When the procession arrived at the place of execution, there was a mob collected of several thousand spectators, principally ferocious negresses. A shout arose, “We were promised five! where is the fifth?” and the crowd closed in on the procession, with knives drawn and pistols ready. The cowardly officers replied, “The fifth is coming,” and sent word to President Salnave. He, unwilling to disappoint his most faithful followers, looked over the list of those in prison, and finding that there was a parricide, whom he had pardoned but the day before, ordered him to execution. In the meantime, the four others had been kept waiting, exposed to the insults of the people—particularly one prisoner, whose long white beard and hair and white skin made him particularly obnoxious.
The arrival of the fifth prisoner pacified the crowd. The five were clumsily shot, and then the spectators rushed in with their knives and mangled the bodies under every circumstance of obscenity. Such are the negresses when excited by political leaders, and such are evidently the most devoted followers of President Salomon, if we can place any faith in the accounts of the fearful atrocities perpetrated by them during the massacres of September 1883.
The chief of this ferocious band was a young negress who went by the name of Roi Petit Chout, to whom President Salnave gave a commission as general. She used to come in front of the Legation with some of her companions, knife in one hand and pistol in the other, and utter ferocious threats, on account of our having received some political refugees. These women were used as a high police to keep down disaffection, and horrible stories are told of the murders and cruelties practised by these wretches. When the revolution triumphed, Roi Petit Chout was arrested, but though murder could readily have been proved against her, she was soon restored to liberty.
As all the police department is most inefficiently paid, its members are generally open to bribes, and are accused of levying black-mail on the poorer inhabitants. During the time of Salnave they were unbridled in their savage acts, and every man they met in the streets, foreign or native, was liable to be seized and sent to the forts as a recruit. As regular police commissaries accompanied these groups, these arrestments were made in a spirit of wanton mischief; at other times it was to obtain a pecuniary recompense for their good-nature in letting a foreigner go.
To show how ordinary police affairs are managed in Hayti, I must give an account of an incident which occurred to the Spanish chargé d’affaires and myself. A dishonest servant forced open the window of our wine-cellar and stole eighteen dozen of claret, and then fled. We gave notice to the police, who were very energetic in taking up the case, and every now and then brought us information of their proceedings. At last they recovered some of the wine, and in triumph brought us two dozen and seven bottles. A few days passed, and a Haytian friend happening to breakfast with us, took up a claret bottle and saw the mark, “Château Giscours, De Luze, Bordeaux.” He laughed and said, “Now I understand a remark made by the Minister of the Interior, when he said what capital wine the English Minister imported.” On further inquiry, we found that the police had recovered fourteen dozen of our wine (the other four had been bought knowingly by our most intimate friend), and that they had divided eleven dozen and five bottles among various high officials. The only observation my colleague made was, “Quel pays!” but I felt inclined to agree with the people when they say of the officials, “Quel tas de voleurs!” The robber was afterwards arrested for another offence, and I could not but pity him, when I saw him tied, bleeding and stumbling under the blows of a policeman’s club.
During the siege of Port-au-Prince in the civil war (1868) my French and Spanish colleagues and I were walking through the town, when we were startled by the sound of firing in the next street. On arriving at the spot, we found that the police had arrested a young Frenchman. As he objected that he was a foreigner and not liable to conscription, a crowd soon assembled, and a follower of Roi Petit Chout’s band, a ferocious negro, raised his carbine and shot the lad through the body, and my French colleague had barely time to catch his last words before he expired.
Nothing that the French representative could say had any effect on the Haytian Government; the murderer was promoted to be a sergeant, and sent to the army to get him out of the way; but he soon came back to Port-au-Prince, to be more insolent than ever. We had, however, the satisfaction of knowing that, when the revolution triumphed, this man was condemned to death for his other crimes and shot, my French colleague taking care to be present at the final ceremony, to see that the sentence was not evaded. For killing a white he would never have been executed.
It must not be supposed, because I generally refer to my own experiences, that things mended afterwards. Probably during the presidencies of Generals Nissage-Saget and Boisrond-Canal the police, though as dishonest, were less insufferable; but under Domingue and Salomon they were worse than ever, as they always are under the government of the black section of the community.
Under the present regime neither the white nor the coloured man has any rights which the black is bound to respect.