CoA Second Empire of Haiti

Haiti has once again flashed up in the public spotlight for the same reason it always has in recent decades before being completley forgotten and left alone with it's problems because of a natural desaster (this time a hurricane), but I personaly realy always was facinated with the small island nation in the carribean. Haiti occupies the western third of the island of Hispaniola (the eastern two thirds being the Dominican Republic). Once the most profitable slave colony in the carribean the slaves of Haiti rose up against their French overlords during the period of the Atlantic Revolutions and fought of several attempts to crush the rebellion, the most prominent and last between 1804 and 1805 when the Haitian revolutionaries dismantled an invasion attempt by Napoleonic France. Since then, Haiti has had a very chaotic and troubled political history, becoming a democratic republic several dozen times, a kingdom once, an Empire twice, split between North and south and finaly a dictatorship uncountable times, most prominently under the successive reign of the two Duvaliers, also known as "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc". France finaly granted Haiti full idnependence and recognition decades after their defeat, but for a gigantic ammount of gold to be paid in recompensation for the financial losses France made due to their slave trade being gone which left Haiti crippled and dependent on the larger revolutionary brother across the ocean, the United States, which took shameless advantage of the fact and occupying Haiti twice during the 20th century. 

The Second Empire lasted for ten years, from 1849 to 1859. It's Emperor, Faustin I., was proclaimed Emperor after shortly acting as president by the graces of the Haitian burgeoise who thought they could use Faustin as a easy-to-manipulate pawn but quickly found them self outmatched by the ruthless Faustin, who wrestled all power from them and purged their class off the island. Faustin's reign was brutal, and after several futile attempts to reconquer the Dominican Republic he was finaly deposed by a military coup in 1859. 

I'l actualy go on to do some other Haitian heraldry in the coming weeks, so stay tuned  

Note: The decorations of the mantle are not finnished yet, but I'm leaving for the weekend and wanted to upload this since I'm very proud of it, considering the crown to be one of my best once I had to create from scratch  

Credits: Elements taken from wikimedia commons.

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