Fabre Geffrard
Fabre-Nicolas Geffrard | |
---|---|
Nissage Saget (provisional) | |
Personal details | |
Born | Guillaume Fabre Nicolas Geffrard 23 September 1806 British Jamaica |
Spouse | Marguerite Lorvana McIntosh |
Profession | Military |
Guillaume Fabre Nicolas Geffrard (French pronunciation:
Life prior to presidency
Geffrard was a son of
Presidency
His first act as president was to cut the army in half from 30,000 to 15,000. He also formed his own presidential guards called
Geffrard was a Catholic, which made him renounce any form of the Voodoo faith. He gave orders to demolish altars, drums, and any other instruments used in ceremonies. In 1864, a twelve-year-old girl was allegedly killed by Voodoo practitioners in a gruesome fashion and cannibalized. Geffrard ordered a deep investigation and a public execution was held. This case became the famous Affaire de Bizoton, a sensationalized account of which was featured in British minister Sir Spenser St. John's best-selling book, Hayti, or the black republic.[4]
In 1859, Geffrard made the first attempt in negotiating with the Dominican Republic under the regime of Pedro Santana. Unfortunately, in March 1861, Pedro gave his country back to Queen Isabella II of Spain, thus making Haitian officials nervous about having a European power back on their borders. In May of that year, guerilla war broke out in Santo Domingo against Spain. Geffrard sent his personal guards and men to help out the rebels against Spanish troops, but in July 1861, following the execution of Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, Spain gave Haiti an ultimatum for participating and supporting the Dominican rebels. In the end, Geffrard agreed to surrender to Spanish demands and dropped all intervention within Spanish territory in the east. This episode left many Haitians humiliated and angry at Geffrard because he backed down to a European nation while Faustin Soulouque would have never accepted it.
Geffrard, like many Haitians, supported the
Failed coups against Geffrard
By the eighth month of Geffrard's presidency, Faustin Soulouque's minister of interior, Guerrier Prophète, began to lay out his plan to overthrow Geffrard. Fortunately for Geffrard, his plan was picked up by Geffrard's guards and Prophète was exiled. In September 1859, Geffrard's daughter Madame Cora Manneville-Blanfort was assassinated[why?] by Timoleon Vanon. In 1861, General Legros tried to take over the weaponry storage but was detained by government forces. In 1862, Etienne Salomon tried to rally the rural community to revolt against Geffrard, but was instead shot and killed. In 1863, Aimé Legros gathered troops to overthrow Geffrard, but his troops betrayed him, and he was shot. In 1864, the elite community in Port-au-Prince tried to take over the weaponry storage, but the conspirators were later prosecuted and sentenced to jail. In 1867, Geffrard's bodyguards, Tirailleurs, betrayed him[why?] and tried to assassinate him inside the national palace.[citation needed]
Overthrow
In 1865, Major
Family
Geffrard, with his wife Marguerite Lorvana McIntosh, had several children:
- Laurinska Madiou
- Celimene Cesvet
- Cora Manneville-Blandfort (d. 1859)
- Marguerite Zéïla Geffrard
- Claire Geffrard
- Angèle Dupuy
- Charles Nicholas Clodomir Fabre Geffrard (1833-1859)
Footnotes
- ISBN 978-0-598-57805-1.
- ISBN 9780813031071. Retrieved 4 March 2014.
- ISBN 0-8160-3811-2.
- ^ Webb, Jack Daniel. “Hayti, or, the Black Republic.” Haiti in the British Imagination: Imperial Worlds, 1847-1915, Liverpool University Press, 2020, pp. 139–88. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1b4gv6g.8. Accessed 28 Oct. 2023.