Baur reconstructs the twelve-year rule of Faustin Soulouque from United States diplomatic correspondence, consular and travellers' reports, the Philadelphia Public Ledger, French journalism by Gustave d'Alaux, and Haitian historians, closing with an annotated bibliography that weighs each source. Senators who elevated an obscure officer of sixty in 1847 expected a puppet. What Baur traces instead is a ruler governed by fear who struck first: the killing of mulatto leaders and professors in 1848, coronation as emperor, repeated failed invasions of the Dominican Republic. On foreign policy the verdict is warmer. Pressed in 1851 by British, French and American agents demanding peace with the Dominicans and, later, a naval station, Soulouque conceded little and kept Haitian sovereignty intact at a dangerous moment. His fall in 1859 opened the way for Geffrard, yet the pattern of narrow and violent rule persisted. The racial assumptions of 1949 scholarship run throughout, including claims about a population unready for self-government.