1806, October 17: (The Death of the Emperor and the Madwoman Défilée): Not until the Emperor was a few yards away did Colonel Léger, a mulâtre, recognize tha…

1806, October 17: (The Death of the Emperor and the Madwoman Défilée): Not until the Emperor was a few yards away did Colonel Léger, a mulâtre, recognize that the troops ahead were not Dessalines’s men but the 15th Demibrigade, a unit from the South — his warning came too late. The bayonets closed in but no man dared pull the trigger; in fury, Dessalines lashed out with his kokomakak until a young soldier named Garat fired his musket at the Emperor’s horse, pitching the charger down and pinning Dessalines to the ground. Then the generals swarmed forward: Yayou stabbed him thrice with fierce chops, Vaval loosed his horse pistols into the writhing body, and when the loyal mulâtre officer Charlotin Marcadieux tried to shield Dessalines, his head was blown away by a blast of musket shots. Off came the gold-lace green coat as soldiers ripped at the epaulets, other hands tore away the breeches, machetes hacked off ring fingers and then other members, and willing hands dragged the faceless cadaver into the city to be stoned, spat upon, and defiled until all that remained of Haiti’s first emperor lay still in the midday sun. When night finally descended, a madwoman called Défilée hauled away the body, cleansed and anointed it, and with the help of a soldier burying-party gave it sepulture in a nearby cemetery at Morne-à-Tuf, where Charlotin Marcadieux — the mulâtre who died for his noir emperor — was buried beside him. (8)