29 to 30 October 1914 · Haitianspan
A president's family leaves and the gold spills on the wharf
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Oreste Zamor's ten months as president of Haiti ended with his family on a Dutch steamer. His brother Charles came ashore from the Prins Willem V on 29 October 1914 and found the National Palace emptied by looters and his sister in law sheltering with the Dominican minister. Charles joined the rest of the fallen cabinet in the French legation while General Polynice put together another Committee of Public Safety. The next morning the French and Dominican ministers loaded Mme Zamor, her children and their baggage into two carriages and drove them to the wharf through a crowd that shouted at her the whole way and touched nobody. The maid walked last. The crowd closed around her and tore away the bundle she carried, which held four thousand dollars in gold wrapped in a Dominican flag. The coins scattered over the pier and some went into the water. Oreste Zamor stayed below decks. In the town, Cacos looted shops and fired into the air while they waited for Davilmar Theodore.
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