1904, January 1 – 1907: (Great Misery Prevails: Nord Alexis’s Terror, the Banque Friponne, and the Surveillance State): Marcelin had advised Nord Alexis to m…

1904, January 1 – 1907: (Great Misery Prevails: Nord Alexis’s Terror, the Banque Friponne, and the Surveillance State): Marcelin had advised Nord Alexis to mark the Centenaire by pardoning every Haitian exile abroad; instead Tonton Nord marked the occasion in blood. On January 1, 1904, while the very ceremonies at Gonaïves were in progress, Port-au-Prince was swept by volleys — some thirty conspirators caught at General Maxi Momplaisir’s home were surrounded, and Momplaisir, his son, and coachman were executed on the spot. General Maxime Jacques, who broke his leg escaping, dragged himself to asylum, but the authorities seized his wife as hostage; when he surrendered, he was shot as he lay helpless in bed. At subsequent trials, reported American Consul Terres, lawyers for the defense were not allowed to plead, their voices drowned by the beating of drums, and all were condemned to death as expected. Suspicion now took the reins: Jérémie and Jacmel were placed under curfew, special permits were required for travel outside Port-au-Prince, the Cable Company was made to submit copies of all traffic to the palace, and letters were closely scrutinized in the post office. In 1905, a New York detective agency was hired for $3,000 to keep tabs on Haitian exiles in the United States. Antiforeignism mounted — in June 1904 the French and German ministers and their wives were stoned in their carriages by sentinels of the Presidential Guard. On April 29, 1905, Minister Powell reported that great misery prevailed in nearly all the large cities, that the president was almost unaware of conditions as he was almost a prisoner himself, surrounded by guards numbering a hundred or more whenever he went out. Despite all this, Nord Alexis made a determined effort to improve public education — backing two able ministers, he tried to revive rural schools, though out of an estimated 653,754 children of school age only 30,000 were enrolled in all institutions. He also cooperated with the Church in establishing what appears to have been Haiti’s first agricultural school, an experimental farm at Turgeau opened in 1907 by the Brothers of Christian Instruction. Ever since the Consolidations convictions, Tonton Nord had a score to settle with the Banque, which he referred to as La banque friponne — the rogue bank — and in 1905 he simply revoked its charter and carried on with no bank at all.