Coup d’état at Port-au-Prince; Zinglins kill officials and citizens

On 16 April 1848, Port-au-Prince was the scene of a coup d’État. At the news of the conspiracy of Louis Jacques at Aquin, the alarm cannon was fired: the Zinglins gathered at the palace, where the guard fired on the officials and generals assembled; some were drowned in their blood, the others found their safety by jumping over the railings of the enclosure. At the sound of the shooting, the bourgeoisie gathered at the seashore to defend itself. But, surprised and without direction, it succumbed. For two days and two nights the soldiers kill the citizens in the streets. Merlet, Normil Brouard, Léo Harmonière, Redon and other eminent citizens were killed in the streets. These assassinations were followed by many others in the South, where Soulouque went to reap the population by proscriptions and judicial assassinations. A year later, to the day, General Similien, the principal instigator of these saturnalia, was dragged along in slippers and thrown into prison, where he died a year later.

Rouzier tells this under the entry PORT-AU PRINCE [le].