Biography of alexandre petion print
Biography of alexandre petion print shop.
Alexandre Sabès Pétion Edit Profile
politician
Alexandre Sabès Pétion was the first President of the Republic of Haiti from 1807 until his death in 1818.
He is one of Haiti's founding fathers, together with Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and his rival Henri Christophe.
Biography of alexandre petion print
Background
Alexandre Pétion was born on 2 April 1770 in Port-au-prince. He was the son of a wealthy French colonist and a mulatto woman.
Education
Like other gens de couleur libres (free people of color) with wealthy fathers, Pétion was sent to France in 1788 to be educated and study at the Military Academy in Paris.
Career
As a youth, he worked as a blacksmith and silversmith.
He enlisted in the colonial militia at the age of 18, and three years later, he joined the cause of the mulattoes against the French colonists, who were refusing to grant political equality to the mulattoes.
Under the black general Toussaint L’Ouverture, Pét