder
name =Jean-Pierre Boyer


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order =2nd President of the Republic of Haiti
office =
term_start =March 30, 1818
term_end =February 13, 1843
primeminister =
predecessor =Alexandre Pétion
successor =Charles Riviere-Hérard
birth_date =February 15, 1776
birth_place =Port-au-Prince, Haiti
death_date =July 9, 1850
death_place =France
nationality =
party =
spouse =
relations =
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residence =
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website =
footnotes =

Jean-Pierre Boyer (possibly February 15, 1776 – July 9, 1850), a native of Saint-Domingue, became a soldier, one of the leaders in the Haitian Revolution, and President of Haiti from 1818 to 1843. He reunited the North and South of Haiti in 1820. He also invaded and took control of independent Santo Domingo, bringing all of Hispaniola under one government by 1822. He managed to rule for the longest period of time of any of the revolutionary generation of leaders.

Born a free mulatto in Port-au-Prince and educated in France, Boyer fought with Toussaint Louverture in the early years of the Haitian Revolution. He allied with André Rigaud, also a mulatto, in the latter's abortive insurrection against Toussaint to keep control in the South of Saint-Domingue.

After going into exile in France, Boyer and Alexandre Pétion, another mulatto, returned in 1802 with the French troops led by General Charles Leclerc. After it became clear the French were going to try to reimpose slavery and restrictions on free "gens de couleur", Boyer joined the patriots under Alexandre Pétion and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who led the colony to independence. After Pétion rose to power in the State of Haiti in the South, he chose Boyer as his successor.

When in late 1821 Santo Domingo became independent, Boyer was quick to invade and gain control, uniting the entire island under his rule by February 9, 1822. Boyer ruled the island of Hispaniola until 1843, when he lost the support of the ruling elite and was ousted. [cite book
first=Jan
last=Rogozinski
year= 1999
title= A Brief History of the Caribbean
edition= Revised
publisher=Facts on File, Inc.
location=New York
pages= pp 218-220
id= ISBN 0-8160-3811-2 ]

History

Boyer was the son of a white frenchmen a tailor by profession, and a black mother a former slave of congolese origin (The Congo, Africa) he was a dark mulatto. His father sent him to France and paid for his education at a military school. Strangely the dark complexion of Boyer did not impede him in joining the French Republican Army and earned him the rank of battalion commander.

After the uprising of slaves in the North of Saint-Domingue, Boyer joined with the French Commissioners and went there to fight against the "grand blancs" and royalists. In 1794, Saint-Domingue was invaded by English forces trying to capitalize on the unrest in the formerly wealthy colony. Boyer went to Jacmel where he joined forces with the mulatto leader, General Rigaud.Fact|date=August 2007 When other mulatto leaders surrendered to Toussaint Louverture in southern Saint-Domingue, Boyer, Rigaud, and Petion went to France.

On his way to France, Boyer stopped in the United States for his first and last time. He only visited the United States that one time but “he always remembered it vividly.”

Shortly after this the Franco-American crisis ended, Boyer traveled to Paris where he stayed until 1801. Next, he returned to Haiti to protest Toussaint Louverture's newly gained independence. During this time it was uncovered that the French were planning on taking away the civil rights of mulattoes rights and reinstituting slavery for former slaves in Saint Domingue (as they managed to do in Guadeloupe.) Boyer collaborated with other native leaders to defeat the French.

Unification of Haiti & Spanish Haiti(Dominican Republic)

Starting November 15, 1821, several frontier towns near the border with Santo Domingo with large haitian presence raised the Haitian flag as a show of independence, whereas other forces who opposed unification with Haiti formally declared independence from Spain on November 30, 1821. [3] The new nation was known as El Haití Español (Spanish Haiti). [2] On December 1, 1821, a constitutive act was ordered to petition the uniting of Spanish Haiti with Gran Colombia.

A small group of politicians and military officers continued to favor uniting the new nation with Haiti, as various former slaves sought for political stability under Boyer. A large faction based in dajabon near the border were opposed to the union with Gran Colombia and also sided with Haitian president Jean-Pierre Boyer.

Boyer, on the other hand, sought to protect his country from the possibility of France's or Spain's retaking Haití Español and attacking or re-conquering Haiti. He sought not only to maintain Haitian independence, but to maintain the freedom of only 8,000 slaves remaining in Haití Español.

After promising protection to several Dominican frontier governors and securing their allegiance, Boyer invaded with a force of 50,000 soldiers in February, 1822, encountering much opposition from the majority white population. On February 9, 1822, Boyer formally entered the capital city, Santo Domingo, where he was met with unease and received from Núñez the keys of the city. The island was thus united by force from Cape Tiburon to Cape Samana.

Payment of indemnity to France

Boyer was anxious to remove the threat of France and opened negotiations. An agreement was reached on July 11, 1825, when with fourteen French warships off Port-au-Prince, Boyer signed an indemnity, stating that in return for 150 million francs paid within five years, France would recognize Haiti as an independent country. While this sum was later reduced to 60 million francs (1838), it was a crushing economic blow to Haiti.

Boyer had to negotiate a loan from France of 30 million francs to pay the first part of the indemnity. The Haitian population meanwhile was retreating into an agricultural subsistence pattern, defying the initial plan of Boyer to enforce the semi-feudal "fermage" system.

The people of Haiti were aggrieved at their situation. Boyer resurrected a land distribution program. He broke up some of the large plantations and distributed land to the small farmers. The rural population were tied to their smallholdings and given production quotas to try to generate enough products for export to generate revenue.

Boyer's rule lasted until 1843 when the poor economic situation was worsened by an earthquake. The disadvantaged rural population rose up under Charles Riviere-Hérard in late January. On February 13, Boyer fled Haiti to nearby Jamaica before eventually settling in exile in France, where he died in Paris. Descendants of Boyer live in Haiti to this day.

Haitian independence was claimed on January 1, 1804, under the rule of the soon to be known, Emperor Jacques I. The Emperor was assassinated in 1806.

Alexandre Petion and Henri Christophe competed to rule the nation. After years of warfare, they each established separate states: Petion in the South with the State of Haiti, and Christophe in the North with what became the Kingdom of Haiti. Boyer worked closely with Petion to create a Republican Constitution similar to that of the United States. During his presidency, Petion basically showed his successor what to do and what not to do. During this time, Petion really won over the hearts of his people and grew to be the most liked of any leader. In 1816 he won amendment of the constitution to name his own successor. This was Boyer. Petion died in 1818 and the Senate met immediately to approve his choice. Boyer believed it was necessary for Haiti to be acknowledged as an independent nation, but realized this could only be established by cutting a deal with France, so he did. On July 11, 1825 Boyer signed an indemnity saying Haiti would pay France a certain amount of money in order to be recognized as independent.

Haiti’s motto is “in unity there is strength”Fact|date=August 2007. As soon as Boyer came to power, he was confronted with the continuing competition with Christophe in the Kingdom of Haiti. Henri Christophe, who was an extreme threat to the south. This was a difficulty though, because of Christophe's great “fortress” which he had built in the north.

Christophe's autocratic rule brought about continued unrest in the Kingdom of Haiti. His soldiers began to rebel against him in 1820. In failing health and fearing assassination, Christophe committed suicide. Boyer was able to take over all of Haiti without fighting a single battle.

Welcoming freed Americans

Boyer began encouraging freed Americans to emigrate to the Republic of Haiti. His government advertised the opportunities in newspapers: “promising free land and political opportunity to black settlers."

Pierre Boyer had made the effort to contact people within the US. They claimed they wanted to work with the Haitian government to bring the displaced African Americans there. Boyer sent agents to black communities to convince them that Haiti was a sovereign state, which was open only for Blacks.

These actions were noticed by the American Colonization Society, who were looking to send or get rid of black's, in the beginning processes of colonizing Liberia in Africa for the former slaves. Prior to learning about Boyer’s enthusiasm about emigrating other “lost” blacks in other countries, the organization had been trying to use a voluntary system, in which they would try to persuade former slaves to leave voluntarily? Loring Dewey had toured around the east coast in 1817, starting in New York. This process was ultimately a failure for both the organization and Dewey, who had figured that he would be able to remove close to 100,000 freed blacks within a 10 year span. With calculation continuing, they came to the conclusion that should they continue to remove freed and enslaved Africans, they would obliterate the African American population in America.

Dewey had abandoned the idea of colonization for emigration in his travels in New York. Meeting with a Haitian citizen, who argued that Haiti was ideal for emigration due to its weather conditions and the independent Negro government which governed the island, Dewey began to think of the idea of using Haiti as a destination for freed blacks. Dewey wrote to Boyer to determine if he was still interested in receiving American immigrants. Boyer quickly responded to the possibility of attracting black Americans only.

The A.C.S. sent Boyer questions related to its goal of a colony for American freedmen. Boyer was confident that his government would be able to receive these people. The A.C.S. tried to negotiate to have the Haitian government pay transportation costs for the immigrants. Boyer responded that the government would pay for those who could not afford it, but the American Colonization Society would have to take care of the rest of the finances. Haiti was already in debt to the French, who had forced payment for lost properties - in essence making Haiti pay for its independence. Spending funds to transport American families to Haiti would have been impossible.

Dewey proposed establishing a colony for American freedmen that would be separate from the rest of the island with its own laws, legislature, etc. This idea showed both that America was interested in expanding to the Caribbean and in colonizing recently independent Latin American nations. Boyer was fully against the idea of having an American colony on the island, since the Haitians had already experienced the threat of re-colonization from the French. He responded to Dewey stating that the laws of the Haitian government were general and no particular laws can exist.

But due to the utter poverty in the island, and the ever decline of boyer's bad oriented administration, many former slaves returned back to the U.S.

Exile and Death

Boyer left Haiti on February 13 and went to Jamaica. Then he was exiled to France. He died in 1850 and was succeeded by Charles Riviere-Herard.

Footnotes

References

* Baur, John Edward, “Mulatto Machiavelli, Jean Pierre Boyer, and the Haiti of His Day”, The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 32, No. 3, (July, 1947).

* Boyer, Jean Pierre and Loring Dewey, Society for Promoting the Emigration of Free Persons of Colour to Hayti (Mayday, 1824).

* Brown, Gordon S., Toussaint’s Clause: The Founding Fathers of the Haitian Revolution (Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2005).

* Leger, Jacques Nicolas, Haiti, Her History and Her Detractors (New York: The Neale Publishing Company, 1907).

* Miller, Floyd J., The Search for Black Nationality: Black Emigration and Colonization 1787-1863 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1975).

* Shick, Tom. W, Contemporary Sociology 11/1/76, Vol. 5 Issue 6, p798-799, 2p.

* Staudenraus, P.J., The African Colonization Movement 1816-1865 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961).