United States occupation of Haiti

United States occupation of Haiti
Part of the Banana Wars
United States Marines and a Haitian guide patrolling the jungle in 1915 during the Battle of Fort Dipitie
Date July 28, 1915 – August 1, 1934 (19 years and 4 days) Location Haiti, Hispaniola Result American victory Haiti occupied
Belligerents
United States Haitian Government	Haitian Rebels

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The United States occupation of Haiti began on July 28, 1915, when 330 US Marines landed at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on the authority of US President Woodrow Wilson to safeguard the interests of US corporations. The first invasion forces had already disembarked from USS Montana on January 27, 1914.^[1] The July intervention took place following the murder of dictator President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam by a mob angered by his political executions of elite opposition.

The occupation ended on August 1, 1934, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt reaffirmed an August 1933 disengagement agreement. The last contingent of US Marines departed on August 15, 1934, after a formal transfer of authority to the Garde d'Haïti.

Causes

Between 1911 and 1915, Haiti was politically unstable: a series of political assassinations and forced exiles resulted in six presidents holding office during this period.^[2] Various revolutionary armies carried out the coups. Each was formed by cacos, or peasant brigands from the mountains of the north, or who invaded along the porous Dominican border. They were enlisted by rival political factions under the promises of money, which would be paid after a successful revolution, and the opportunity to plunder.

The United States was particularly apprehensive about the roles (real and imagined) played by Germany in the Western hemisphere. Controlling Tortuga, it had also intervened in Haiti and other nations at several points over the previous few decades to exert its influence as a rival power. It was increasingly hostile to United States domination of the region under its asserted Monroe Doctrine. In the lead-up to the First World War, the strategic importance of the island of Hispaniola, its manpower, material wealth, and port facilities, was grasped by almost all naval staffs operating in the Caribbean, including the German and still-neutral American navies. Germany had invested in military and intelligence work across the island as part of a wider network of German espionage and military interests in Latin America and the Caribbean during the latter 19th century, 1900s, and 1910s.

United States' fear of German imperial ambitions was mirrored by the apprehension and rivalry of American businessmen with the small German community in Haiti, which numbered approximately 200 in 1910 and wielded a disproportionately high amount of economic power.^[3] German nationals controlled about 80 percent of the country's international commerce; owned and operated utilities in Cap Haitien and Port-au-Prince, including the main wharf and a tramway in the capital; and owned a railroad serving the Plain of the Cul-de-Sac.^[4]

The German community had proved more willing to integrate into Haitian society than any other group of white foreigners, including the more numerous French. Some Germans married into the nation's most prominent families of persons of color (who were historically of African-French descent), thus bypassing the constitutional prohibition against foreign land-ownership. The Germans retained strong ties to their homeland and often to German military and intelligence networks in Haiti. Germans also served as the principal financiers of the nation's numerous revolutions, floating loans at high interest rates to competing political factions.^[4] Because of this, they posed an economic threat to American monetary interests. The United States political and military leadership feared the Germans were tied directly to the imperial government in Berlin.

In an effort to limit German influence, in 1910–11 the State Department backed a consortium of American investors, assembled by the National City Bank of New York, in acquiring control of the Banque Nationale d'Haïti, the nation's only commercial bank and the government treasury.^[5]

In February 1915, Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, the son of a former president, established a dictatorship. In July, facing a new anti-American revolt, he massacred 167 political prisoners. All of them were from elite families, particularly from the better educated and wealthier mixed-race population with German affiliations. Sam was lynched by a mob in Port-au-Prince immediately after they learned of the executions.^[6]

The United States believed that this anti-American revolt against Sam threatened American business interests in the country, such as the Haitian American Sugar Company (HASCO). Because of these competing interests and the possibility of the caco-supported anti-American Rosalvo Bobo emerging as the next president of Haiti, the American government decided to act quickly to preserve its economic dominance over Haiti.^[7]

American Marines In 1915 defending the entrance gate in Cap-Haitian

American President Woodrow Wilson sent 330 U.S. Marines to Port-au-Prince on July 28, 1915. The specific order from the Secretary of the Navy to the invasion commander, Admiral William Deville Bundy, was to "protect American and foreign" interests. The US also wanted to replace the Haitian constitution, which prohibited foreign ownership of land, and gain one in line with its interests.^[8] To avoid public criticism, the United States announced the occupation as a mission to “re-establish peace and order… [and] has nothing to do with any diplomatic negotiations of the past or the future," as disclosed by Rear Admiral Caperton.^[9] The Marines met with resistance from only one soldier, Pierre Sully, who stood by his post and was killed.^[10]

On November 17, 1915, U.S. Marines captured Fort Rivière, a stronghold of the Cacos rebels, which ended the First Caco War.^[11]:201

The Haitian government had been receiving large loans from both American and French banks over the previous few decades and was growing increasingly incapable of fulfilling their debt repayment. If an anti-American government prevailed under the leadership of Rosalvo Bobo, there would be no promise of any debt repayment, and American businesses would have refused to continue investments in the country. Within six weeks of the occupation, representatives from the United States took over control of Haitian customs houses and administrative institutions, such as banks and the national treasury. Through American manipulation, 40% of the national income was used to alleviate the debt repayment to both American and French banks.^[12] Despite the large sums due to overseas banks, this economic decision remained controversial. While it helped improve the economic stability and credibility of the Haitian government, it happened at the cost of other expenses, leading to allegations that it froze economic development. For the next nineteen years, advisers of the United States governed the country, enforced by the United States Marine Corps.^[3]

Philippe Sudré Dartiguenave, president of the Senate and among the mixed-race elite, agreed to accept the presidency of Haiti after several other candidates had refused. In 1917, President Dartiguenave dissolved the legislature after its members refused to approve a constitution drafted under the supervised by Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy.^[13][14] A referendum in Haiti subsequently approved the new constitution in 1918 (by a vote of 98 225 to 768). It was a generally a liberal document, and it explicitly allowed foreigners to purchase land. Early leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines had forbidden land ownership by foreigners when Haiti became independent, and, since 1804, some Haitians had viewed foreign ownership as anathema.^[15]

Government and opposition

In September 1915, the United States Senate ratified the Haitian-American Convention, a treaty granting the United States security and economic oversight of Haiti for a 10-year period.^[16] Representatives from the United States wielded veto power over all governmental decisions in Haiti, and Marine Corps commanders served as administrators in the departments. Local institutions, however, continued to be run by Haitians, as was required under policies put in place during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.

The US administration overhauled — if not dismantled in perpetuity — the already tottering constitutional system, reinstituted civil conscription (impressed labor ) for building roads, and established the National Guards.^[17] It invested in massive improvements to infrastructure: 1700 km of roads were made usable; 189 bridges were built; many irrigation canals were rehabilitated; hospitals, schools, and public buildings were constructed; and drinking water was brought to the main cities.

Opposition to the Occupation began immediately after the Marines entered Haiti in 1915. The rebels (called "cacos" by the U.S. Marines) strongly resisted American control of Haiti. During the first period of the occupation, they received considerable support from the German government and entrenched German-Haitian elite. While German capabilities were seriously limited by World War One and the United States was neutral for a time, they were hostile parties, determined to wrest hegemony over Hispaniola. Germany's position benefited the indigenous resistance movements.

In response to this upswing of hostility, the Haitian and American governments began a vigorous campaign to disband the rebel armies. Perhaps the best-known account of this skirmishing came from Marine Major Smedley Butler, awarded a Medal of Honor for his exploits. He was appointed to serve as commanding officer of the Haitian Gendarmerie. (He later expressed his disapproval of the U.S. intervention in his book War Is a Racket (1935).)

Racist attitudes towards the Haitian people by the American occupation forces were blatant and widespread. Initially, there was intermingling of officers and the elites at social gatherings and clubs but when American families of forces began arriving, such gatherings were minimized. Relations degraded rapidly, however, upon departure of officers for World War I in Europe; this changed the nature of the relationship between the races the most. The Haitian elite found the American junior and non-commissioned officers to be ignorant and uneducated. There were numerous reports of remaining Marines drinking to excess, fighting and sexually assaulting women. The situation was so bad that the Marine General John A. Lejeune based in Washington, D.C., banned the sale of alcohol to any military.^[18]

The NAACP sent James Weldon Johnson, its field secretary; to investigate conditions in Haiti. He published his account in 1920, decrying "the economic corruption, forced labor, press censorship, racial segregation, and wanton violence introduced to Haiti by the US occupation encouraged numerous African Americans to flood the State Department and the offices of Republican Party officials with letters" calling for an end to the abuses and to remove troops.^[19]

Based on Johnson's investigation, NAACP executive secretary Herbert J. Seligman wrote in the July 10, 1920, NATION:

“Military camps have been built throughout the island. The property of natives has been taken for military use. Haitians carrying a gun were for a time shot on sight. Machine guns have been turned on crowds of unarmed natives, and United States marines have, by accounts which several of them gave me in casual conversation, not troubled to investigate how many were killed or wounded.” ^[20]

For their part, the rebel forces acted well outside the usual etiquette of combat, engaging in terrorism and other war crimes against both the occupation forces and the general population. Charlemagne Péralte led a rebellion of 5000 cacos in 1918 before he was killed in 1919.^{[11]:211–218} Prior to his death, he launched an attack on Port-au-Prince. The Second Caco War ended with the death of Benoit Batraville in 1920,^[11]:223 who had commanded an assault on the Haitian capital that year.

The end of the First World War in 1918 deprived the rebels of their main ally in the guerrilla struggle. Germany's defeat meant its end as a menace to the US in the Caribbean, as it lost control of Tortuga. Nevertheless, the US continued its occupation of Haiti after the war, despite the embarrassment that it caused President Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, when he supported self-determination among other peoples. In addition, Congress held hearings in 1922 to investigate the occupation.

In 1922, Dartiguenave was replaced by Louis Borno, who ruled without a legislature until 1930. That same year, the US appointed General John H. Russell, Jr. as High Commissioner. The Borno-Russel government oversaw the expansion of the economy, building more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of road, establishing an automatic telephone exchange, modernizing the nation's port facilities, and establishing a public health service. Sisal was introduced to Haiti as a commodity crop, and sugar and cotton became significant exports.^[21]

However, efforts to develop commercial agriculture met with limited success, in part because much of Haiti's labor force was employed as seasonal workers in the more-established sugar industries of Cuba and the Dominican Republic. An estimated 30,000-40,000 Haitian laborers, known in Cuba as braceros, went annually to the Oriente Province between 1913 and 1931.^[22] Many Haitians continued to resent the loss of sovereignty.

At the forefront of opposition among the educated elite was L'Union Patriotique, which established ties with opponents of the occupation in the U.S. They found allies in the NAACP and among both white and African-American leaders.^[23]

The Great Depression disastrously affected the prices of Haiti's exports, and destroyed the tenuous gains of the previous decade. In December 1929, Marines in Les Cayes killed ten Haitian peasants who were among marchers protesting local economic conditions.^[15] President Herbert Hoover appointed two commissions to investigate conditions, including one headed by a former U.S. governor of the Philippines William Cameron Forbes. They criticized the exclusion of Haitians from positions of authority in the government and constabulary, now known as the Garde d'Haïti.

Haitian reactions

Aside from the caco rebels, Haitian writers and public figures also responded to the Occupation. For example, one public figure, a minister of public education, Dantès Bellegarde, continuously discussed his issues with the event. In his book, La Résistance Haïtienne (l'Occupation Américaine d'Haïti), Bellegarde outlines the contradictions of the Occupation with the realities. He accused President Wilson of writing the new Haitian Constitution to benefit the Americans, and that Wilson's main purpose was to remove the previous Haitian clause that stated foreigners could not own land in the country. The original clause was designed to protect Haiti's independence from foreign powers.^[24] With the clause removed, Americans (including whites and other foreigners) could now own land. Furthermore, Bellegarde discusses the powerlessness of Haitian officials in the eyes of the Occupation because nothing could be done without the consent of the Americans. However, the main issue that Bellegarde articulates is that the Americans tried to change the education system of Haiti from one that was French based to that of the Americans. Even though Bellegarde was resistant he had a plan to build a university in Haiti that was based on the American system. He wanted a university with various schools of science, business, art, medicine, law, agriculture, and languages all connected by a common area and library. However, that dream was never realized because of the new direction the Haitian government was forced to take.

Another figure that was highly regarded during the period was Jean Price-Mars.^[25] He associated the reasons behind the Occupation to the division between the Haitian elite and the poorer people of the country. He noted that the groups were divided over the practice of Vodou, with the implication that the elites did not recognize Vodou because they connected it to an evil practice.^[26]

Transition to fully Haitian government

In 1930, Sténio Vincent, a long-time critic of the occupation, was elected President. By 1930, President Hoover had become concerned about the effects of the occupation, particularly after the December 1929 incident in Les Cayes. Hoover appointed a commission to study the situation, with William Cameron Forbes as the chair.^{[11]:232–233}

The Forbes Commission praised the material improvements that the U.S. administration had achieved, but it criticized the continued exclusion of Haitian nationals from positions of real authority in the government and the constabulary, which had come to be known as the Garde d'Haïti. In more general terms, the commission asserted that "the social forces that created [instability] still remain – poverty, ignorance, and the lack of a tradition or desire for orderly free government."^[27]

The Hoover administration did not fully implement the recommendations of the Forbes Commission; but United States withdrawal was under way by 1932, when Hoover lost the presidency to Franklin D. Roosevelt. The latter as Assistant Secretary of the Navy had overall responsibility for drafting the most recent Haitian constitution; he was a proponent of the "Good Neighbor policy" for the US role in the Caribbean and Latin America. On a visit to Cap-Haïtien in July 1934, Roosevelt reaffirmed an August 1933 disengagement agreement. The last contingent of U.S. Marines departed on August 15, 1934 after a formal transfer of authority to the Garde.^[28] The U.S. retained influence on Haiti's external finances until 1947.^[29]

Effects on Haiti

American poses with dead Haitian revolutionaries killed by US Marine machine gun fire - Oct 11, 1915

The occupation by the United States had several significant effects on Haiti. An early period of unrest culminated in a 1918 rebellion by up to 40,000 former cacos and other members of the opposition. The scale of the uprising overwhelmed the Gendarmerie, but US Marine reinforcements helped put down the revolt. An estimated 2,000 Haitians were killed in the fighting.^[15]

The occupation greatly improved some of Haiti's infrastructure^[3] and centralized power in Port-au-Prince. Infrastructure improvements were particularly impressive: 1700 km of roads were made usable, 189 bridges were built, many irrigation canals were rehabilitated, hospitals, schools, and public buildings were constructed, and drinking water was brought to the main cities. Port-au-Prince became the first Caribbean city to have a phone service with automatic dialing. Agricultural education was organized, with a central school of agriculture and 69 farms in the country.^[21]

The Americans inhabited neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince in houses that the majority of Haitians could only dream of. This neighborhood was called the “millionaires' row.”^[30] Hans Schmidt recounted a navy officer's opinion on the matter of segregation: “I can't see why they wouldn't have a better time with their crowd, just as I do with mine."^[31] American racial intolerance provoked indignation and resentment – and eventually a racial pride that was reflected in the work of a new generation of Haitian historians, ethnologists, writers, artists, and others. Many of these later became active in politics and government. The elite Haitians, who were mostly mixed race with higher levels of education and capital, continued to dominate the country's bureaucracy and to strengthen its role in national affairs.

The United States redesigned the education system. It dismantled the "liberal arts" education which the Haitians had inherited (and adapted) from the French system. The Americans emphasized vocational training, similar to its industrial education for minorities and immigrants in the United States. The elite Haitians despised this system, believing it was discriminatory against their people.^[32]

All three rulers during the occupation came from the country's small mixed-race elite. At the same time, many in the growing black professional classes departed from the traditional veneration of Haiti's French cultural heritage and emphasized the nation's African roots.^[33] Among these were ethnologist Jean Price-Mars and the journal Les Griots, edited by Dr. François Duvalier. (The title referred to traditional African oral historians, the storytellers.)

The United States military issued two Haitian Campaign Medals to U.S. Marine and Naval personnel for service in the country during the periods 1915 and 1919-20.

Finally, the political, military, and economic power of both the small German-Haitian community and the Imperial German government were utterly broken by the long years of hostile occupation. Germans had been censured for association with anti-American mobilization. German intelligence cells operating on the island were purged or forced to surrender. The US had entered the war against the German Empire in 1917, and in 1918 the latter was defeated in the war and almost immediately collapsed. The remaining German-Haitians were largely left isolated, with many opting to emigrate (usually back to Germany) or to stay on and try to claw their way back.

See also

• History of Haiti
• Banana Wars
• Parsley Massacre
• Battle of Fort Dipitie
• Battle of Fort Rivière

Further reading

Notes

References

• Heinl, Robert (1996). Written in Blood: The History of the Haitian People. Lantham, Md.: University Press of America. 
• Schmidt, Hans. The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1995.
• Weinstein, Brian and Aaron Segal. Haiti: Political Failures, Cultural Successes (February 15, 1984 ed.). Praeger Publishers. p. 175. ISBN 0-275-91291-4. 
• Weston, Rubin Francis. Racism in U.S. Imperialism: The Influence of Racial Assumptions on American Foreign Policy, 1893-1946. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press. 1972

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