ABSTRACT
In 1870, Ballou’s Monthly Magazine, a Boston area popular magazine and pictorial digest, carried an article on the last emperor of Haiti, Faustin I (1849–1859) titled ‘An Emperor’s Toothpick’. 1 It included information about Faustin I’s life and reign, referring to him near the beginning of the piece as ‘a tyrant that his people deposed and sent wandering in the world, a dark specimen among the uncrowned vagabonds’. 2 Although characterised as despotic, Faustin I is also sketched as a richly pompous ruler who managed to charm his people into tolerating his tyrannical rule. Within a few lines, though, the article shifts from describing Faustin I’s policies to tracing the objects associated with his imperial empire.
