1847, March 1: (The Tranquility of the Tomb: The Selection of Faustin Soulouque): Based on their experience in manipulating Guerrier, Pierrot, and even Riché…

1847, March 1: (The Tranquility of the Tomb: The Selection of Faustin Soulouque): Based on their experience in manipulating Guerrier, Pierrot, and even Riché, the establishment mulâtres — mostly residuary legatees of Boyer content to honor their lost leader in absentia — felt with some reason that they had arrived at a working formula for running the country through pliant noir figureheads. It thus came about that on March 1, 1847, after a series of deadlocked ballots in the Senate as to who should succeed Riché, a compromise was agreed upon: born in Petit-Goâve in 1788 of slave parents new from Africa and the Mandingue tribe, the new president was a noir general who had commanded Riché’s palace guard. In the words of Raybaud, the French consul general, this man was “bon, gros, et pacifique” — good-humored, hefty, and peaceable. His name was Faustin Soulouque, and the mulâtre elite who selected him believed they had found their most tractable puppet yet. What they did not yet understand was that the tranquility they sought was that of the tomb — and that the quiet, obedient general they had chosen would soon transform himself into the most fearsome autocrat Haiti had seen since Dessalines.