1961–1964: (Macoute Priests and the Fall of Barbot: Zacharie Delva’s Bois Caïman in the Cathedral, the Jesuits Expelled Two Centuries After Their First Banis…

1961–1964: (Macoute Priests and the Fall of Barbot: Zacharie Delva’s Bois Caïman in the Cathedral, the Jesuits Expelled Two Centuries After Their First Banishment, Père Dorélien Brings 1804 Up to Date, and Barbot Rotting on Sour Mangos in Fort Dimanche): Behind the expelled bishops, in Gonaïves, the chief macoute and noted boko Zacharie Delva held a public Cérémonie Bois Caïman in the cathedral portals, complete with a chalice of warm pig’s blood. There followed a parade of expulsions of rank-and-file religious that continued for three years, eventually extending to leading Protestants including Duvalier’s old friend Episcopal Bishop Voegeli and Baptist missionary Wallace Turnbull, and culminating in February 1964 — two centuries after their first banishment from Saint-Domingue — in the eviction of the entire Jesuit order. These purges opened vacant livings to be filled by macoute priests of a type not seen since Dessalines: Père Jean Hilaire, who celebrated mass with pistol on hip; Père Bouillaguet, swaggering chief of the Léogâne milice; and Père Albert Dorélien, who earned instant promotion from parish priest to cathedral canon by publicly pronouncing that in his dealings with the Church, Duvalier had brought 1804 up to date — which was true. Duvalier was no more prepared than Soulouque to risk challenge from within: with his hyper-sensitized antennae it was his supreme attribute to sense not merely disaffection but competition far ahead. The obvious case was Barbot — the president’s best and most loyal friend, who had run the country during Duvalier’s heart attack and willingly handed back power, but who had a power base of his own and a reputation as a strong and efficient administrator. On the evening of July 14, 1960, as he and Mme Barbot were returning from the French embassy, a Garde Présidentielle roadblock halted them — within a week Barbot was in Fort Dimanche, where for sixteen months in a lightless fetid cell he was allowed to rot on a diet of sour mangos and overripe bananas. The fall of Barbot marks the point at which Duvalier fully grasped the helm — henceforth, like the Javanese Upas-tree, he would poison all that reposed in his shade.