IIAVTI. 



357 



north, tin- merchants and other citizens of the 

 i 1,'ivw holder and more bitter in their op- 

 'ii. ami tin 1 exiles in Kingston ami New 

 Y..rk i;a\e signs of fresh activity. The old Presi- 

 ilent reiiu'wd tin- battalions that were thought 

 unreliable to distant station-, re-en f orced^ Ihe 

 .11 with troops from his own sect ion,' and 

 More \ i ^i. nuis mea-ures to prevent a rising, 

 |iiililicly warning the people of I'ort-an-1'rince 

 be knew of their disaffection and would 

 deal stringently with them if their sentiments 

 I culminate in u In-each of the peace. Many 

 ns who were overheard denouncing the 

 iniient were summarily imprisoned. A plot 

 \\a-di-co\eivd in which Gen. SullyGuerrierwasa 

 prime mover, and amon.u r the persons arrested was 

 that ollicer's wife. In the early morning of May 

 ii. Sully Gucrrier and an old political enemy 

 of Ilippolyte's entered Port-au-Prince, and be- 

 fore the i roops could stir led a mob to the prison, 

 secured the keys, and liberated more than 200 

 political prisoners. They then tried to gain 

 -sion of the arms and ammunition in the 

 ar-enal, but were frustrated by the soldiers, who 

 put them to flight with their rifles, and cleared 

 the M reets with Gatling guns, killing about 40 

 persons. The rising was attempted at an hour 

 when President llippolyte and a large number 

 of his subordinates and adherents were attend- 

 ing muss in the cathedral, as it was a high Church 

 festival, Corpus Christi. President llippolyte 

 went, out without hesitation to take command, 

 and acted with such promptitude that the insur- 

 gents in less than three quarters of an hour were 

 driven into the woods; and thus he prevented a 

 general insurrection. From that time he did not 

 venture to go abroad except in the middle of a 

 square of troops. Arrests were made by the 

 hundred, and for a month afterward prisoners 

 were led out and shot daily by squads of sol- 

 diers. When his officers refused to continue the 

 carnage, llippolyte ordered the massacres con- 

 tinued. Several attempts were made on his life, 

 one at Jacmel, where two of the officers of his 

 body guard were shot. The revolutionists at- 

 tempted to make a stand at this post, but could 

 not hold it against the President's troops. A 

 large number fled to join the conspirators in 

 Jamaica. Among the 200 or 300 persons shot 

 by the President's orders was a popular mer- 

 chant in Port-au-Prince named Rigaud. The 

 French Government demanded an indemnity of 

 $50,000 for his family, because he had applied 

 for naturalization in France and intended go- 

 ing to France to gain a residence, as is re- 

 quired before one can be made a French citizen. 

 The interference of a foreign government in be- 

 half of a person who was a Haytian, not only by 

 birth but in law, was not relished by the 1'roi- 

 dent. Still he gave way in the end. as is usual 

 when foreign governments intervene. Sully 

 Guerrier was captured and shot at the time of 

 the I'inente. Port-au-Prince was kept under 

 martial law, and filled with soldiers. Business 

 was paralyzed and social intercourse made im- 

 possible. ""You call me a monster for May 28," 

 said President Hinpolyte, speaking in public, 

 " but that, was chila's play compared with what I 

 will do if another shot is fired against me." At 

 the time of the fmeute Gen. Souli and three oth- 

 ers, one of them M'. Cauvin, formerly Gen. 



's Minister of Justice, took refuge in the 

 Mexiou consulate. When the military were 

 .sent to drag them from their asylum, the diplo- 

 matic corps went tu G. -n. llippolyte in a body, 

 and the British consul, as spokesman, uttered a 

 vigorous protest, which llippolytu interrupt, d 

 by leaving i he room, saying tnat as Present of 

 a great country he would not listen to such lan- 

 guage. He apologized immediately afterward, 

 and did not remove the refugees unUl he had re- 

 ceived by cable permission from President Diaz 

 of Mexico, when all four were taken out and 

 publicly executed, and the corpses were left for 

 hours in the street, as was the practice of Hippo- 

 lyte, in order to inspire terror in sympathizers 

 with revolution. An insurrectionary movement 

 in the north, led by Gen. Barnave, one of Gen. 

 Ilippyolyte'saides, was soon suppressed. A more 

 important rising among the mulattoes of the 

 south was secretly sustained by the President's 

 enemies in Port-au-Prince. The Kingston exiles 

 were divided into two groups. One was headed 

 by Gen. Anselm Prophcte, who had for associ- 

 ates Gen. Osman Piquant, ex-President Bois- 

 rond-Canal, and Gen. Badere. The chief of the 

 rival group was Gen. Francois Manigat, whose 

 allies were ex-President Legitime and Dr. T. 

 Robert Love. Gen. Manigat is the champion of 

 the black race against the mulattoes. Neither 

 he nor Gen. Prophete could obtain the money to> 

 buy arms and ammunition for their threatened 

 descent on the Haytian coast, and in September 

 President llippolyte felt so secure that he sent 

 to their homes more than 1.000 of the soldiers 

 who had been kept at Port-au-Prince since May 

 28. Antenor Firmin, the most prominent mem- 

 ber of Ilippolyte's Cabinet, who first held the 

 portfolio of Foreign Affairs and Education and 

 afterward was Minister of Finance, resigned 

 while the massacres were in progress and left the 

 countrv. Many young Haytians went abroad 

 with the object of obtaining naturalization in 

 France or some other country, and thus gaining 

 the extraordinary privileges enjoyed by foreign 

 residents in Hayti under the diplomatic protec- 

 tion of foreign governments. 



On Aug. 14 a motion of want of confidence 

 gave rise to a stormy debate in the Chamber of 

 Deputies. Serious charges were uttered against 

 the members of the President's Cabinet, and a 

 formal vote of censure for corruption and inca- 

 pacity was carried, upon which they resigned in 

 a body. On Aug. 16 a new Cabinet was con- 

 structed as follows: M. Archin. Minister of For- 

 eign Affairs: M. Joseph, Minister of Public 

 Works; M. Montas, Minister of War; M. Apol- 

 lon, Minister of Instruction; M. Stewart, Minis- 

 ter of Finance; M. Pierre Louis, Minister of the 

 Interior. On Dec. 10 President Hippolyte pro- 

 claimed a general amnesty for all political of- 

 fenders. 



Disagreement with Santo Domingo. The 

 relations with Santo Domingo became strained 

 when M. Firmin in 1890 denounced the commer- 

 cial treaty of 1874. The treaty was to run twen- 

 ty-five years. It provided for the free reciprocal 

 importation of the products of the two countries 

 and for a periodical adjustment of the revenues 

 nrising from the interchange of foreign goods. 

 No adjustment wasever made. Santo Domingo's 

 claim for a balance of $823,477 in her favor that 



