Haiti - Notable Natives and Residents

Notable Natives and Residents

Main article: List of Haitians
  • Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who might have been born in St Marc, Saint-Domingue in 1745, established a fur trading post at present-day Chicago, Illinois; he is considered one of the city's founders.
  • In 1779, more than 500 volunteers from Saint-Domingue, under the command of Comte d'Estaing, fought alongside American colonial troops against the British in the Siege of Savannah, one of the most significant foreign contributions to the American Revolutionary War.
  • The French pirate Jean Lafitte, who operated around New Orleans and Galveston on the Gulf Coast of the United States, was born in Port-au-Prince around 1782.
  • John James Audubon, the renowned ornithologist and painter, was born in 1785 in Les Cayes, Saint-Domingue. His parents returned to France, where the boy was educated. He emigrated to the United States as a young man; and made a career as he painted, catalogued and described the birds of North America.
  • Michaëlle Jean, 27th Governor General of Canada, was born in Port-au-Prince in 1957 and lived in Haiti until 1968.
  • Wyclef Jean, Croix-des-Bouquets-born Haitian-American musician.

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