Editing Jean-Pierre Boyer (section)

==Unification of Hispaniola==
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On 30 November 1821, [[Jose Nunez de Caceres]], president of the Spanish side of Hispaniola, declared the independence of the Spanish side of the island. <ref>{{Cite web |title=Haitian Occupation of Santo Domingo 1822 |url=https://onwar.com/data/haitisantodom1822.html |access-date=2024-02-02 |website=onwar.com}}</ref> The new nation was known as the [[Republic of Spanish Haiti]]. On 1 December 1821, the leaders of the new nation resolved to unite it with [[Gran Colombia]].<ref>{{Citation |last=Yingling |first=Charlton W. |title=7. The "Spanish Part of Haiti" and Unification, 1819–1822 |date=2022-11-22 |pages=188–203 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7560/326091-009/html?lang=en |access-date=2024-02-02 |publisher=University of Texas Press |language=en |doi=10.7560/326091-009 |isbn=978-1-4773-2610-7}}</ref>

Boyer sought to protect his country from the danger of France or Spain re-taking the Spanish side of the island and using it as a foothold to attack or re-conquer Haiti.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}} He wanted to maintain Haitian independence and secure the freedom of the slaves in Santo Domingo.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}

After promising protection to several Dominican frontier governors and securing their allegiance, in February 1822 Boyer annexed the newly independent state with a force of 50,000 soldiers.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}} These forces encountered little resistance from the considerably smaller Dominican population.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}} On 9 February 1822, Boyer formally entered the capital city, Santo Domingo, where Jose Núñez de Cáceres handed over the keys to the city.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}} Dominicans reacted uneasily to the Haitian invasion.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}

The island of Hispaniola was now united under one government from Cape Tiburon to Cape Samana.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}} By awarding land to Haitian military officers at the expense of former members of the Spanish forces of Santo Domingo, Boyer reduced his influence with the Spanish-Haitian leadership.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}} He continued the policy of Pétion, his former political mentor, of helping [[free blacks]] in other Spanish-American colonies to resist the Spanish crown.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}} Boyer ignored Haitian political opponents who called for reforms, such as parliamentary democracy, and veteran generals of the War of Independence, who believed that the revolution was not complete and that they were being neglected.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}

{{Main article|Haitian emigration|Samaná Americans}}
{{See also|Free negroes}}
Boyer, and his assistants, Joseph Balthazar Inginac and [[Jonathas Granville]], were deeply involved with the massive migration of black Americans to Haiti in 1824. Yet, this event did not happen in a vacuum. Neither did the migrants respond reflexively to the promises the Haitian government offered. The migration is often called a failure because of the 6,000 (or more) migrants, a couple thousand of those emigrants returned to the U.S. However, those who stayed often had a different assessment of the migration. The term failure, then, should be applied to the prospects the Haitian government had with the migrants and the idea many white philanthropists in the U.S. had of relocating the entire black population out of the country. Neither of these two objectives were met. Yet, for the [[Samaná Americans|descendants]] of the migrants now living in the [[Samaná Peninsula|Peninsula of Samaná]] and those who also assimilated into the local culture, the migration gave them the opportunity to find new life on the island, and often, to interact in a wider black diaspora through commerce and industry—their knowledge of the English language gave them an edge in Haiti.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://www.academia.edu/567462 | title=From North America to Hispaniola | publisher=Central Michigan University | author=Hidalgo, Dennis | year=2003 |origyear=2001 | location=Mt. Pleasant, Michigan | pages=2–50}}</ref>

The [[American Colonization Society]] (ACS) noticed the recruitment effort. Concerned that free blacks could never assimilate to the United States, its members founded their society in 1816 to "repatriate" American blacks to Africa, regardless of where they had been born. It was an uneasy collaboration between abolitionists and slaveholders, who approached the issue from differing viewpoints. The ACS planned colonization in what became [[Liberia]] for former slaves. In 1817 [[Loring D. Dewey]] toured the [[East Coast of the United States|East Coast]] to recruit emigrants, starting in New York. The organization hoped to resettle 100,000 free blacks within 10 years.{{Citation needed|date=January 2010}}

Dewey's meetings with people in New York convinced him to abandon the idea of colonizing Liberia. Most American blacks did not want to leave what they considered was fully their native country. Dewey met with Haitian citizens in New York, most of whom were refugee ethnic French and free blacks who had fled the revolution. They recommended Haiti as the ideal black homeland, due to its moderate weather conditions and independent black government. After Dewey wrote to Boyer to determine if he was still interested in receiving American immigrants, Boyer proposed that Haiti would seek blacks exclusively from the United States.

The ACS sent Boyer questions related to its goal of a colony for American free blacks. Boyer was confident that his government would be able to receive these people. The ACS tried to negotiate to have the Haitian government pay transportation costs for the emigrants. Boyer responded that the government would pay for those who could not afford it, but the ACS would have to take care of the rest of the finances. Haiti was already in debt to the French, which had exacted high payment for lost properties of planters, in essence making Haiti pay for its independence. The government did not have funds to transport American families to Haiti.{{Citation needed|date=January 2010}}

Dewey proposed establishing a colony for American free blacks that would be separate from the rest of the island, with its own laws, legislature, etc. Boyer was opposed to the idea of an American colony on the island, since the Haitians already feared re-colonization by the French. He told Dewey that the laws of the Haitian government applied to everyone across Haiti.

Beginning in September 1824, nearly 6,000 Americans, mostly free blacks, migrated to Haiti within a year, with ships departing from New York, [[Baltimore]] and [[Philadelphia]].<ref>[http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti-archive/msg00868.html ''US Gazette'', Philadelphia, 1824] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130910113052/http://www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti-archive/msg00868.html |date=2013-09-10 }}, from Girard Alphonse Firire, Ph.D., "HAITI AND ITS DIASPORA: NEW HISTORICAL, CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC FRONTIERS", 27 August 1999, accessed 15 January 2010</ref> Due to the poverty of the island and the inability of Boyer's administration to help support the new immigrants in the transition, most returned to the United States within a short period of time.