Alexandre Pétion

Anne Alexandre Sabès, who took the name Pétion, was born on 2 April 1770 in Port-au-Prince, Saint-Domingue, the son of a wealthy French colonist and a free mixed-race mother, and at 18 was sent to study at a military academy in Paris alongside other free people of colour.

Pétion returned to Saint-Domingue in 1791 as the Haitian Revolution began, fighting against British invasion forces and allying first with Toussaint Louverture's rivals before ultimately joining forces with Jean-Jacques Dessalines to defeat the French and secure Haitian independence in 1804.

Following Dessalines's death in 1806, Haiti split between Henri Christophe's authoritarian kingdom in the north and Pétion's republic in the south, with Pétion elected president of the Republic of Haiti in 1807, a position in which he pursued markedly more liberal and democratic governance than his northern rival.

In 1815, Pétion provided refuge, funding, arms and a printing press to Simón Bolívar, the exiled Venezuelan revolutionary, on the condition that Bolívar commit to abolishing slavery in any territories he liberated, support that proved decisive in relaunching South America's independence struggles against Spain.

Pétion declared himself President for Life in 1816 in response to tensions with Haiti's Senate, and he died of yellow fever on 29 March 1818; he is remembered among the quartet of Haiti's founding revolutionary leaders alongside Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe, and is celebrated across South America for his decisive support of Bolívar's liberation campaigns.