"The Liberal Insurrection of 1883" by the Island Luminous Editorial Board

In 1883, the "terrible year," as Gustave Vigoueux described it, there was a destructive altercation between Salomon and his detractors. In March, Jean-Pierre Boyer-Bazelais and over 100 other liberals who had been in exile returned to Haiti by ship and barricaded themselves inside the city of Miragoâne in the south. Few in number, the liberal revolutionaries nonetheless had sympathizers in cities all over the south and in the elite merchant houses in Port-au-Prince.



Rather than crush the revolution and make Boyer-Bazelais a martyr, Salomon demanded the liberals surrender and return into exile. When Boyer-Bazelais rejected Salomon’s plea, cities in the south like Jérémie and Jacmel backed him and joined the revolution.

Salomon retaliated. He crushed revolts in Aquin and Trou-du-Nord. But his attacks on Miragoâne, Jérémie, and Jacmel were not successful. Unable to breach these cities, Salomon surrounded them and laid siege, hoping to starve the revolution.