This period also encompassed Haitian occupation of Spanish Santo Domingo from 1822 to 1844, creating a unified political entity governing the entire island of Hispaniola.

After Christophe attempted to exert greater power, he ran up against the newly-established Senate under Alexandre Pétion, who defended the capital of Port-au-Prince.

On 29 March 1818, Pétion died and the title of president-for life passed to the commander of his guard, Jean-Pierre Boyer, who gained the support of the Senate.

[4] Under threat of invasion, Boyer agreed and by 1826 Haiti was recognized by almost all world powers with the exception of the United States of America (which, influenced by insecure slave-owning white Southerners, wanted nothing to do with revolted slaves).

To keep up with the payments to France, Boyer had to implement a special tax and negotiate a loan of 30 million to a French bank with an interest rate of 6%, while asking for a reduction of the debt.

Boyer and his ministers, Jérôme-Maximilien Borgella and Jonathas Granville, were deeply involved in the mass migration of black Americans to Haiti.

Due to the island's poverty and the Boyer administration's inability to help support new immigrants in transition, most black Americans returned to the United States after a short period of time.

[5] Boyer's authoritarian measures eventually lead to a loss of popular support and in 1842 an insurgency arose in Praslin, not far from Les Cayes, headed by General Charles Rivière-Hérard.