Preface of the Upcoming Book Five

“Her wishes will become laws. Her disfavor will end careers. ”

Boyer will be forty-six when he assumes complete control, his aristocratic features already set in the stern lines of authority. His mixed-race hands, more accustomed to signing decrees than wielding machetes, will nevertheless guide a nation forged in blood and fire. Behind his polished exterior will lie a sharp political mind tempered by years of exile, revolution, and governance. His gaze will sweep across the entirety of Hispaniola with the hunger of a man who believes in his manifest destiny to rule not half, but all of an island as was dreamed of by his predecessors in history.

Yet for all his political savvy and quick temper, Boyer will not stand alone in his ambitions. The shadow that will follow him, that will sometimes lead him, will belong to a woman whose name will rarely appear in official documents but whose influence will permeate every corner of the national palace. Marie-Madeleine Lachenais—Joute to those in her intimate circle—will have already spent over a decade as the power behind the presidential chair of Petion when Boyer takes office.

At forty-four, her beauty will remain a formidable weapon in her considerable arsenal. However, it will be her mind that truly sets her apart from the women of her time. She will navigate the complex racial and social hierarchies of post-revolutionary Ayiti with the precision of a master cartographer charting unknown waters. Her fingers will trace invisible lines of power across the political landscape, connecting people and possibilities that others cannot see.

ogether, they will form a partnership unlike any other in the Caribbean. The formal structures of government—the ministers, the generals, the

legislators—will provide the visible architecture of power. But it will be in the private chambers of the national palace, in whispered conversations between sheets or over morning coffee, that the true direction of the Ayisyen state will be determined. Her wishes will become laws. Her disfavor will end careers. Her vision, combined with Boyer's authority, will reshape the future of an entire island.

With the north secured, their gaze will turn eastward. The Spanish colony of Santo Domingo, neglected by a Spain embroiled in conflicts at home and revolutions across its American empire, will present an opportunity too tempting to ignore. The entire island of Hispaniola, united under Ayisyen rule, will become the dream that consumes both Boyer and Lachenais. For Boyer, it will represent a legacy that surpasses even the founding fathers of the Ayisyen revolution. For Lachenais, it will offer new challenges, new power dynamics to master, and new resources to command. Ultimately, for both, it will begin to unravel the dynasty they seek so desperately to build.

 This book will tell their story—not as perfect heroes or simplistic villains, but as complex human beings wielding extraordinary power in extraordinary times. It will explore the intimate connections between bedroom politics and national policy, as well as between personal ambition and historical necessity. In the pages that follow, Ayiti will emerge not as a footnote in world history but as the central stage upon which fundamental questions of liberty, race, emancipation, and power will play out. This is the story of Ayiti's most enduring power couple, of a unified island's brief moment of possibility, and of a dream of Black sovereignty that will inspire fear and hope across the Atlantic world.

 Our story begins here.