1816–1818, March 29: (The Decline and Death of Papa Bon-Kè): On revenues of 11 million gourdes in 1816, Pétion allowed the legislature to enact a mere 2-mill…

1816–1818, March 29: (The Decline and Death of Papa Bon-Kè): On revenues of 11 million gourdes in 1816, Pétion allowed the legislature to enact a mere 2-million gourde budget as apathy, graft, and peculation reigned unchecked — troublemakers, only if loud or conspicuous like Gérin, who was bayoneted at Nippes when “resisting arrest,” were disposed of by what the historian Brown called “noiseless methods.” (16) Through it all, available to all, good-hearted, calm, compassionate, philosophical, and permissive, Pétion sat under his colonnades garbed in a planter’s white suit and the madras headdress Toussaint had affected, and mustered the energy for one last good deed: devoted to education, he founded the Lycée of Port-au-Prince (later Lycée Pétion) and a pension for girls. In 1816, the rainiest year since 1812, the Cul-de-Sac was inundated, sewage floated in the streets of Port-au-Prince, and malaria, yellow fever, and enteric diseases ravaged the country — toward the end of the year, under the onset of intermittent fever, Pétion’s health began to fail, and all through 1817 into the next spring he declined until before daylight on March 29, 1818, the candle flickered out. As word spread that “Papa Bon-Kè” had died, the republic was plunged into deepest sadness; his body was embalmed and lay in state for three days, his heart interred in Fort National, and among the funeral orations on April 1, one simple mourner spoke for the country: “Pétion never once drew tears save by his death.” The historian James Leyburn offered a sharply different verdict on Pétion and his regime: “His country was rich when he came to power and poor when he died; united in 1806 and divided in 1818 — candor compels his admirers to admit that many of the calamities of the social and economic history of Haiti can be traced to Pétion’s administration.”