BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY Nissage Saget, Haitian president

As Haiti’s 10th president, Nissage Saget was a soldier before hand having helped in the fight for independence. He was one of the few men who rose in the ranks of the army very first. He was born into a family of five children. He however had a very sad history.

This was precisely because Nissage Saget had lost all of his other brothers and sisters at a very tender age of 7 years. They had died tragically close to each other due to the flu that had hit the area at the time of president Petion’s death. He was one of the few who had survived that fever and this was not the only tragic event in his life.

There was at the time when Nissage Saget was serving in the army as colonel and a very trusted army official to president Soulouque he had been ordered to kill innocent citizens under the pretext that they had conspired against the government. He had refused this order and as such the president had ordered for his arrest and imprisonment for failure to follow a direct order.

Nissage Saget was supposed to serve a life imprisonment but after Soulouque had left his friend Boyer had presided for his release after serving a sentence of 10 years. It was after this that the great events in his life had started occurring. First he had been able to regain his position in the army which he utilized very well. He had made himself very popular among the army members and this worked well for him. He had been able to easily influence his way around the army such that at the time of president Salnave’s leaving office he took over as the next president of Haiti.