Alexandre Pétion
President of the Republic of Haiti (1807–1818); benefactor of Bolívar
The president who armed South America's liberation — and asked only that it free its slaves.
The rise
Born Anne Alexandre Sabès on 2 April 1770 in Port-au-Prince, the son of a French colonist and a free woman of colour, he was educated in Paris and returned to fight in the Haitian Revolution. He became president of the southern republic in 1807.