The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-09-12


 Within the Last Hundred Years Four of Them Have Been Confined
 to Haiti.
 Special Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courier)
 Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Aug. 10, 1902
 We are accustomed to consider mon archy exclusively an oldworld institu- tion, and to most Americans the reali- zation that empires and one Kingdom have actually fiourished in our side ot the world within the last century comes as shock of surprise. Only one of the six was strictly foreign eXcrescence- the second empire of Mexico, when luckIess scion of the House of flaps burg was upheld for al title time, by French bayonets, upon the throne of the MonteZumas. The longer reign of the kings of Brazil, which ended only a few years ago with the expulsion of good Dom Pedro, was begun when Jaoo VI, head of the ancient house of Bragamza, transferred his imperium from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, merely moving, for reasons of state, from one part of his domains to another. The other four 5 Kingdoms were created on American soil, by people of America. Happily, none of them flourished long. The at mosphere of the western hemisphere seems to be fatal to such growths. All the monarchs either suffered a tragic death, or were banished in disgrace, and the hairs to their crowns and scep- ters are to-day wanderers in foreign lands, or unhonored private citizens in their own.
 After the downfall of the Incas and the Montazumas the island of Haiti In 1894, when the great Napolean plac- ed the imperial crown of France on his onw head in thee athedral of Notre Dame, General Dessalines-a full blooded, brutal negro, black as the typical ace of spades and a monster of cruelty, proclaimed himself Emperor Jean Jacques. He had better reason for doing so than most upstart emper- CTS. After three years of bloody war fare he had defeated the French forces under Bonaprte's brother-in-law, Gen eral Leclero and driven Bonapartes army out of Haiti; and should the vic- tor be less than the vanquished? After that master-spirit. Toussaint Lover ture was kidnapped and carried to France by Napoleon's orders Gin 1S0D, Dessalines was the most prominent and successful soldier left on the island. All Haiti rallied around him, and he prose cuted the war with such vigor assisted by those faithful allies, yellow fever S and malaria which carried the French troops off by thousands, that he soon had the enemy at his mercy. It is a black page In history which tells how Rochambeau, driven to desperation, or dered the shooting of five hundred blacks, and how Dessalines, in retalia- tion, murdered twice as many French soldiers whom he had penned on Cap Haytien. Then an English fleet block aded the ports of Haiti and the French commander surrendered to the British admiral-Dessalines agreeing, on condi- tion that the troops be immediately re- moved from the island. On January i, 1894, he proclaimed the independence of Haiti and the island took a promising place among the nations of the world. The Haitians, grateful to the man who had achieved their independence, unani- mously elected him governor general for life, and for six months all went tolerably we'll. In May Napoleon pro- claimed himself emperor of the French, and Dessalines soon afterwards follow ed his iilustrious example. He was crowned with great pomp and cere- rnony, and his first act was to order the massacre of the remaining French planters, that their fine estates of sugar and coffee might be planted with yams and bananas for the sustenance of the troops in case of another war! After two years of turbulent reign he was as- sassinated by the soldiers of General Petion1--a coffee-colored mulatto, who seized the reigns of government and es- tablished his capital at Port-auP Prince: while the northern portion of the island fell to another soldier, Henri Christo- pfe, who made Cape Haitien his capi- tai. The two warred aginst each other for several years, each ambitious to be supreme chief; but eventually settled down to their respective governments Petion over the mulattoes of the South, Christophe over the blacks of the < North. Petion was really elected presi- dent of the burlesque republic, and held the office until he died-strange to say, peacefully in bed-in the year 1918. He was succeeded by Boyer, a mulatto, whose father was a light-colored mulat- to tailor, and his mother the blackest and most ignorant of Congo negresses. The son was educated in France where he acquired a veneer of polish, and came back to the land of his birth with the French general, Leclero.
 It was in Boyer's time (1S24) that Haiti, in order to obtain from France recognition of her independence and status as republic, agreed to pay a large indemnity to those former pos- sessors of the island who had been ex- lied and the heirs of the thousands of Frenchmen massacred by Dessalines The amount agreed upon was one hum dred and fifty million francs, to be paid ill five annual installments. Sixty mil lions were actually paid within five years; but after that owing to the na- tional prejudice against paying debts of any sort few payments were forthcom- { ing, and those at very long intervals until the Haitian Loan made France the butt of jokes the world over Need less to add, more than half the amount is yet unpaid
 Meanwhile Christophe had declared himself liking" in the northern end of opd oolo,,,r1,, oro1y,o5