Tiresias Simon Sam - Haiti Observer Blog

The Haitian government is led by a president, who shares his/her executive power with the prime minister. Once elected by popular vote, the president will run the country for five years. After the term, the president could not run in the next election. He/she has to wait for five years in order to seek a second term. Haiti presidents can only serve for a maximum of two terms.

Not everyone can run for president as there are certain qualifications and requirements to be eligible for the seat. Only candidates with Haitian citizenship by birth can run for the position, as well as those who are at least 35 years of age. Jail sentence, loss of civil rights and lack of property ownership and residency can make a candidate ineligible to assume the position.

Read more →  

Tiresias Simon Sam was born on May 15, 1835, in Grande-Riviere-du-Nord. Tiresias was born with leadership skills and had a lot of passion for his country. Before being a president he served as a general and then a minister of war under Florvil Hyppolite. He was chosen as the acting president after the death of Hyppolite and he was elected as the president of Haiti on March 31, 1896.

Tiresias valued education and always choose educated people in his government. He was determined to make Haiti a better place and for sure Haiti developed greatly during his era. He increased jobs opportunities, improved transport, contracted U.S to build street car in Port -au-Prince and built a railway line to connect Cap Haitian to Grand Riviere du Nord and Port -au-Prince to Cul-de-Sac. Tiresias also built a civil court in Cap-Haitian and updated the school of science, Engineering and architecture.

Read more →  

Vilbrun Guillaume Sam was born on 4th March 1859. He was a cousin of Tiresias Simon Sam. Being the commander of Haiti's North Division gave him a lot of power that he led a rebellion against Francois C. Antoine Simon and Cincinnatus Leconte took over the presidency. He also headed the rebellion that overthrew Oreste Zamor. Sam became the president after president Joseph Davilmar Theodore resigned in February 1915.

Since Haiti had been faced with five unruly years, Sam was forced by Dr Rosalvo Bobo to campaign with rebels against his own government. Dr Rosalvo Bobo was against the financial assistance from U.S government.
Sam refused to act upon the command and instead treated his political opponent badly. He even ordered that 167 political prisoners be killed including the former president Zamor. This annoyed Haitians forcing them to rebel against him. When Sam realized the reactions of Haitians, he decided to hide from them.

Read more →  

Less than a century before the shameful injustice the Nazis would inflict upon a people, Germany busied itself humiliated Haiti for showing allegiance to the wrong side in the French-Prussian war. After successfully strong-arming the smaller country into making payment on their debts to German merchants with high indemnities, the German's ended the seizure of the Haitian warships, used as leverage, by returning the ships with their Haitian flags trampled and smeared with feces.

This was, however, not to be enough. Emile Lüders, child of a Haitian mother and German father, was arrested and sentenced to jail for thirty days after beating a Haitian soldier. After an appeal he was fined to a year's jail-time on the 14th of October 1897. After forcing the Haitian Government and the then President, Simon Sam, into pardoning Lüders, Germany demanded to have all the police and judges involved in the case fired in accordance to the initial request which the Haitian government had ignored.

Read more →