Guillaume Fabre Nicolas Geffrard (23 September 1806 – 31 December 1878) was a mulatto general in the Haitian army and President of Haiti from 1859 until his deposition in 1867. On 18 April 1852, Faustin Soulouque made him Duke of Tabara. After collaborating in a coup to remove Faustin Soulouque from power in order to return Haiti to the social and political control of the colored elite, Geffrard was made president in 1859. To placate the peasants he renewed the practice of selling state-owned lands and ended a schism with the Roman Catholic Church which then took on an important role in improving education. After surviving several rebellions, he was overthrown by Major Sylvain Salnave in 1867. Life prior to presidency Geffrard was a son of Nicolas Geffrard, a general of the Armee indigene during the Haitian Revolution and a signatory of the Haitian Declaration of Independence who was assassinated a few months before Fabre's birth. Fabre Geffrard is then adopted by his uncle, Colonel Fabre. Geffrard left the college in the town of Cayes in 1821 and enlisted in the army. When General Charles Rivière-Hérard launched a rebellion against dictator Jean-Pierre Boyer in 1843, Geffrard joined him and was appointed lieutenant-colonel. He is then sent to the town of Jérémie where he defeated Boyer's troops, who he then pursued as far as the Tiburon peninsula. After this military triumph he was elevated to the rank of brigadier general in 1844. The new president, Jean-Baptiste Riché feared Geffrard's popularity, and had him arrested to try to bring him to justice, but the court martial acquitted him for misconduct. In 1849, under the reign of Soulouque, Geffrard commanded an expedition against the Dominican Republic during which he was wounded at the Battle of Azua. He held the highest positions in the army under the government of Faustin Soulouque and under the Empire. In 1849 Soulouque become Emperor Faustin I and appointed Geffrard to command a division of the army during the first war against Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic), in which he gained fame by his victory at La Tabarra. During the second war against Santo Domingo (1856) General Geffrard distinguished himself on several occasions, in particular thanks to the skillful direction of the artillery in Banico. He was thus titled Duke of Tabarre for his military success. But as this regime became unpopular, Geffrard was threatened by Emperor Faustin