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The Presidency of Nicolas Geffrard of Haiti
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
During the early days of 1859, Port-au-Prince was busy with holiday celebrations, dramatic addresses and colorful events. Haitians possess a certain genius for properly observing a great day, and indeed it seemed that halcyon days had at last arrived in the Caribbean. Before the national legislature that April came a new president, a man for all the people. He was a person of medium height, rather slender and very erect and dignified. A mixture of Negro and mulatto elements, the new national hero had a very dark complexion, gray hairs befitting his fifty-three years, and courteous airs. In fact, his decorum was striking, set off as it was with a quiet gentleness, polish and evident idealism that seemed almost out of place in a Haitian warrior who had just dethroned an emperor.
The ownerless imperial crown, symbolic of the recently defunct regime, was brought before the restorer of the old Republic. Fittingly, the chief executive employed allegory to express his adventure into reform. After a long, flowery speech denouncing the exiled Emperor Faustin I, President Nicolas Fabre Geffrard swore fidelity to the popular government, announced some preliminary political changes, and took up a small gavel. With this he struck the crown three times, condemning the magnificent diadem and its regime as he inaugurated the Republic which must not waver. From that day on the crown of Soulouque became a museum piece, but what is symbolized could not be so easily defeated and discarded.
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1954
References
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