4.6 POLITICAL CAUSES AND CONSPIRACIES
Politics rather than literature define Coicou’s remaining years. The most significantimpact of Coicou’s four-year stay in Paris in fact was undoubtedly his time spent with statesman,
anthropologist, and political theoretician Anténor Firmin. Firmin, who we may remember as the
author of the Haitian rebuttal “L’Egalite des races humaines,”^302 had also been appointed
minister to Paris in 1900. Coicou and Firmin were therefore in Paris during the same period, and
they became close friends and political allies. It is ultimately Coicou’s support of a Firminist
insurrection which led to his execution in 1908.
Providing some background on the political climate in Haiti and the corresponding rise ofFirminism around the turn of the twentieth century will elucidate the circumstances of this
execution and its impact on Coicou’s legacy. When General Tiresias Augustin Simon Sam
became President of Haiti in 1902, he incorporated Nord Alexis into his government but not
Firmin, forging tension between the two former allies. As the newly appointed minister of war
and the navy, Alexis’ job was to restore order in the midst of any unrest. It appears, however,
that he used his position to squelch any political support for Firmin in hopes of improving his
own chances at becoming the next Haitian president.^303 The violence unleashed by Nord under
this pretext of restoring order meant the beginning of another civil war. After the destruction of
Firmin’s home and the arrest of many of his supporters, Firmin left his native Cap Haitian for
Gonaïves, where he was elected a deputy. In July of 1902, the Firminists declared a provisional
government of their own in the Artibonite valley and in the Northwest, their intent being to bring
their government to the capital of Port-au-Prince. Firminist supporters were militarily defeated
(^302) Firmin’s response to Gobineau is explained in the previous chapter on Oswald Durand’s poetry.
(^303) Plummer 98-99.