Bolívar said that his people were in a position "lower than slavery", but many of them owned slaves themselves. Alexandre Pétion, the president of Haiti, said that he would help Bolívar fight if he abolished slavery as part of independence. Bolívar agreed, but only because he was afraid the slaves would revolt against the slaveowners, like they did in Haiti, and he only freed slaves who agreed to fight in his army. Even though Pétion helped him, Bolívar never freed all the slaves, and slavery was not abolished until the 1850s in Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. 