Coup Atlas Research Database
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04101111946SuccessfulMilitary coup

Haiti, 1946 — military coup

Haiti (HTI)Caribbean, AmericasJanuary 11, 1946

Event Summary

On January 11, 1946, after several days of student and worker strikes that paralyzed Port-au-Prince, three officers of Haiti's Garde seized power and placed President Elie Lescot under house arrest, ending his mulatto-elite dominated administration. The unrest began in early January when the government suppressed the Marxist student journal La Ruche and arrested its editors; strikes spread nationwide and Lescot declared martial law on January 10. A three-member Military Executive Committee, made up of Garde commander Colonel Franck Lavaud and Majors Antoine Levelt and Paul Eugene Magloire, took over, pledged free elections, and later that year oversaw the election of Dumarsais Estime as president, shifting political power toward Haiti's black majority.

Researched Details

Researched

Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.

Target identified in Coup Atlas research: Elie Lescot, President of Haiti (deposed, placed under house arrest, later exiled)
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
Elie Lescot (deposed president)
Franck Lavaud (Garde commander, junta chair)
Antoine Levelt (junta member)
Paul Eugene Magloire (Presidential Guard commander, junta member, later president)
Dumarsais Estime (elected president after the coup)

Sources

On the afternoon of January 11, 1946, three military leaders took over the government and placed President Lescot under house arrest, announcing they would hold elections as soon as possible.
SOURCE REVIEWED Global Nonviolent Action Database, "Haitians overthrow a dictator, 1946" open source ↗
Lescot's mulatto-dominated rule had alienated the predominantly black Garde; he resigned on January 11 and the Garde announced it had assumed power through a three-member junta.
SOURCE REVIEWED GlobalSecurity.org, "Haiti 1941-1946 - Elie Lescot" open source ↗
The junta, known as the Military Executive Committee, comprised Garde commander Colonel Franck Lavaud and Majors Antoine Levelt and Paul E. Magloire, and pledged to hold free elections.
SOURCE REVIEWED GlobalSecurity.org, "Haiti 1941-1946 - Elie Lescot" open source ↗
Under the officers' supervision Dumarsais Estime was elected president, shifting political power toward Haiti's black majority.
SOURCE REVIEWED Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Haiti - Military regimes and the Duvaliers" open source ↗

Editorial Note

The 1946 ouster followed a civic general strike; the Garde acted as an institution and formed the Military Executive Committee. The Global Nonviolent Action Database, GlobalSecurity.org (drawing on the Library of Congress country study), and Britannica were read directly and agree on date, junta membership, and the succession to Estime. Some sources emphasize the popular-strike character over the military-coup framing; the Cline dataset codes it as a military coup, consistent with the Garde's formal seizure of power on January 11.

Cross-Reference

Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.

Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:

Cline Center id
04101111946

How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.

Outcome and Target

Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Elie Lescot, President of Haiti (deposed, placed under house arrest, later exiled).

Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; fled the country. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.

Baseline Dataset Citation
Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset, v2.2.2
Peyton, Buddy, Joseph Bajjalieh, Michael Martin, and Andrea Gerald. 2026. Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset. Cline Center for Advanced Social Research. V.2.2.2. February 17. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. doi: 10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V10
Open dataset DOI ↗
⚑ This citation establishes the coded baseline record; use the claim-level sources above for the researched narrative.

Baseline Source-Document Entries

CSP

Named in the baseline source document; no article citation was recorded.

Luttwak

Named in the baseline source document; no article citation was recorded.

Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lie_Lescot

New York Times

“HAITI PLANS ELECTION OF NEW LEGISLATURE,” January 15, 1946

This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →

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