Jean Pierre Boyer, a mulatto, distinguished in affairs, and for his
abilities and justice, was born at Port-au-Prince, on the 6th of
February, 1776. His father, by some said to have been of mixed blood,
was a tailor and shopkeeper, of fair reputation and some property, and
his mother a negress from Congo in Africa, who had been a slave in
the neighborhood. He joined the French Commissioners, Santhonax and
Polverel, in whose company, after the arrival of the English, he
withdrew to Jacqemel. Here he attached himself to Rigaud, set out
with him to France, and was captured on his passage by the Americans,
during the war between France and the United States. Being released
at the end of the war, he proceeded to Paris, where he remained until
the organization of Le Clerc's expedition against St. Domingo. This
expedition he with many other persons of color joined; but on the
death of Le Clerc he attached himself to the party of Petion, with
whom he acted during the remainder of that chieftain's life, which
terminated on the 29th of March, 1818. Under Petion he rose from
the post of aid-de-camp and private secretary to be general of
the arrondissement of Port-au-Prince; and Petion named him for
the succession in the Presidency, to which he was inducted without
opposition. When the revolution broke out in the northern part of the
island, in 1820, Boyer was invited by the insurgents to place himself
at their head; and on the death of Christophe, the northern and
southern parts of the island were united under his administration
into one government, under the style of the Republic of Hayti. In
the following year the Spanish inhabitants of the eastern part of the
island voluntarily placed themselves under the government of Boyer,
who thus became, chiefly by the force of character, without much
positive effort, the undisputed master of all St. Domingo.
It is not questionable that the productions and general prosperity of
the island decreased under Boyer's administration. The blacks needed
the stringent policy of some such tyrant as Christophe. And the
popularity of Boyer was greatly lessened by his approval or direct
negotiation of a treaty with France, by which he agreed to pay to
that country an indemnity of 150,000,000 of francs, in five annual
instalments. The French Government recognized the independence of
Hayti, but it was impossible for Boyer to meet his engagements. He
however conducted the administration with industry, discretion, and
repose, for fifteen years, when a long-slumbering opposition, for
his presumed preference of the mulatto to the black population in the
dispensations of government favor, began to exhibit itself openly.
When this feeling was manifested in the second chamber of the
Legislature, in 1843, the promptness and decision with which he
attempted to suppress it, induced an insurrection among the troops,
and he was compelled to fly, with about thirty followers, to Jamaica.
He afterward proceeded to London, and finally to Paris, where he lived
quietly in the Rue de Madeline, enjoying the respect of many eminent
men, and surrounded by attached followers who shared his exile, until
the 10th of July. On the 12th he was buried with appropriate funeral
honors.
* * * * *