Johan Henri Eliza Ferrier was a Surinamese politician who served as the 1st President of Suriname from November 25, 1975 until August 13, 1980. He was that country's last governor before independence, from 1968 to 1975, and first president after it gained independence from the Netherlands. He was deposed in a military coup on 13 August 1980. He was named the twentieth century's most important politician in Suriname in 1999. Ferrier was born in 1910 at Suriname's largest city and its capital, Paramaribo. A teacher by trade outside political life he assisted in the establishment of the country's National Party in 1946, at a time when it was only a colony of the Dutch.