Also known as: Second Haitian Empire, Empire of Haiti, Faustin I
Last updated: April 26, 2026
Faustin Soulouque, elected president in 1847, declared himself Emperor Faustin I on August 26, 1849, establishing the Second Haitian Empire. His reign combined noiriste ideology — asserting the primacy of the Black majority against the mulatto elite — with authoritarian repression through a secret police and a violent massacre of mulatto politicians in 1848. Soulouque made two failed military campaigns to reconquer the Dominican Republic (1849, 1855–56). Haitian intellectuals and foreign observers derided his empire as a grotesque parody of Dessalines and Napoleon; later scholars have read it as an assertion of Black sovereignty and noirisme avant la lettre. He was overthrown in January 1859 by General Fabre Geffrard.
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"Soulouque's Empire (1849–1859)." 1849. Rasin.ai, 2026. https://rasin.ai/connections/events/soulouque-empire-1849. Accessed 2026-05-05.