Haiti: The emperor secured his crown with a four-day massacre:
Faustin Soulouque could neither read nor write. The ex-slave made up for this with brutality and ...
welt.de/geschichte/article253548446/Haiti-Mit-einem-viertaegigen-Massaker-sicherte-sich-der-Kaiser-seine-Krone.html
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Faustin I: Haiti’s Empire Between Violence and PompHaiti’s lower house made Soulouque emperor in 1849; his lavish coronation three years later exhausted the state treasury.
- Soulouque took power in March 1847 as a compromise candidate after rising from former slave to commander of the presidential guard.
- In Port-au-Prince, he ordered a four-day assault on the mulatto elite in April 1848, during which Black rivals were also killed and children were held hostage.
- His campaign against independent Santo Domingo failed in 1849, but Soulouque portrayed the defeat as a success before the lower house declared him emperor.
- The coronation on April 18, 1852, cost $100,000 for the diamond-studded crown alone and depleted the treasury, until a revolt in late 1857 ended his rule and sent him into exile in Jamaica.
Four princes, 59 dukes and a multitude of counts, barons and other noble heads formed the 'island nobility' that was widely mocked in the French press.— Bernecker, Erlangen historian, describing Soulouque's Haitian imperial court (cited in the Welt article)
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