Petion (Anne Alexandre Sabes), first president of the republic of Hayti, born in Port-au-Prince, April 2, 1770, died there, March 29, 1818. His father was Pascal Sabes, a wealthy colonist, and his mother a free mulatto. He studied at the military academy of Paris, served in the French and afterward in the Haytian army, and when the revolution broke out in his native island rendered valuable service to Toussaint and Dessalines as an engineer, and was rapidly advanced. He did much to protect the colonists in that time of terror. "When Toussaint began his proscription of the whites and mulattoes, Petion took up arms to resist him, and maintained the conflict, with very unequal forces, until compelled to seek refuge in France. He returned from exile as a colonel in the army sent under Gen. Leclerc to subject Hayti anew to her former masters; but the retaliatory cruelties committed by that commander, and the reestablishment of slavery, gave the signal for revolt (1802). Petion placed himself under the orders of Dessalines, and they once more proclaimed the independence of Hayti (1804). Having succeeded Gen. Clervaux in the government of Port-au-Prince and the command of the mulattoes, Petion held that post at the time of the assassination of the negro emperor (October, 1806). In the dissolution of the government which ensued, the mulattoes rallied round Petion, whom they preferred, as one of their own caste, to Chris-tophe, the leader of the blacks.

Petion was elected in 1807 president of the southern and western parts of the island; an office which was afterward conferred upon him in perpetuity, with the right of nominating his successor. Christophe believing himself entitled to undivided authority, the rivals took up arms, and for several years carried on a war in which the advantage seems to have been on the side of Christophe, who on one occasion defeated Petion in a pitched battle, and pursued him to Port-au-Prince. At length the chieftains agreed, without entering into any formal treaty, to suspend hostilities, and leave each other undisturbed. A strip of waste country, 10 m. wide, was made the neutral boundary. Petion now applied himself zealously to the improvement of his subjects. With absolute power he preserved the utmost republican simplicity. Property was equitably divided, without respect to distinctions of color; great attention was paid to public instruction; and the general forms of administration were copied from French models. But an insurmountable barrier was the character of the recently emancipated blacks who formed the majority of his subjects. The finances of the country fell into irretrievable disorder; onerous imposts upon commerce were resorted to, and the government was compelled to debase the coinage.

The army was a mere rabble. Petion fell into a state of hypochondria, refused all medicines and nourishment, and, after designating Gen. Boyer as his successor, died of mere inanition and despondency. His body now rests in the cemetery of Pere Lachaise, Paris.