1876, April 17 – June 17: (Boisrond-Canal’s Return, the Te Deum of Resurrection, and Nord Alexis’s Revolt): On Easter Tuesday, April 17, 1876, Boisrond-Canal…

1876, April 17 – June 17: (Boisrond-Canal’s Return, the Te Deum of Resurrection, and Nord Alexis’s Revolt): On Easter Tuesday, April 17, 1876, Boisrond-Canal landed at the wharf from Jamaica at the head of a hundred followers, met by a cheering crowd that carried him bodily to the cathedral, where Archbishop Guilloux was waiting at the portals to chant a Te Deum and improvise a sermon to the exceedingly apt Easter text Surrexit sicut dixit — He is risen, as He said. Within six days a provisional government was shaped including Florvil Hyppolite, Louis Tanis, and Louis Audain, though two powerful names were missing: Jean-Pierre Boyer-Bazelais and — out of jail and already headed north — Nord Alexis. More powerful than all, on May 12, after seventeen years’ exile, Lysius Salomon stepped ashore in Port-au-Prince; Bassett compared his rare intelligence, commanding presence, and elegant language to Frederick Douglass, calling him the star that might guide the destinies of the people. But within two hours of Salomon’s arrival, the national guard stood to arms in the Place de l’Église while the blacks began to look grimly upon what Bassett called the treatment meted out by hot-headed young mulattos to the greatest man of their class — and Salomon, who assuredly had it in his power to touch off civil war, agreed to withdraw to Jamaica. Boisrond then faced Nord Alexis, who revolted on June 17 proclaiming “decentralization” — catchword for secession of the North — but Boisrond reacted forcefully, moving two columns against the Cap and sending the war steamer St. Michel to blockade the rebels, overwhelming the revolt and permitting Tonton Nord to depart for foreign shores.