1867-03-13: (Geffrard Resigns and Flees to Jamaica After Eight Years in Power, His Modernization Efforts Undermined by Autocratic Rule, a Pattern That Would …

1867-03-13: (Geffrard Resigns and Flees to Jamaica After Eight Years in Power, His Modernization Efforts Undermined by Autocratic Rule, a Pattern That Would Repeat Itself With Nearly Every Haitian President Who Attempted Reform): On March 13, 1867, Geffrard resigned the presidency and fled to British Jamaica, where he would die on December 31, 1878. His departure followed years of escalating armed resistance. In 1865, Sylvain Salnave, a Black major in the military, had initiated a revolt that Geffrard could not suppress. The president who had championed education, signed the concordat with the Vatican, cultivated diplomatic relations with the United States, and attempted to professionalize the Haitian state was ultimately brought down by the same forces that had toppled every predecessor: the refusal of armed factions to accept any authority they could not control, and the willingness of every dissatisfied general to solve political disputes with bullets rather than ballots. Geffrard’s fall established the template: a leader with genuine modernizing ambitions, corrupted by the presidency-for-life system, overthrown by military insurrection, and exiled to die abroad.