One of Haiti's founding fathers, Pétion belonged to the revolutionary quartet that also includes Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and his later rival Henri Christophe.

Regarded as an excellent artilleryman in his early adulthood,[3] Pétion would distinguish himself as an esteemed military commander with experience leading both French and Haitian troops.

The 1802 coalition formed by him and Dessalines against French forces led by Charles Leclerc would prove to be a watershed moment in the decade-long conflict, eventually culminating in the decisive Haitian victory at the Battle of Vertières in 1803.

[5][6] Like other gens de couleur libres (free people of color) with wealthy fathers, Pétion was sent to France in 1788 to be educated and study at the Military Academy in Paris.

While restricted in political rights, many received social capital from their fathers and became educated and wealthy landowners, resented by the petits blancs, who were mostly minor tradesmen.

[citation needed] Pétion returned to Saint-Domingue as a young man to take part in the Haitian Revolution, participating in skirmishes with the British force in Northern Haiti.

Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, who was the Secretary of State for War to prime minister William Pitt the Younger, instructed Sir Adam Williamson, the lieutenant-governor of Jamaica, to sign an agreement with representatives of the French colonists that promised to restore the ancien regime, slavery and discrimination against mixed-race colonists, a move that drew criticism from abolitionists William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson.

During the years of warfare against French planters (commonly referred to as grands blancs), racial tensions in Saint-Domingue were exacerbated in competition for power and political alliances.

He allied with General André Rigaud and Jean-Pierre Boyer against Toussaint Louverture in a failed rebellion, the so-called "War of Knives", in the South of Saint-Domingue, which began in June 1799.