Haiti Strongman

This is the first biography ever written, in any language, of Jean Pierre Boyer. Haiti Strongman compiles the travel journals of visitors to Haiti; reports from diplomatic and commercial agents, and the memoirs of several contemporaries to present the ambitious, methodical, and hypnotic, Jean Pierre Boyer (1776-1850). He ascended rapidly through the Haitian military hierarchy, rising from captain to colonel to brigadier general without ever having distinguished himself on a battlefield. He held the strategic posts of personal secretary to the president, head of the presidential palace guard, and commander of the capital, all at one time, and leveraged these positions to succeed his predecessor as president. As president (1818-1843), Boyer masterfully - and bloodlessly- consolidated an entire island of freemen amidst a sea of slave colonies and never wavered in his campaign to obtain international recognition of Haiti's sovereignty. During Boyer's quarter of a century as chief executive, statecraft, diplomacy, and fiscal discipline were his contributions to Haitian society. However, authoritative and resistant to change, he did not see the revolution to unseat him coming; nor, despite reports of eight thousand armed citizens and defected military heading towards the capital, Port-au-Prince, did he believe that it would succeed.