Encyclopedia of African American History

Boyer, Jean Pierre  329

the failure of the Liberia experiment, in 1824, Loring Dewey

wrote to Boyer asking about opportunities for potential

African American settlers. Boyer welcomed this overture

because Haiti reported a shortage of agricultural workers.

Th ough male Haitians had been given small plots of land,

they were unwilling to become again the human machines

of mass production that they had been under the French.

Envisioning a bargain in African American settle-

ment, Boyer promised Dewey that immigrants willing to

work the land would be given free transportation to Haiti

and 30 acres per groups of 12. On the other hand, migrants

who wanted to work the mechanical arts or any other trade

would have to reimburse the government aft er six months.

In the summer of 1824, Boyer sent a special representa-

tive, Jonathas Granville, to promote the Haitian scheme in

America. Granville traveled to several cities and convinced

black leaders to endorse Haitian colonization. About 6,000

American blacks settled in Haiti through the Boyer scheme

between 1824 and 1825. Altogether, some 13,000 American

blacks moved to the island during the same period, most

of them on their own. African Americans became disap-

pointed about their stay in Haiti. Th ey did not want to work

the land and faced a linguistic barrier because they did not

speak French, the offi cial language of Haiti then. Most of

the emigrants returned to the United States. In April 1825,

the Haitian government discontinued the sponsoring of

emigrants by withdrawing fi nancial support.

With the issue of black emigration “settled,” Boyer fur-

ther concerned himself with winning diplomatic recognition

from France, which he fi nally negotiated under the threat of

naval invasion and at the cost of 150 million francs in 1825.

Boyer remained president until a major insurrection forced

him to leave for Jamaica in March 1843. Five years later, he

moved to France, where he died on July 9, 1850.

See also: Destination, Haiti; Haitian Revolution; Louver-

ture, Toussaint

David Michel

Bibliography

Baur, John E. “Mulatto Machiavelli, Jean Pierre Boyer, and the Haiti

of His Day.” Journal of Negro History 32 (July 1947):307–53.

Dixon, Chris. African America and Haiti: Emigration and Black

Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century. Westport, CT: Green-

wood Press, 2000.

Pamphile, Leon D. Haitians and African Americans: A Heritage of

Tragedy and Hope. Gainesville: University Press of Florida,

2001.

was vital to the defense and helped secure acquittals for
Preston and four of his soldiers.
Th e Boston Massacre fueled a great deal of anti-British
propaganda throughout the colonies and provided radicals
such as Samuel Adams with an event around which to rally
and sustain opposition to the British crown. Th e massacre
also produced the fi rst martyr of the cause of American in-
dependence in Crispus Attucks, who is regarded as the fi rst
casualty of the American Revolution.
See also: American Revolution; Attucks, Crispus

Anthony Santoro

Bibliography
Hansen, Harry. Th e Boston Massacre: An Episode of Dissent and
Violence. New York: Hastings House Publishers, 1970.
Hoerder, Dirk. Crowd Action in Revolutionary Massachusetts,
1765–1780. New York: Academic Press, 1977.
Zobel, Hiller B. Th e Boston Massacre. New York: Norton, 1970.

Boyer, Jean Pierre

Jean Pierre Boyer (1776–1850) was born on February 28,
1776, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. His parents were a wealthy
Frenchman and a former slave. Boyer was educated in
France and later worked as a close aide to Haitian Pres-
ident Alexandre Petion, whom he succeeded in 1816. Boyer
united both the northern and southern parts of the Repub-
lic of Haiti in 1820 and, two years later, annexed the Spanish
and eastern sections of the island. He also earned an impor-
tant place in African American history through a project of
colonization involving American blacks.
In 1816, a group of whites, including Bushrod Washing-
ton, Henry Clay, and John Randolph, organized the Ameri-
can Colonization Society with the purpose of settling free
blacks in Liberia. Within a decade, thousand of blacks had
settled in Liberia. Nevertheless, the African scheme failed
because it was too costly and never received the full support
of the African American community. However, rejection of
the African scheme did not mean that blacks were against
the idea of leaving the United States in principle. Toussaint
Louverture (1743–1803), a Haitian military genius, had won
the admiration of American blacks, and with political free-
dom newly won from France, Haiti was deemed the best pos-
sible destination for oppressed African Americans. Sensing