Career
In the ensuing years, he had a tumultuous career: he was exiled in 1874, but returned to Haiti a few years later by President Pierre Théoma Boisrond-Canal. During the presidency of Lysius Salomon, he was a vocal leader of the opposition, enduring several jail sentences before Salomon was finally ousted in a revolt. The new president, Florvil Hyppolite, gave him an important military position in the north, but when President Tirésias Simon Sam resigned, he joined Anténor Firmin in a march on Port-au-Prince in an effort to seize control of the government.
The new president, however, was his old ally, Boisrond-Canal, who had returned him from exile some twenty years earlier. Canal defused the tension by appointing Alexis as his Minister of War, driving a wedge between him and Firmin. Troops loyal to Firmin were finally defeated in Port-au-Prince, leaving only two strongholds, St. Marc and Gonaïves, opposed to the new government of Canal and Alexis. Alexis took advantage of the situation by negotiating with the United States and declaring himself in support of American interests in the Caribbean. The U.S. responded by imposing a naval blockade on the two centers still loyal to Firmin, paving the way for Alexis to seize control of the government for himself.
Read more about this topic: Pierre Nord Alexis
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