Dantès Bellegarde

His impoverished but small bourgeoisie background descended from several historical figures in Haiti's history.

His maternal great-grandfather Jacques Ignace-Fresnal was an officer in the army and Haiti's first Minister of Justice, and founder of Haitian Freemasonry.

[4] On 8 September 1922, Bellegarde highlighted a massacre of the Bondelswarts (a poor pastoral tribe) in South West Africa, which was a League mandate at the time.

[5] Bellegarde was part of a panel of experts on the League of Nations's Temporary Commission on Slavery in 1924.

He was bestowed by France as commander of the Legion of Honour and was holder of the Office of Public Instruction.