1888-08-10: (Salomon Overthrown by a Caco Revolt, the Ninth President Toppled by Armed Insurrection Since Independence, the Pattern of Military Coups Now So …

1888-08-10: (Salomon Overthrown by a Caco Revolt, the Ninth President Toppled by Armed Insurrection Since Independence, the Pattern of Military Coups Now So Entrenched That Peaceful Succession Remained Unimaginable): On August 10, 1888, Lysius Salomon resigned the presidency after a revolt broke out in northern Haiti. The mulatto elite had orchestrated multiple rebellions against his government using hired Caco rebels, and Salomon’s decision in 1886 to circumvent the constitution and secure a second term had eroded his remaining legitimacy. He went into exile in Paris, where he died on October 19, 1888, just weeks after resigning. The same year, Brazil abolished slavery, the last nation in the Western Hemisphere to do so, eighty-four years after Haiti had led the way. Salomon’s fall triggered a power struggle between French-backed François Légitime and U.S.-backed Florvil Hyppolite, a preview of the great-power competition that would increasingly define Haitian politics as the nineteenth century drew to a close. Haiti’s modernizer had been overthrown by the same forces that destroyed every predecessor: armed factions that treated the state as a prize to be seized rather than an institution to be built.