Republic of Haiti

The Republic of Haiti from 1820 to 1849 continued the first republic that had held southern Haiti since 1806. The period opened when the Kingdom of Haiti in the north fell and Jean-Pierre Boyer reunified the country in 1820. Two years later his army occupied Spanish Santo Domingo, so that for a time a single government ruled the whole island of Hispaniola. Although Haiti remained formally a republic, Boyer governed as president for life, and his authoritarian rule, together with the burden of the indemnity owed to France and the cost of the occupation, bred growing opposition. He was overthrown in 1843, and the following years saw short-lived presidents and renewed conflict between the mulatto elite and the black majority. The republic ended in 1849, when President Faustin Soulouque proclaimed himself Emperor Faustin I, inaugurating the Second Empire of Haiti. Boyer's rural code and land reforms reshaped the countryside, while the unpaid French indemnity remained a crippling burden on the treasury.