Foundations On Sand: An Analysis Of The First
United States
Occupation
Of Haiti 1915-1934
CSC
95
SUBJECT
AREA - Foreign Policy
United States Marine Corps
Command and Staff College
Quantico, VA
22134
Foundations on Sand
An Analysis of the First United States
Occupation of Haiti
1915 - 1934
with
Supporting Documents
by Peter L. Bunce
Conference Group 10
June 5, 1995
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Title:
Foundations on Sand, An Analysis of the First United States Occupation
of Haiti, 1915-1934.
Author:
Peter L. Bunce, GS-13.
Thesis:
The first United States Occupation of Haiti, after a slow start, made a
great variety of capital improvements for Haiti, made changes in the Haitian
political system, and refinanced the Haitian economy, none of which had much
lasting impact on the Haiti people once the occupation was terminated.
Background:
The United States occupied Haiti originally to restore public order in
1915. It's self-imposed mandate quickly
expanded to reestablishing Haitian credit in the international credit system,
establishing good government and public order, and promoting investment in
Haitian agriculture and industry. After
a slow start, marred by a brutal revolt in 1918-20, the United States
Occupation of Haiti was reorganized and began to address many of the perceived
shortcomings of Haitian society. Its
international and internal debt was refinanced, substantial public works
projects completed, a comprehensive hospital system established, a national
constabulary (the Gendarmerie [later Garde] d'Haiti) officered and trained by
Marines, and several peaceful transitions of national authority were
accomplished under American tutelage.
After new civil unrest in 1929, the United States came to an agreement
to end the Occupation before its Treaty-mandated termination in 1936. Once the Americans departed in 1934, Haiti
reverted to its former state of various groups competing for national power to
enrich themselves. Almost all changes
the American Occupation attempted to accomplish failed in Haiti because they
did not take into consideration the Haitian political and social culture.
Recommendation: Before the United States intervenes in foreign countries,
particularly in those where nation-building improvements are to be attempted,
the political and social cultures of those countries must be taken into
consideration.
Contents
Part
I, The Occupation
1
Haiti Before the Occupation 1
Off to a Rough Start
17
Smooth(er) Sailing 22
Haitianization 26
Aftermath 27
Part
II, An Analysis of the Occupation
32
Goals of the Occupation 32
Imperialism and Racism 38
Culture 49
Part
III, The Never-ending Story
54
Annexes 57
Annex A: The US Marine Corps' Military
Campaigns
in the First United States
Occupation
of Haiti
57
Appendix
1: First Provisional Brigade of Marines
66
Appendix
2: Ships of the 1915 Haitian Campaign
73
Appendix
3: The Gendarmerie (Garde) d'Haiti,
1915-1934 74
Annex B: The Fiscal Case for Occupation 79
Appendix
1: Public Debt of Haiti, 1919 vs. 1922.
91
Appendix
2: Import and Export Figures, Fiscal
Year
1918-19.
96
Appendix
3: Haitian Government Expenses since
Fiscal
Year 1914-15. 97
Annex C: Documents Relating to the United States Occupation
of Haiti, 1915 - 1934.
99
Appendix
1: Admiral Caperton's Original
Instructions
for Haiti 101
Appendix
2: The Evolution of Admiral Caperton's
Authorization to
Land Troops in Haiti 102
Appendix
3: Admiral Caperton's Campaign Guidance
to 1st Provisional Brigade of Marines 106
Appendix
4, The United States Take-Over of Haitian
Customs, Financial, and Civil Administration 110
Appendix
5: Proclamation of Martial Law in Haiti 120
Appendix
6: The 1915 Haitian-American Treaty,
with
Extension
124
Appendix
7: The 1916 Gendarmerie Agreement and
Supporting Documents 129
Appendix
8: President Dartiguenave's Decrees of
5 April 1916 142
Appendix
9: The 1918 Haitian Constitution
(Marine Corps
Translation) 146
Appendix
10: The Official Report of the Death of
Charlemagne 167
Appendix
11: Major General Commandant Barnett's
Initial
Correspondence About Alleged Indiscriminate
Killings of Haitians 169
Appendix
12: Results of Major General Commandant
Lejeune's Investigation into Alleged Indiscriminate
Killings of Haitians. 176
Appendix
13: Report of the Mayo Court of
Inquiry, the
Final Report on Caco Casualties, and Reports of
Military Justice Proceedings 184
Appendix
14: Correspondence Between the
Commandant
of the Gendarmerie d'Haiti and the Financial Advisor
to the Republic of Haiti Regarding Changes in the
1916 Gendarmerie Agreement 299
Appendix
15: Diplomatic Messages Concerning Legislative
Elections in Haiti, 1921 210
Appendix
16: State Department Memo to President
Harding Regarding Progress of the US
Occupation of Haiti 215
Appendix
17:
The 1922-23 Haitian Loan Plan
225
Appendix
18: The 1925 Gendarmerie Agreement
231
Appendix
19: Haitianization and Withdrawal
Agreements 235
Endnotes 247
Bibliography
266
Dramatis Personae
(Presented Alphabetically)
George Barnett Major
General Commandant of the Marine
BrigGen, USMC Corps, 1914-1920; initiated first
investigation
into corvée
abuses in Haiti.
Benoit Batraville Caco
chief Charlemagne's ministre en chef
a. k. a. "Benoit" (see below), he
maintained Charlemagne's
revolt after his death in 1919;
alleged
cannibal
and bocor (voodoo wizard); killed
in
an ambush in 1920.
Arthur Bailly-Blanchard American Minister (Ambassador) to
Haiti,
1914-1922.
Dr. Rosalvo Bobo Chief challenger to
President Vilbrun
Guillaume Sam (see below) in July
1915;
one of the few serious challengers
to the
Haitian Presidency in the1911-1915
period
not to have succeeded to the
Presidency
(courtesy US Marine Corps).
Louis Borno Haitian Minister of Foreign Affairs under
Dartiguenave (below) who signed the
American-
Haitian Treaty of 1915 that
justified
the American occupation of Haiti.
President of Haiti, 1924-1930.
Smedley D. Butler Battalion commander, 1st Regiment of
Maj (later LtCol, BrigGen), USMC Marines, 1915; First commandant of the
Gendarmerie d'Haiti, 1915-1918;
returned to
Haiti in 1920 to assist General
Lejeune's
corvée
investigations.
William B. Caperton Commander,
Cruiser Squadron, Atlantic
Rear Admiral, USN Fleet in 1915; senior US officer in
the initial
occupation
of Haiti
Charlemagne Massena Peralte Member of the Haitian elite turned
Caco
a. k. a."Charlemagne" chief,
led Caco revolt in northern Haiti in
1918-1919
until his death in late 1919.
Philippe Sudre Dartiguenave President of Haitian Senate in July
1915,
was
elected first Haitian President of the US
Occupation period in August 1915 (courtesy
US Marine Corps). Forced to stand down in
favor of Louis Borno in 1924.
Josephus Daniels Secretary of the Navy, 1913-1921; later
Ambassador to Mexico. Perhaps best
known for the order making all U.S.
Navy
ships
"dry," anticipating Prohibition.
Robert B. Davis, Jr. United
States Chargé d'Affaires in Port au
Prince
at the time of the original
intervention. His cablegrams were
instrumental
in bringing Admiral Caperton
from
Cap Haitien to Port au Prince in July
1915 and landing troops. Also the U. S.
Plenipotentary in the 1915 American
-Haitian
Treaty that justified the American
occupation
of Haiti.
Warren G. Harding President of the United States,
1921-1923.
Herbert Hoover President of the United States, 1929-1933.
Charles E. Hughes US Secretary of State, 1921-1925; later
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Robert Lansing US Secretary of State, 1915-1920.
John A. Lejeune Assistant to the Commandant, 1915-1917;
Col (later MajGen), USMC Major General Commandant, 1920-1924.
John A. McIlhenny Financial
Advisor to the Republic of Haiti
(nominated by the President of the United
States,
appointed by the President of Haiti),
1919-1922.
Dr. Dana G. Munro US Minister (Ambassador) to Haiti,
1930-
1933. Later Professor of Laitn American
History
and Affairs at Princeton; author of
several
books on United States policy and
the
Caribbean.
Eugene Roy President
of Haiti, 1930. Succeeded Borno,
who
was forced into retirement;
outmaneuvered
in Haitian legislature by
Stenio
Vincent.
John H. Russell Commander,
1st Brigade 1917-1918 and
Col. (later BrigGen), USMC 1919-1922, United States High
Commissioner
in Haiti, 1922-1930; later
Major
General commandant of the
Marine
Corps.
Vilbrun Guillaume Sam Last "President" of Haiti prior to the US a. k.
a.k.a. "Guillaume Sam" occupation. Killed by a mob of the Haitian
elite
in Jul 1915, his body was later dragged
through
the street; the US intervened the
next
day.
Stenio Vincent Haitian
President 1930-1941; virtual dictator
1938-1941. Maneuvered out of power by
Elie
Lescot.
Littleton W. T. Waller Brigade Commander, Advance Force
Col. (later MajGen), USMC Brigade, which, upon deployment to
Haiti,
became
1st Provisional Brigade of Marines;
senior
American officer ashore in original
intervention.
Sumner Welles Chief of the Latin-American Division of the
State
Department, 1920-1921; American
Commissioner
to Dominican Republic,
1922-1925;
later Ambassador to Cuba,
under
Secretary of State.
Alexander S. Williams Butler's assistant in forming the
Capt (later Maj, LtCol), USMC Gendarmerie d'Haiti in 1915, succeeded
Butler
as Chef of the Gendarmerie
1918-1919;
outlawed the corvée in
November
1918; was blamed for much of
the
corvée abuses that resulted the Caco
revolt.
Woodrow Wilson President of the United States, 1913-1921
Frederick M. Wise Commandant
of the Gendarmerie d'Haiti,
LtCol, USMC 1919-1921.
Click
here to view image
Conciliate
Haitians to fullest extent consistent with maintaining order and
firm
control of situation, and issue following proclamation: 'Am directed
to
assure the Haitian people United States of America has no object in
view
except to insure, establish, and help to maintain Haitian
independence
and the establishing of a stable and firm government by the
Haitian
people in their attempt to secure these ends.
It is the intention to
retain
United States forces in Haiti only so long as will be necessary for
this
purpose.' Acknowledge.
Benson,
Acting1
(Radiogram
from Department of the Navy to Rear Admiral William B.
Caperton,
USN, Port au Prince, Haiti, 7 August 1915.)
Foundations on Sand
An Analysis of the First United States
Occupation of Haiti
1915 - 1934
Part I
The Occupation.
Haiti Before the Occupation.
Haiti is the second oldest
independent country in the New World, second only to
the
United States. Haiti first overthrew
its the French overlords in the wake of the French
Revolution
in 1794. It then suffered Spanish and
British interventions, and a Napoleonic
French
invasion and restoration of slavery in 1802 before finally achieving
independence
in
1804, all without significant outside assistance.2 According to legend, Jacques
Dessalines,
the bloody successor to Haiti's national hero Toussaint L'Ouverture (and
veteran
of the American Revolution), created the Haitian flag by ripping the white
center
out
of the French Tricolor.3 Haitians are
proud of their country and proud of their
independence.
By
the turn of the 20th Century, Haiti was a deeply troubled country. Its society,
since
the revolutions, had always been divided.
In the absence of the French
colonialists--all
of whom fled the country in 1804 or were killed--the mulâtres, the
mulatto
class, approximately three percent of the population, assumed the social role
of
the
colonials. The peasantry, almost
exclusively African in ancestry, remained peasants.
The
elite of Haiti, who for all intents and purposes ran (and run) Haiti, are
largely, not
exclusively,
mulâtres. Noirs, particularly those
with a military background or powerbase,
could
become part of the elite, and often ruled Haiti. But Haiti was and is most often
administered
for the benefit of the elite, and the elite are heavily mulâtre. "As in colonial
Saint
Domingue [Haiti], where the gens de couleur and black slaves hated each other,
racial
antagonism persisted between the elite and the black peasantry of Haiti."4
When
Haiti was a French colony, "Saint Domingue" was a rich jewel of the
French
empire--its exports were more than double of all of England's colonial trade in
1789.5 By the 20th Century, however, Haiti was in
debt, couldn't pay its bills or claims
against
it, and most of the Great Powers--save Russia and Japan--were threatening some
kind
of action.
Political
power in Haiti means the power to make money, usually through graft.
"'Under
[President Louis] Hyppolite in 1890, 1891, and 1892, there was a carnival of
contracts
in the Chambers [Legislature]. Every party
regular, senator, minister, deputy,
or
former volontaire de la révolution had at least one in the bag . . . Handsome
favors, to
be
sure, that [the] Good Fairy handed out to the faithful who had just ravaged the
four
corners
of the country with fire and sword.'"
Haiti's public debt increased from $4.4
million
in 1891 to over $25 million in 1895 after a flurry of public works instituted
by
Hyppolite
and his finance minister Frédéric Marcelin (who retired to France in 1895).6
Hyppolite's
successor, Simon Sam, resigned in 1902 amidst a scandal concerning
a
debt consolidation loan from German and French interests and the loss of over a
million
and
a quarter dollars in kickbacks and illegal payments. (Unusually, Sam's successor,
Pierre
Nord Alexis, prosecuted Sam and his immediate cronies in 1904, and Sam, several
Haitians,
a German, and two Frenchmen were convicted; not that anyone went to jail.)
Nord
Alexis feared foreign debt collectors (who were arriving with warships by this
time7)
and printed money instead of borrowing it.
Paranoid, sometimes murderous, Nord
Alexis,
after two more brushes with civil war, fled to a French cruiser in favor of
Antoine
Simon
in 1908. Simon and his immediate circle
returned to the tradition of looting
the
public purse.8
Surprisingly,
given the United States' domination of the Caribbean after the
Spanish
American War (1898), American financial investment in Haiti was quite small:
$4
million invested in Haiti compared with some $800 million in Mexico or $220
million
in
Cuba; a total of $1.7 billion in all of Latin America.9 About 65 to 70 percent of Haiti's
imports
came from the United States, the bulk of the balance coming from Germany and
France. Between the Haitian elite's growing desire
for foreign products, a severe drop
in
world agricultural prices in the 1890's (which effected all of Haiti's exports,
except cheap
labor),
and aggressive foreign competition, Haiti by 1900 was severely dependent on
foreign
imports, and had a lousy balance of payments.10
France
and Germany were the dominant financial players in Haiti at the turn
of
the 20th Century. France received about
two thirds of Haiti exports, and exported luxury
goods
in return. The Germans were striving to
overcome the French in the Haitian
markets: they exported more to Haiti than the French,
more Haitian exports were carried
on
German ships than French, and the Germans controlled the only railroad in
Haiti, to
the
Plain de Cul de Sac east of Port au Prince.11
The
Banque Nationale d'Haiti was Haiti's treasury and fiscal agent. Instead of
being
a financial entity controlled by the Haitian government, it was a French stock
company,
owned principally by French banks, led by the Banque de l'Union Parisienne.
It
charged a commission on the Haitian issue of paper currency and on the cashing
of
checks. Since the French blacklisted Haiti on the
world financial markets, so as to keep
the
Haitian account for themselves, the French funneled all loans to the government
through
the Banque, often at outrageous discounts*.12
To give an example of French loan
practices,
Haitian obstacles to establishing a bank in 1874 was multiplied by the various
political
and financial thieves inside and outside Haiti:
[Late 19th Century political leader
Antenor]Firmin and historian
Antione Magloire say the loan was 60 million
francs, to be repaid in forty
annual installments of 7.5 million francs, a
return of 400 percent. [Dantes]
Bellegarde says 50 million francs, but that the
Crédit-Général in Paris was
able to raise only 36.5 million, of which 26
million went to intermediaries
and private pockets in Port-au-Prince and Paris,
while the remaining 10
million francs were used to liquidate, at par, a
mountain of worthless
Haitian bonds bought up as scrap paper by
European speculators. The
Crédit-Général's commission alone exceeded 9.5
million francs.13
Finally chartered in 1880, the
Banque Nationale d'Haiti lost its charter in 1905,
after
refusing to back Nord Alexis' blizzard of paper money. A five year period of intense
____________________
*Discounting
was the practice of offering a loan at a certain level, then subtracting fees
and
allowing for variable exchange rates up front, leaving the borrower with the
balance
to
spend, but liable for repaying the entire amount, at whatever interest was
agreed upon
initially.
competition
between French, German, and American (relative newcomers) banking
interests
ensued over rechartering a new bank.
Finally, in late 1910, the Haitian
legislature
voted to dissolve the Banque Nationale d'Haiti, and created a new Banque
Nationale
de la République d'Haiti, which moved into the old Banque's headquarters.
French
banking interests, which put the package together with several German-American
private
banks, diplomatically invited in American interests (including the infamous
National
City Bank14). The French had a 75%
interest in the new bank, the Americans
and
the German-American banks 20%, and the German Berliner Handelsgesellschaft
Bank
5%. Not surprisingly, the new $13
million loan was discounted to $9.4 million.15
Another notorious incident which
demonstrates the inability of the Haitian
government
to control its own economy was the granting of a railroad concession to an
American
named in James P. McDonald. Haiti
promised to back bonds funding the
railroad
to the Haitian northern city of Cap Haitien at six percent, pay McDonald
regular
payments
as the railroad was completed, and grant him a fifteen mile wide right of way
for
banana plantations (Haiti is only thirty miles wide at its most narrow
point). In short,
the
government was prepared to give up roughly half the arable land in Haiti, and
go still
further
in debt, in return for a railroad that was never completed.16
After
a mere 15 months in power, Antoine Simon began to lose control of Haiti,
particularly
in the north country around Cap Haitien (helped not in some small part by the
boorish
behavior of McDonald's American engineers).
Simon and his army took ship to
Gonaives,
landed, and moved north and seized Fort Liberté, pillaging and slaughtering as
he
went.17
The
north had rebelled against Port au Prince before. Those of peasant stock who
had
lost their lands, and who rebelled at exploitation by the city dwellers and
foreign
concessionaires,
drifted into the private armies of petty warlords in the wilds of the north
country. Often described by Europeans and Americans
as bandits or mercenaries, these
men
became known as Cacos. Their loyalty
was to their local chiefs, bound through
family
ties and patronage.18 Now, in 1911,
these men and their leaders were to become
the
king (or president) makers of Haiti.19
The
Cacos rampaged through the north country (focusing, at least in part, on
McDonald
and his railroad camps), and boxed Simon into Fort Liberté. Simon escaped
to
Port au Prince, but his time had passed.
General Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, a general
with
a northern power base, had Cincinnatus Leconte declared "Supreme Chief of
the
Revolution." Simon barely made it to a Dutch ship ahead
of an angry mob. Less than
two
weeks later (14 August 1911) Leconte was voted in as President by the National
Assembly.20
Leconte
apparently was an honest man and, according to observers, was willing to
try
to administer Haiti honestly.
Unfortunately, his administration lasted just under a
year:
until the National Palace blew up with him in it in early August, 1912. (He and previous
presidents
apparently stored ammunition and explosives in the basement to keep it out of
the
hands of rivals.) The real cause of the
explosion remains unknown.21
Leconte's
successor was Tancrede Auguste, a sugar plantation owner. His
administration
was marked with a continual fight with the new Banque Nationale over
retiring
the paper currency left over from Alexis Nord's administration. It was also short:
Auguste
was dead the following May after a mysterious illness; some said poison. After
a
chaotic funeral, to the point of a near rebellion in the capital, Michel
Oreste, was voted
in
as President, literally bribing his way into office with drafts on the national
treasury.
Oreste,
the first Haitian President to have no ties whatsoever with the military
(regular or
Caco),
made almost everyone in any position of power in Haiti angry with his
proposals:
reform
the Army, retire paper money, and reform the educational system (a great source
of
graft in the government).22
In
1914 the Cacos, whose quiet had been bought by Auguste and Leconte but not
Oreste,
rebelled in the north country, under the leadership of the Zamor family. The army
soon
went over to the Cacos, and Michel Oreste took ship under the cover of British,
American,
French and German marines on 27 January 1914.
Oreste Zamor, heading a
Caco
army with his brother Charles, was quickly elected President. Oreste and Charles
Zamor
soon fell out with a former collaborator and rival, Davilimar Théodore.
Unfortunately for the Zamor
brothers, the Banque proved difficult with funding
again,
the Orestes ran out of money and, therefore, soldiers. Amid much chaos,
Theodore
and
his ally Dr. Rosalvo Bobo, entered Port au Prince at the head of a Caco army as
Oreste
Zamor took refuge aboard a German commercial ship and his brother sought
safety
with a General Polynice and a Committee of Safety. Théodore was elected
President
on 7 November 1914.
Intervention and Occupation.
In January, 1915, Rear Admiral
William B. Caperton took command of the Cruiser
Squadron
of the United States Atlantic Fleet, flying his flag in the armored cruiser USS
Washington
(CA-11). The Atlantic Fleet's cruiser
squadron had the additional
responsibility
of monitoring political events in the Caribbean, and Admiral Caperton's
first
mission upon assuming command was to tour his new area of responsibility (Annex
C,
Appendix 1). Admiral Caperton's first
visit to Haiti was short and apparently
uneventful. But he no sooner departed for other ports
when he was recalled to Haiti. Still
another
revolt was forming in the north country of Haiti to challenge the Haiti
presidency. This time the proclaimed "Chief of the
Executive Power" was General
Vilbrun
Guillaume Sam, former President-maker, Caco leader, and now candidate for
President. Admiral Caperton intercepted Guillaume Sam
outside of Cap Haitien and
persuaded
him that the United States would not interfere with the transfer of power in
Haiti,
so long as Guillaume Sam curbed the behavior of his Cacos. Admiral Caperton
and
his gunboats and cruisers in effect shadowed Guillaume Sam down to coast to
Port
au
Prince, where he was duly elected President on 4 March 1915.23
In July 1915, the Washington, Rear
Admiral Caperton embarked, sat in Port au
Prince
harbor as still another Haitian presidency wound its way to a messy conclusion.
This
time it was Guillaume Sam, who was besieged in his palace by a new challenger,
Dr.
Rosalvo
Bobo. At daybreak on 27 July 1915, Sam
made a break for the French legation
next
door. Sam made it, although most of the
people accompanying him did not. He
sent
a
message to his chief of police, Charles-Oscar Etienne, at the police
Arrondissement in
the
lower city, to the effect that his presidency was over and that Etienne should
follow
the
dictates of his own conscience ["La partie est perdue, j'abandonne le
pouvoir. Faites
ce
que votre conscience vous dictera."].
Accounts vary, but somewhere between 160 and
'nearly
200' political prisoners, from Haiti's mulâtre elite--including ex-president
Oreste
Zamor,
died. The next day, a mob of the elite
attacked Guillaume Sam in the French
legation
and murdered him. Sam's mutilated body
was dragged through the streets.
Having
received a green light from the State Department via the Acting Secretary of
the
Navy,
Caperton met with the American and British chiefs of mission and the French
minister
aboard the Washington and, with their concurrence, decided to land troops and
restore
order.24
While his small landing force
secured the legations in Port au Prince, Admiral
Caperton
had a problem. With Guillaume Sam dead,
there was no one really in charge in
the
city. There was a revolutionary
committee formed by General Polynice,25 Charles
Zamor
(brother of the recently deceased ex-president), and others*, but no one, at
least to
American
eyes appeared to be in charge. The
landing force was disarming what remained
of
the Haitian Army in Port au Prince (and confiscated five wagon-loads of weapons
the
first
day), and the Haitian legislature was going through the opening stages of
voting for
still
another new President, but with the immediate crisis under control, Caperton
__________________________
*Haitian
politics in the late 19th, early 20th Century was a series of cycles of
recurring
personalities,
the details of which is beyond the scope of this paper; however, it can be
said
that most of the personalities in the revolutionary committee were prominent
figures
in
Haitian politics, although not all of them were necessarily supporters of the
late
President
Guillaume Sam, or of Dr. Bobo for that matter.
didn't
know what the United States Government wanted. The Secretary of State, Robert
Lansing
was relatively new (his predecessor, William Jennings Bryan, resigned in June
1915,
in a disagreement over President Wilson's handling of the Lusitania crisis), so
he
asked
the President: "The situation in
Haiti is distressing and very perplexing.
I am not
at
all sure what we ought to do or what we legally can do . . . I hope you can
give me
some
suggestion as to what course we can pursue." Wilson apparently answered the next
day:
I suppose there is nothing to do but to take the bull by
the horns
and
restore order . . .
1. We must send
to Port au Prince a force sufficient to absolutely
control
the city not only by also the country immediately about it from
which it draws its foods . . .
2.
We must let the present Haitian Congress know that we will
protect it but that we will not
recognize any action on its part that does not
put men in charge of affairs whom we
can trust to handle and put an end to
revolution.
3. We must give
all who now have authority there or who desire to
have it or who think they have it or
are about to have it understand that we
shall take steps to prevent the
payment of debts contracted to finance
revolutions.
. . . In other words, that we consider it our duty to
insist on
constitutional government and will,
if necessary (that is, if they force us
to
it as the only way), take charge of elections and see that a real
government is erected which we can
support.26
Caperton radioed Washington DC on 5
August that the president of the Haitian
Senate,
Philippe Sudre Dartiguenave, appeared most electable, and that he "realizes
Haiti
must
agree to any terms laid down by the United States, professes to believe any
terms
demanded
will be for Haiti's benefit, [and] says he will use all his influence with
[the]
Haitian
Congress to have such terms agreed upon by Haiti."27 To insure Dartiguenave's
election,
all Caperton had to do was neutralize the Cacos, take Dr. Bobo out of the
running,
and make sure the election in the Haitian legislature went for Dartiguenave.
The Marine 2nd Regiment landed in Port au Prince
on 4 August, and began
securing
the city. With the arrival of the
remainder of First Provisional Brigade of
Marines
through August 1915, the Caco problem, at least in theory, would be settled in
a
matter
of time (Annex A).
With
a flare of the dramatic, Caperton invited Dartiguenave and Dr. Bobo to the
American
legation on 8 August and, speaking through his chief of staff, Capt. Edward L.
Beach,
who spoke excellent French by all reports, challenged the two to do what was
right
for Haiti. Not surprisingly, both men
declared their devotion to the service of their
country. Caperton, according to his Senate testimony
in 1921, then asked:
"Senator Dartiguenave, in case Dr. Bobo should be
elected will
you promise that you will exert
every influence in your power to assist
him for Haiti's good; that you will
join with him heartily and helpfully and
loyally?"
"If Dr. Bobo is elected president I will give him
the most loyal,
earnest support in every effort he
may make for Haiti's welfare," replied
Dartiguenave, with simple dignity.
"Dr. Bobo, if Senator Dartiguenave is elected
president, will you
help him loyally and earnestly in
his efforts to benefit Haiti?"
"No I will not!" shouted Bobo. "If Senator Dartiguenave is elected
president I will not help him. I will go away and leave Haiti to her
fate. I
alone am fit to be president of
Haiti; I alone understand Haiti's aspirations,
no one is fit to be president but
me; there is no patriotism in Haiti to be
compared with mine; the Haitians
love no one as they love me."28
And so Dr. Bobo failed his
interview. He left a week later, aboard
a French ship,
for
Santo Domingo, where he was refused residence, and ended up in Cuba. He later
moved
to Jamaica, where he had a successful medical practice.29
On August 10, Admiral Caperton
received a cable from the Secretary of the Navy
ordering
that the election of the president of Haiti be allowed to take place and that
"the
United
States prefers election of Dartiguenave.
Has no other motive than that
establishment
of firm and lasting government by Haitian people and to assist them now
and
at all times in future to maintain their political independence and territorial
integrity."30 The next day, at Admiral Caperton's orders,
Captain Beach ordered the
revolutionary
committee in Port au Prince to resign.
Admiral Caperton himself, and
Captain
Beach, both ended up arguing the term "free election" with the Bobo
crowd. Dr.
Bobo's
supporters believed that a "free election" would be one that would
recognize his
military
position and elect him president.
Admiral Caperton's definition allowed none of
that. Finally, 2nd Regiment of Marines secured the
building and the Haitian
legislature--39
senators and 102 deputies--met in the Chamber of Deputies. Captain
Beach
was present as Admiral Caperton's representative, and probably acting as an
impromptu
floor manager for Dartiguenave.
"All senators and deputies were armed at
their
own request." Dartiguenave was elected on the first ballot: "...the vote was announced as 94 for
Dartiguenave,
16 for Bobo, and a scattering [31] for Cauvin, Thegun, and others." The
United
States formally recognized the Dartiguenave
government on 18 August 1915.31
While
only a complete optimist would claim that the United States had no influence
over
this
vote, a favorable vote of only 67% for the desired leader compares favorably
with the
more
familiar rigged election results in excess of 99% common in the mid- and
late-20th
Century. And, lest it be forgotten, Dartiguenave had
his own agenda:
Besides being a civilian with no army behind him (except,
of
course, the U.S. Marine Corps), he
was the first elite mulâtre from the
South the take office since 1876--an
office that, since the days of
Boisrond,
had been all but monopolized by noirs, generals, and men of the
North
and Artibonite. Not that Philippe Sudre
Dartiguenave had no
constituency: his constituency, like that of Haiti's
presidents for the next
thirty years, was the elite. Numerically insignificant, usually without
lucrative occupation save politics,
this was the group that, now more than
ever before, events were propelling
into a monopoly of office and, to the
extent the Americans would permit,
of entrenched power.32
Less than a month later, a Treaty
between the United States and Haiti gave the
legal
underpinnings for the United States occupation of Haiti (Annex C, Appendix 6).
Eighty
years after the fact, it is hard to imagine a sovereign nation agreeing to such
a
treaty: it is as if an adolescent was surrendering
his paycheck and check book to a
over-bearing
parent, to be put on a strict budget and with a solemn promise to behave.
For
the United States, it was contracting a huge responsibility against which we
will later
examine
the results of the occupation.
Another byproduct of the American
Haitian Treaty was the Haitian Union
Patriotique,
which was to become the principle organization of Haitian resistance to the
First
Occupation. Interestingly, it was an
organization of and for the Haitian elite, the
opinion
of the noir peasantry towards the Occupation was apparently neither desired nor
solicited.33 (A comment by the French minister in May
1916 (after the pacification of the
Artibonite
and the North by the Marines):
"'The peasants, the pure noirs,' he wrote, 'are,
like
the tradesmen in the towns, delighted with the American occupation.'"34)
Even before the signing of the
Haitian-American Treaty, Admiral Caperton,
acting
on instructions from the Navy Department, started taking over the financial and
civil
administration of Haiti35 (Annex C, Appendix 4). Like many aspects of the First
Occupation,
while this particular action was of dubious legality under international law,
it
was
established and conducted with the intention of maintaining a scrupulous
honesty.
This
had an immediate impact on the Haitian elite:
American assumption of customs control . . . for the
first time
brought
home to the elite (which in this context is to say all politicians)
some
hard practicalities of foreign intervention.
For that entire class,
whose
livelihood after all had been the public treasury, the blow, square in
the
pocketbook, was disastrous.
(Footnote: Adding injury, Paymaster
Conard
promptly stabilized the gourde at a fixed (5 to 1) exchange rate for
the
dollar, thus at one stoke putting out of business the currency
speculation,
both Haitian and foreign, that had so often gutted the treasury.
Elime
Elie, Dartiguenave's Finance Minister, pled in vain to Conard that
all
his friends had been accustomed to make their living from a floating
gourde
and 'it would be an economic crime to ruin their business.'36
Dartiguenave was unable to control
Port au Prince's streets, and Admiral Caperton
declared
martial Law on 3 September 1915.
Apparently Dartiguenave told Caperton that
this
action would also facilitate the Haitian legislature's acceptance of the
Haitian-
American
Treaty.37
For the United States, the easiest
part of the Treaty to implement would be the
requirement
for an American-officered constabulary to establish law and order in Haiti.
This
would become known as the Gendarmerie d'Haiti (in 1928 renamed the Garde
d'Haiti).
The forcing of the Haitian-American
Treaty through the Haitian legislature
was
brutal--Admiral
Caperton eventually had to threaten to withhold the Haitian government's
paychecks
before the Treaty would be ratified.38
The Americans were pushing for
constitutional
and legal changes in Haiti and Dartiguenave was unsure if he could deliver,
especially
with the "American insistence on eliminating graft, reducing palace
patronage,
stopping
double or triple pensions to single individuals, and ending fraud and kickbacks
on
government contracts."39
Using an ancient Haitian constitutional device,
Dartiguenave
dissolved
the Haitian Senate 6 April, 1916, and instituted a Council of State in its
place. He
then
designated the lower house a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the Constitution40
(Annex
C,
Appendix 8). Interestingly, a document
from the Butler Papers (Butler was Chef of
the
Gendarmerie by this time), entitled "Coup d'Etat" details the reports
the American had
and
made on the closing of the Senate41.
From the title, and its inclusion in Butler's
papers,
it would appear that Butler, his Marine Gendarmerie officers, or both,
disapproved
of Dartiguenave's action, even though it served American interests as well as
Dartiguenave's. This is especially interesting, considering
Butler's part in the closing of
the
Haitian legislature the following year.
According to his testimony before the Senate
investigating
committee in 1921, Colonel Waller, who had been told by Dartiguenave
that
he feared impeachment, was also opposed to the action.42
Nevertheless, Butler and Waller
enforced the closure of the Senate and, when
Dartiguenave
decided that even the Chamber of Deputies were too difficult to work with
and
ordered legislative elections, Waller and Butler held elections and enforced an
unusual
honesty. According to Waller's
proclamation, the role of the occupying forces
was
limited to maintaining order, restricting gatherings from closer than 30 feet
from
polling
places, placing a representative in each of the polling places, allowing
Gendarmes
who
were Haitian citizens to vote (but without their weapons), and some rules on
party
nominations
and the prevention of fraud.43 Some
observers view this election as more
free
of coercion than any of memory before it.44
However, as the primary purpose of
the new legislature was to draft a new
constitution
(Haiti's 17th since independence), it was not going to be very
cooperative. A
draft
constitution was written for the legislature by a Dr. Edmond Heraux--formerly
Antoine
Simon's Foreign Minister in 1908--which was duly passed to Washington for
suggestions. Dartiguenave received said suggestions, and
dumped them on the legislature
as
an American dictat. The legislature rebelled and starting
writing its own constitution
with
a decidedly anti-American tone.
Dartiguenave apparently wished the Marines to
close
down the legislature for him, which would allow him to rule unimpeded by any
other
Haitian legal body. But as he deferred
to Colonel Cole (Waller's successor), Cole
deferred
to Washington, who deferred to Dartiguenave.
Dartiguenave finally called in
Major
Butler and ordered him to close down the legislature. It did not reopen until 1930.
The American-amended constitution
was then passed to an all Haitian referendum
in
early 1918, and duly passed. The
Gendarmerie enforced the honesty of the election,
although
it was admittedly and openly pro-constitution, and the elite apparently
boycotted
the
referendum. And, despite his frequent
claims to the contrary, Franklin Roosevelt did
not
write the Haitian constitution: the
American "suggestions", incorporated in the
Heraux
draft, had their origin in the State Department.45
Off to a Rough Start.
The Marine suppression of the Cacos
brought peace to Haiti which, as noted
above,
was appreciated by the noirs and the tradesmen, if not the elite or the Cacos.
Public
order was maintained by the new Gendarmerie d'Haiti, a national police force,
manned
by Haitians and officered by Marines.
Public order, however, did not
immediately bring financial stability, as World
War
I was consuming most of the liquidity in World money markets at the time, and
nothing
was available for a Haitian consolidation loan. With Haiti's heavy debt, most of
the
revenues collected by the Navy paymasters--although the former skimming off of
funds
was halted--went to debt service, and not for improving the Haitian
infrastructure
as
desired.46 Main functions of government were therefore taken over by the
Gendarmerie
as it was the only organized "Haitian" entity capable of taking any
kind of
positive
action in Haiti at the time. These
functions included public health, prisons, and
public
works.47 Lacking sufficient funds to
improve roads, bridges, and culverts, Butler
found
a provision in the Haitian rural code that provided for Haitians to provide
labor in
lieu
of money for the payment of taxes.
Butler used this labor, called the corvée, in the
construction
of rural roads. According to his
testimony in 1921, he was able to bring the
cost
of buildings roads down to $205 a mile, from a pre-occupation cost of $51,000 a
mile
(a figure inflated, no doubt, by large amounts of graft). Butler "repaired" (rebuilt is
probably
a closer term) 470 miles of roads during his tenure as Chef of
Gendarmerie. He
took
pains to provide food, shelter, entertainment, and motivation to the laborers,
and
went
to the trouble to get President Dartiguenave out of Port au Prince to
periodically
praise
the laborers' efforts. (Butler's papers
include a collection of photographs of the
first
automobile trip taken in Haiti, outside of Port au Prince, apparently to Cap
Haitien.48)
Colonel Waller, in his testimony
before the same Senate committee, told of an
irrigation
project in the Cul de Sac valley in which he received more volunteer labor than
he
could employ and brought the project in at a cost of $800, down from a
(Haitian)
estimate
of $60,000.49
The system, as might have been
expected, also lent itself to abuse.
The Marines
made
the mistake of having Haitian civil officials in the process of recruiting
labor.
These
officials were not above using impressment instead of encouraging volunteers to
get
their numbers, nor were they above exempting certain persons who could bribe
their
way
out of their labor obligation, and putting the work back on those who had
already
performed
their obligation. Butler's successor,
Major A. S. Williams, saw that the corvée
system
was being increasingly abused, and causing increasing Haitian discontent with
the
Americans,
and abolished it on 1 October 1918.50
Brigadier General Albertus W.
Catlin, who succeeded Col. John H. Russell in
command
of the Marine brigade (Russell had succeeded Cole) in late 1918 after returning
from
combat duty in France, made a number of inspection trips, starting in March
1919,
to
investigate reports he had received of abuses of the corvée in the Hinche and
Maissade
districts
(Annex C, Appendix 11). General Catlin
found that the corvée was still in force
in
these districts and was using impressed labor.
In addition, much of the labor was being
used
for private projects as opposed to public works.51 The abuses of the corvée were
probably
more extensive than General Catlin was able to discover on his inspections, as
the
ensuing revolt, which Marine officers believed to have originated over
discontent
over
the corvée (which in itself resurrected the old paranoia over blancs
reinstating
slavery),
became widespread. The popular leader
of the revolt, Charlemagne Peralte, a
former
Caco General and a brother-in-law to the Zamor brothers, had been serving a
sentence
of hard labor in Cap Haitien when he bolted for the mountains, taking his
gendarme
guard with him. Charlemagne, and his
successor after his death, Benoit, were
found
to have political and financial connections with Dr. Rosalvo Bobo.52
The revolt would last until
1920. But if that had been the Marine's
only problem
in
Haiti, no one in Washington DC would probably have noticed. However, late in 1919,
Major
General Commandant of the Marine Corps George Barnett was reviewing a court
martial
case of two Marine privates accused of unlawfully executing Caco
prisoners. His
eye
caught an argument by the Marines' counsel to the effect that such executions
were
rather
common in Haiti. Barnett was shocked,
and immediately fired off a letter to Col.
Russell
(who had reassumed command of the Marine Brigade after General Catlin
returned
to the United States), ordering him to investigate and correct the situation
immediately. Col. Russell investigated, found abuses, and
started the slow process of
military
justice rolling (Annex C, Appendix 11).
Unfortunately, General Barnett's
letter to Colonel Russell got into the papers.53
Despite
Col. Russell's investigation, a later investigation by General Barnett's
successor,
Major
General John A. Lejeune (Annex C, Appendix 12) and now-Brigadier General
Butler,
and a formal Naval Board of Inquiry chaired by Rear Admiral Henry T. Mayo, all
of
which found that military justice had been imposed on all those who were
guilty,
within
naval jurisdiction, and within the statute of limitations54, the press
continued. In
particular,
The Nation accused the Marines of "racial snobbery, political
chicane" and
"torture...theft,
arson, and murder" . . . "actual slavery" . . . and a "five years' massacre of
Haitians."
The upshot was a Senate investigation which lasted from 1921 to 1922, sat in
Port
au Prince and as well as Santo Domingo, and allowed a representative of the
National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Union Patriotique
advisory
rights and a right to cross examination;55 and yet found that most of the
charges
had
been greatly exaggerated:
On the evidence before it the committee can now state--
(1) That the
accusations of military abuses are limited in point of
time
to a few months and in location to restricted area.
(2) Very few of
the many Americans who have served in Haiti are
thus
accused. The others have restored order
and tranquillity under
arduous
conditions of service, and generally won the confidence of the
inhabitants
of the country with who they came in touch.
(3) That certain
Caco prisoners were executed without trial.
Two
such
cases have been judicially determined
The evidence to which
reference
has been made shows eight more cases with sufficient clearness
to
allow them to be regarded without much doubt as having occurred.56
The committee also noted that the
thrust of most of the accusations had been an
effort
to discredit the entire occupation of Haiti.57
More importantly, the Committee
noted
that the occupation was not serving its goals and recommended changes:
¨
"...
[place] within reach of the Haitian masses, justice, schools, and agricultural
instruction
. . . [and] . . . send to Haiti a commission comprising a commercial
advisor,
an expert in tropical agriculture, and an educator . . ."
¨
"..advise
the Haitian government against permitting foreign interests to acquire
great
land holdings in Haiti."
¨
"...as
communications are opened up and as the peasants are secure in their life and
property, . . . reduce the force
of marines in the territory of the Republic and
ultimately to intrust the maintenance of order and peace exclusively to
the
gendarmes."
¨
Eliminate
provost courts for civil crimes and "offenses by the press against public
order."
¨
Raise
the caliber and qualifications of the Americans who represent the United
States in Haiti.58
Interestingly,
almost a year earlier, President Harding had apparently solicited an
evaluation
of the Occupation from the State Department shortly after his inauguration in
1921. Written by Sumner Wells, who at the time was
Chief of the Latin American
Division
of the State Department and who would become the American High
Commissioner
in the Dominican Republic in 192259, it recommended similar changes in
the
Occupation and its administration:
¨
Increase
the size of Gendarmerie d'Haiti in order to increase public order.
¨
Appoint
a single representative of the United States to represent the President in
Haiti
and subordinate all United States "Treaty officials" to this
representative.
¨
Change
the basic supervision of the Occupation of Haiti from the Navy Department
to
the State Department, which would presumed to be more diplomatic in budget
items,
for instance.
¨
Develop
the Haitian economy, principally by reforming the Haitian education
system60 (Annex C, Appendix 16).
Thus, getting recommendations from
all sides, the Occupation of Haiti entered a
period
of great change and, ultimately, some progress.
Smooth(er) Sailing.
On 10 March 1922, John H. Russell,
twice former commander of the First
Provisional
Brigade of Marines in Haiti and recently promoted to Brigadier General,
became
the United States High Commissioner in Haiti.61
According to the American-sponsored
Haitian constitution of 1918, a Haitian
President
served for a term of four years, and could be immediately reelected for a
second
term. However, under the Title VII, Transitory
Provisions of the constitution, the sitting
President--Dartiguenave--was
the one who decided the next legislative elections, it being
the
Haitian Senate which would elect the President (Annex C, Appendix 9). The Senate
itself
had not sat since 1916, when Dartiguenave with, if not the approval, at least
the
assistance
of the Americans, locked it out of the legislative building (above). In 1921,
Dartiguenave's
representatives began feeling out the Americans about reelection without
the
inconvenience of legislative elections. The State Department proved coy on this
particular
request, apparently preferring legislative elections if Dartiguenave wanted
reelection
as President (Annex C, Appendix 15).
To make a long story short,
Dartiguenave preferred not to suffer legislative
elections,
and the Americans preferred a new President.
Dartiguenave had proved
unpopular
among the Haitians and, in particular, the Haitian elite for years. So it was
with
little sorrow that Dartiguenave was out-maneuvered in his own Council of State.
Louis
Borno, one-time Foreign Minister for Dartiguenave, was elected President in May
1922. On the 15th, "for the first time since
Nissage-Saget [President 1870-74] and only
the
second time in the history of Haiti, a constitutional transfer of power took
place."62
Louis
Borno, like Dartiguenave, would be still another client-President of
Americans,63 or
a
strong-willed Haitian with his own agenda,64 depending on which interpretation
of the
First
United States Occupation you prefer, but he and John Russell could at least
work
together
in an atmosphere approaching mutual respect, and things were accomplished.
With the end of World War I, and a
world recovery taking place, the Haitian
Government
finally solicited a $16 million loan on which there were serious bids. The
National
City Bank took high bid of 92.137[%] in 1922 (which means a discount of just
under
8%, which compares rather favorably with loans taken by the Haitians prior to
the
Occupation)
at 6% interest. Of the $16 million face
value of the loan, the Haitians were
therefore
able to actually see over $15 million of it, which went to retire the claims of
the
National
Bank and the National Railroad, and refunded three outstanding French
loans.
A
second loan, also funded through National City Bank, for some $5 million paid
off
73,269
claims against the Haitian government settled by a joint American-Haitian
claims
commission. A third loan for $2.66 million, this time
through the Metropolitan Trust
company
of New York in 1923, finally relieved Haiti of the financial albatross of Mr.
McDonald's
National Railroad plan.65
Although, besides a peaceful
transition of political power, arguably the greatest
contribution
to Haiti made by the occupation, to quote the British minister in Haiti in
1929,
was that it "maintained peace and allowed the peasant to work in
safety," other,
more
tangible results were to the Occupation's credit during the Louis Borno-John
Russell
period:
¨
over
1000 miles of roads, with 210 bridges, serving 3000 motor vehicles;
¨
nine
major airfields and numerous auxiliary fields;
¨
15
modern lighthouses (as opposed to three antiques in 1915), 54 buoys, ten harbor
lights
and other aids to navigation;
¨
a
functioning telephone and telegraph system;
¨
ten
towns with running, potable water, and 64 villages with clean wells, in
addition
to
irrigation projects; and
¨
a Service de Santé Publique which included 11
hospitals--98% staffed by Haitians,
and
147 public clinics, not counting three military hospitals and the Catholic
hospital
in Port au Prince.66
One area in which the Americans
encountered an immense amount of resistance
was
in the area of public education. In his
memo for President Harding, Sumner Welles
accused
the Haitian elite publicly funding education at adequate levels, while actually
pocketing
the bulk of the money for themselves.67
In 1923, General Russell instituted a
Service
Technique de l'Agriculture et de l'Ensignement Professionel, or Service
Technique
as it became known, to provide a agricultural educational system for the noir
peasantry
under a Dr. George F. Freeman. This was
"a matter of extreme social
sensitivity
for the elite," who feared both the social consequences of an educated
noir
peasantry
and the loss of the noirs' loyalty to the blancs, who were improving their
lives.68
The "show window" of the
Service Technique was the Central School of
Agriculture
at Damien where
[in]
the way of things in Haiti, and more particularly because such studies
required
literacy and prior preparation, the students came from elite
families,
though, alas, with no more appetite for the dunghill side of
agriculture
(let alone for going out into the country to instruct peasant
noirs)
than their predecessors at Turgeau [a reference to the Haitian forces
under
Dessalines who took Port au Prince in October 1803]. To overcome
such
reservations, there was adopted a system of scholarships, or bourses,
whereby
each student received the not-inconsiderable sum of $25 a month
and,
as Dr. Freeman was later quoted in the New York World,
was
'virtually hired to go, by means of scholarships.' This incentive
notwithstanding,
student bousiers concentrated on academic work while
hired
peasants dug ditches, cleaned stables, slopped hogs, and shovel
manure.69
The American attempts at educational
reform was also strongly resisted by the
Catholic
church in Haiti, which saw its system of confessional schools threatened by the
proposed
American system. The Church had been in
opposition to the United States
Occupation
since 1915, when they declined to perform the traditional Te Deum to mark
Dartiguenave's
election. This appears to be primarily
a jurisdictional and religious (the
Catholic
church appeared to view the advent of the Americans in 1915 as the advent of
rampant
Protestantism) issue, as opposed to a nationalist issue, because the Haitian
laity
was
30 times more French and French Canadian than Haitian.70
Needless to say, elite students, and
not just those in the Service Technique, were
highly
politicized, nationalist, and, almost by definition, anti-American. Louis Borno, by
1929,
had also overstayed his political welcome, so students were anti-government as
well.
What touched everything off was a
seemingly innocent decision by Dr. Freeman
of
the Service Technique. Dr. Freeman
needed funds to set up some experimental
stations
at Hinche--to serve the noir peasantry rather than just the elite students--and
proposed
on cutting back on bourses and paid labor at the main facility at Damien. The
students
went on strike, and were quickly joined by sympathy strikes in other elite
schools
in Port au Prince and Cap Haitien.
President Borno's reaction was initially
restrained
by General Russell, although Russell did cable Washington to request
reinforcements
for the Marine Brigade in case the Garde d'Haiti (the Gendarmerie d'Haiti
had
been redesignated on 1 November 1928) proved unreliable.
The
unrest continued on through November 1929 until the first week in December,
when
the situation at Les Cayes suddenly got out of hand. The peasantry of the region,
for
reasons other than why the students revolted, rebelled after agitators from
Port au
Prince
and Cap Haitien had their say, and headed for the town of Les Cayes. A patrol of
20
Marines stood in their way. The
confrontation eventually got out of hand, and 12
Haitians
died. President Hoover, who had been
inaugurated that year, called for an
investigation.71 Given President Hoover's predisposition to
get out of Haiti, it is hardly
surprising
that the resulting Forbes Commission recommended that the Occupation be
terminated
as soon as possible.72
Haitianization.
The United States Government signed
an agreement in 1931 with the Haitian
Government
(Annex C, Appendix 19), for a rather quick "Haitianization" of the
Treaty
services
in Haiti and the eventual withdrawal of all United States forces from
Haiti.
Louis
Borno stood down as President in early 1930, and the Council of State elected
Eugene
Roy as the new President. He took
office on 15 May 1930; the first Catholic Te
Deum
since 1914 was said for the new President.
Ironically, in a flurry of legislative
machinations
that represented a bitter struggle between the mulâtres and nationalistic
noirs,
Stenio Vincent, a light skinned noir, was elected President in November
1930.73) It
appears
that the United States Mission in Haiti originally believed that the United
States
Occupation
should last until at least 1936, in order to reassure holders of Haitian
government
bonds. However, the State Department,
and presumably President Hoover,
wished
to complete the process before the lapse of the Haitian-American Treaty of
1915.
The
agreement on Haitianization, which included no actual date for the termination
of the
Occupation,
although most other Treaty services were given transition dates, was signed
5
August 1931.74
A final agreement for the withdrawal
of United States military forces was finally
agreed
upon and signed with Haiti on 7 August 1933, with a termination date of 1
October
1934. After conversations between
President Vincent and President Roosevelt,
in
Cap Haitien in July of 1934, the date was moved up to 1 August 1934.75
Aftermath.
The actual withdrawal of American
troops in Haiti was somewhat of an
anticlimax: most equipment and troops were withdrawn
from Haiti prior to the actual
withdrawal
date, on 1 August 1934, at Marine Brigade headquarters, the American flag
was
lowered, with honors, and the Haitian flag was raised, with honors. The last aircraft
from
Marine Observation Squadron Nine left Bowen Field outside Port au Prince
and
flew
back to the United States.76 For the
Haitians, the "Second Independence" was one
big,
long party.77
The Constitution, modified in 1928,
was again changed in 1935 to invest more
power
in the President. According to the
first Haitian Chef of the Garde d'Haiti--
Démosthènes
Calixte, the same officer who was the Haitian deputy of the then-new Ecole
Militaire
in 1922 under General Russell--the Garde was rapidly politicized, beginning in
1934.78 This same officer offers some observations
(1939) to what happened to the
institutions
left the Haitians by the United States Marines Corps and Navy:
¨
The
Sanitation and Hygiene Service, which was originally an organization
trained by the officers of the Medical corps of the United States Navy,
has lost
its real purpose as an institution. The persons responsible for its
administration
are rank politicians and the most ill-bred
officials Haiti ever had.
¨
The
Public Works Administration was also organized by officers of the Civil
Engineer Corps of the United States Navy. But since its "Haitianization", it has
become
merely a payroll institution for all the friends of the President who are
jobless,
as well as those who do not care to work.
The engineers and architects
in
charge of various departments cannot do anything to remedy the situation.
This
is why this service has spent so much money and Haiti still has no roads, no
bridges,
and no sewers in areas where such construction is badly needed.
¨
The
Agricultural and Rural Education Service . . . was, after its
"Haitianization."
placed under another foreigner, a Belgian, who resigned in 1938. This
department
could have rendered great service if the five-year plan submitted by
the
scientific agriculturist-in-charge had been approved by the government. .
.
Political
opportunism was rampant. No attempt was
made even to try the plan.
¨
The
Contribution or Internal Tax Service was also organized by Americans. The
Haitians
who have replaced the Americans are competent and honest; but again
political
interference was followed by embezzlement of Government funds,
which
of course went unpunished.
¨
Education
is purposely neglected for the benefit of politics and social prejudice.
The
method of education in Haiti has always been a matter for
"discussion."
The
removal from office of competent administrators and personnel of the
Education
Department for political reason renders the problem practically
insoluble.
¨
There
cannot be an independent press in Haiti, because of the enactment of a law
against
a free press. A 'state of siege' is
maintained by the present government,
but
even in time of peace no one can express an honest opinion as to the general
condition
or administration of the country without being mistreated.79
Other observers, even those hostile
to the United States Occupation, have noted
the
deterioration of the infrastructure:
"American civil service reform, for instance, had
little
impact. After the occupation, Haitian
politics reverted to the 'spoils system'
whereby
successive administrations installed their own partisans in public
office."
"...The network of roads, potentially
the most significant legacy of the occupation,
didn't
last long because almost all roads were unpaved and required elaborate
maintenance."80
President Vincent became a dictator
in all but name in late 1938. He was
eventually
maneuvered out of power by Elie Lescot in 1941. Lescot was exposed in 1945
as
a virtual agent for Trujillo in the Dominican Republic (by the
Dominicans). Students
and
rioters took to the streets. In January
1946, the Garde, headed by an Executive
Military
Committee [Comité Exécutif Militaire] led by a Colonel Lavaud (a mulâtre) took
charge. The result was chaos--rioting, looting,
arson--with an ugly racial--noir versus
mulâtres--tone,
although there apparently was even some Communist influence in the
violence
as well.
The Comité eventually restored
order, resurrected the 1932 constitution, and
returned
Haiti to a state approaching normalcy.
In August 1946, presidential elections
were
held. Dumarsais Estimé, an Artibonite
noir, was declared the winner, a Te Duem
was
said in his honor, and the Garde went back to the barracks.
Estimé enacted a new constitution in
November. The Garde was redesignated
"L'Armée
d'Haiti" and its police functions were theoretically separated from the
military
functions. Estimé was a populist as well as a noir, and
he nationalized the Standard Fruit
holdings
as well as instituted an income tax for
the elite. He also was seen as a threat
by
Trujillo,
who worked steadily to destabilize him.
Estimé declared a state of siege in
1949 because of the threat from the Dominican
Republic. Faced with a loss of income from the
Standard Fruit nationalization and other
causes,
he suddenly required every worker to buy government bonds redeemable in 1959,
which
proved immensely unpopular. So did
Estimé's efforts to be reelected President
despite
a constitutional prohibition against presidents succeeding themselves. His
attempt
at modifying the constitution was blocked in Haitian Senate, even though the
attempt
was popular with the masses. Finally,
the army, with rioting groups supporting
both
sides of the position in the streets, faced Estimé and told him he had resigned
on 10
May
1950.
Initially, Colonel Franck Lavaud was
the new President, but Colonel Paul
Magloire,
initially declared the Minister of the Interior in the new junta, was the real
power
in the group. New national elections
were declared on 3 August, and Magloire
resigned
from the junta to run for President. He
was opposed by the Communist Party
and
an architect who wanted to execute Estimé
Elections on 10 October finalized
Magloire's
presidency, although the commentary at the time felt it reflected the popular
opinion
of most Haitians.81
In the end, however, Magloire fell
prey to the fatal disease of all Haitian elected
Presidents: the desire to hold on after his term of
office would expire. Magloire
attempted
a coup against himself--he resigned as President and, as commander in chief of
the
army, declared himself chief Executive Power (shades of 1915). The constitution was
suspended
and dissidents jailed. The people took
to the streets in a general strike, the
army
refused to support him, and Magloire fled to Jamaica in exile on 12 December
1956.82 Time didn't give his fall much play, the big
news that Christmas was the crushing
of
the Hungarian revolt by Soviet tanks.
Magloire's immediate successor,
Joseph Pierre-Louis, took office the same day he
left. He resigned 55 days later.
Haiti entered another riotous
election cycle. Rioters stormed schools
and attacked
mulâtres. The army--whose back pay had been
mysteriously paid by Dr. Francois
Duvalier,
an old follower of Estimé--attempted to gain control under Colonel Armand.
Opposed
by loyalist elements, the coup failed.
Rioting and looting prevailed in Port au
Prince.
On 26 May 1957, a Pierre Fignolé was
inaugurated as President. He didn't last
long. The man he appointed head of the Army turned
on him and demanded his
signature
on a letter of resignation on 14 June.
Fignolé was dead two days later.
Duvalier
was steadily gaining support in the army and in the country as well. On 22
September,
Francois Duvalier, was elected President in a ratio of three votes to two.83
Part II
An Analysis of the Occupation
Looking at the bleak history of the
Occupation and its aftermath, There are a
number
of questions that come to mind. Did it
accomplish anything? Did anything it
accomplished
amount to anything? If the answers to
the first two questions are yes, what
happened
to Haiti? The Occupation was scarcely
over before Haiti seemed to revert to its
bad
old ways.
Goals of the Occupation.
There is little written what the
United States' goals for the Occupation, and
it
is not difficult to find those commentators who denounce the entire occupation
as a
racist
exercise in imperialism by the United States.84 One of the few hints about actual
goals
is Sumner Well's memorandum for
President Harding, talking about the lack of
progress
in the occupation based on what was stated in the 1915 Haitian-American Treaty
(Annex
C, Appendix 16).
The 1915 Haitian-American Treaty is
often denounced as an ex post facto Treaty
that
served only to justify the American occupation.85 It was certainly after the fact, and
it
was often cited as if it were a moral contract that must be accomplished before
the
Occupation
could end. However, as a statement of
goals, it does offer some insight into
what
the United States hoped to accomplish through the Occupation (Annex C, Appendix
6).
I.
Finances. "...(T)he United
States will . . . aid the Haitian Government in the
proper
and efficient development of its agriculture, mineral and commercial resources
and
in the establishment of the finances of Haiti on a first and solid
basis." (Article I)
This
was to be accomplished through the mechanism of the appointment of a General
Receiver
to collect and spend Haiti's customs duties for it. The General Receiver would
be
assisted by a Financial Advisor.
(Article II) Haiti would agree
that the General
Receiver
would receive all customs duties from Haiti.
(Article III). The Financial
Advisor
would "collate, classify, arrange and make full statement of" all of
Haiti's debts,
to
include all of their financial obligations.
(Article IV) These customs
duties collected
will
first pay the salaries of the appointed Americans, then pay off the public
debt, third,
pay
for a constabulary as specified later in the Treaty, and finally, meet the
expenses of
the
Haitian Government. (Article V) Haiti could not increase its pubic debt
without the
agreement
of the United States. (Article
VIII)
II.
Security. Haiti agreed to an
American officered and organized constabulary,
which
Haiti would pay for. (Article X)
III. Resources. In response to
American "aid [to] the Haitian Government in the
proper and efficient development of its
agriculture, mineral and commercial resources,
the
Haitians agreed to not give or sell any of Haiti's territory (Article XI),
settle all claims
with
the United States (Article XII), and develop its resources with the assistance
of the
United
States. (Article XIII)
In return, the United States agreed
to help preserve Haitian independence and
maintain
a Government "adequate for the protection of life, property and individual
liberty." (Article XIV). The treaty was to run for ten years, and for a further ten if
"for
specific
reasons presented by either of the . . . parties, the purpose of this treaty
has not
been
fully accomplished." (Article XVI)
Article XVI (and the Treaty extension of 1917)
is
the origin of the obligation of the United States to stay until 1936, which was
mentioned
repeatedly in debates about the Haitian Occupation in the 1930's, came from.
The financial situation that the
Americans found in 1915 was awful.
Haiti had
borrowed
so much money that its debt service was threatening to overload its
budget.
However,
even when they were paying off their debt service, the Haitian would rather
take
out further loans rather than cut back on current expenses. By the time the
Occupation
began, according to testimony given at the 1921-22 Senate investigations,
Haiti
was unable to borrow any more money, or pay off the debts it had already taken
on.
As
was noted in Part I, World War I's effect on the World financial markets
precluded a
major
consolidation loan for Haiti until 1922.
However, as was presented to the Senate in
1922,
some progress had been made in reducing the debt burden in the years up to
1922
(Annex
B). Near the end of the Occupation,
General Russell's annual report stated
At the end of the fiscal year, 1928-29, the Government of
Haiti had
an
unobligated cash balance of more than $4,000,000. Bonded
indebtedness
had decreased from $30,772,000 to $17,735,479, in spite of
the
contraction of new loans, 1922, 1923, and 1924, totaling $22,695,000
[the
debt consolidation loans] utilized chiefly to refunded previous bonded
indebtedness,
and satisfy claims against the Government, but also to effect
material
improvements.
Government revenues have more than doubled, chiefly
through
better
collections and yields of existing taxes enabling the various
department
of the Government to undertake the greatest program for
public
welfare the country has ever seen.
Internal revenue has been
increased,
yielding over $1,200,000 during the year just finished, or more
than
one-fourth the total receipts of thirteen years ago (1915-16) and
further
important increases are forecast. A
sound currency has been
achieved.86
While the Great Depression caused
serious government deficits in the early
thirties,
and therefore caused the curtailment of many developmental programs, Haiti was
still
in good enough shape in 1935 to be the only one of fifteen Central and South
American
countries not to have defaulted on public dollar bonds.87
Article X of the 1915
Haitian-American Treaty provided for an American
organized
and officered constabulary funded through Haitian customs revenue. As noted
in
Annex A, Appendix 3, it was first renamed the Garde d'Haiti in 1928 and again,
after
the
Occupation, renamed the L'Armée d'Haiti.
Despite its relatively small size--some
2100
enlisted gendarmes in a country of 3.5 million--it had served Haiti, and the
Occupation
well.
To begin with, it had replaced a
pre-Occupation army "of thirty-eight (38) line
and
four (4) artillery regiments of a total paper strength of over 9,000, a
Gendarmerie of
over
1,800, plus four regiments of the President's guard, the whole officered by 308
generals
and 50 colonels, not to mention the honorary generals created by the President
pro
tem among his friends."88 In addition to being a drain on the treasury, a
source of
corruption,
and a burden on the civil society (business people pressed to supply money,
draft
animals; a system of conscription more resembling impressment, etc.), the army
was
a
constant threat of insurrection or coups d'etat against the sitting government.
Michel
Oreste
was the first truly civilian president of Haiti.89
As was shown in Part I, the
Gendarmerie/Guarde quickly proved a useful tool of
the
Haitian Government, even if some Occupation leaders had reservations over their
use
(viz.,
locking the Haitian Senate out of their chambers in 1916, closing the Haitian
legislature
in 1917), although, admittedly, these early actions served the Occupation as
well
as the Dartiguenave presidency. The
Marine Corps, as might be expected, would
argue
that the establishment and maintenance of order was generally good for
Haiti.90
Many
other observers (but not all) would
agree, including a British minister who had
little
other good to say about the Americans and their Occupation: "What has America
done
for Haiti in the fourteen years since the intervention? Primarily, maintained peace
and
allowed the peasant to work in safety."91
The main shortcoming in the American
institution of the Gendarmerie/Garde was
the
failure to effectively separate the military function of the guard from the
police
function;92
this would have severe implications not only during the Duvalier years, but up
through
to the ouster of Aristide and the Second United States Occupation of
Haiti. To
its
credit, the United States did not use the Garde as a vehicle to set up a
pro-American
military
dictator such as Somoza in Nicaragua or Trujillo in the Dominican Republic;
however,
the centralized organization of the Garde and, to an extent, its
professionalism,
allowed
it to be used more effectively by Duvalier and his successors.93
In addition to its police and military functions (which included
Coast Guard and
prisons),
the Gendarmerie/Garde also served as the principle builder of Haitian
infrastructure
and at one time or another built Haitian internal communications (telephone
and
telegraphs, roads and airfields), fire services in Port au Prince and Cap
Haitien, traffic
control
as well as vehicle registration, communal administration, and public works
construction.94
As noted in part 1, claims against
the Haitian government--in excess of 70,000
separate
claims--were paid off in 1923. As far
as natural resources went, Russell reported
in
1930 that Haiti still was dependent on the coffee crop, and the coffee crop of
1928-29
suffered
from poor weather. As a means of
diversification, sisal plantations were started
on
land abandoned to cultivation, a pineapple plantation and cannery started, and
corn
and
other new crops started.10 However, the
Depression reduced the coffee price by 40
per
cent between 1930 and 1935; logwood exports went nowhere by 1935; the pineapple
company,
rolling by 1932, was also killed by the Depression. On top of that 1935 was a
year
of severe weather. To compensate, the
Haitians granted a banana monopoly to
Standard
Fruit in 1935, but nationalized it--killing the golden goose--in 1947.96
The most serious failure of
resources, as shown in Part I, was the failure to extend
significant
education to the noir peasantry.
Despite the recognition of this factor in
Sumner
Well's memorandum in 1921, almost all of the significant contributions of the
Service
Technique went to the benefit of the elite, and those students rebelled when
their
allowances
were cut. A more telling statistic
comes from General Russell's 1930 report:
"there
are almost 400,000 children of school age and the existing schools of all types
(including
national, religious and private schools) can only accommodate slightly more
than
100,000 students."12 The 100,000
number included all of the elite's children, the
shortfall
fell entirely upon the noir peasantry.
American success in providing Haiti
with a government "adequate for the
protection
of life, property and individual liberty," is problematical. On one hand, three
of
the four peaceful transitions of power up to the end of the Occupation occurred
during
the
Occupation. On the other, the
Occupation acquiesced in the Presidents Dartiguenave and
Borno
operating from the Constitution's Transitory Articles, and the closing of the
Haitian
Senate in 1916 and the Chamber of Deputies in 1917, until Roy took office and
legislative
elections were held in October, 1930.
The constitution itself, written in
Haiti, modified by the US State Department and
thrown
to a national referendum when it appeared the Chamber of Deputies would not
approve
it, has been criticized on a number of issues, most notably the provision, new
in
1918,
allowing foreigners to own property (particularly land) in Haiti.98 However, a
major
area of disagreement between the United States and the Haitian governments in
1922,
was a Haitian law "interpreting" this constitutional provision in
such a way that the
article
was all but nullified.99 It is also
interesting to note that neither the amendments to
that
constitution passed during President Borno's administration in 1927, nor the
1932
constitution
written during the Haitianization period removed this provision.100
Imperialism
and Racism.
As noted above, the United States
Occupation of Haiti in 1915 to 1934 has been
accused
of both imperialism (or colonialism) and racism. Both charges have a bearing on
an
analysis of the Occupation and need to be addressed. Of the two, imperialism
probably
rates the shorter answer.
If Imperialism (or colonialism) is
the long term taking over of a country or region
for
the purpose of economic
exploitation, then the Occupation,
however dubious its
status
in international law of the time or by political standards of the end of the
20th
Century,
was not Imperialism. The period of the
Occupation was fixed by Treaty,
however
ex post facto it may have been, and American officials appear to have had every
intention
of abiding by its limits. In any case,
as discussed in Part I, other factors
prevented
the US Occupation from reaching its stated treaty limit of 1936.
Another line of investigation that
could be followed is the opportunities the
Occupation
gave the United States business community in Haiti. It is true that the
German
business community was for all intents and purposes shut down in Haiti in
1917-18,
but that was more due to war paranoia that to present an opening to the United
States
business community.101 Franklin
Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy,
and
John McIlhenny, then financial Advisor to Haiti, apparently sought out some
sort of
financial
investments in Haiti in the 1917-19 time frame, assisted by Roosevelt's cousin
Harry,
who was serving with the Gendarmerie at the time. Although apparently nothing
came
to fruition, it was a surprising breach of government ethics, even for
1917.102 Other
investment
opportunities simply did not materialize.
Both Standard Oil and the United
Fruit
Company declined to invest in Haiti at the time because of State Department
investment
regulations.
However, with the United States
controlling Haitian customs, it was apparently
easy
to abrogate an 1907 Franco-Haitian commercial convention, to favor American
imports. The National City Bank did float the Series
A, B, and C loans for Haiti in
1922-23,
and the Banque Nationale was by then a subsidiary of the National City Bank,
from
which the bank profited.103 However,
the National City Bank was induced to sell
out
its interest to Haiti for a bare $1 million in 1936, when President Vincent
nationalized
the Banque.104
Perhaps the most critical evaluation
that might honestly be made of the
Occupation
is that
[it] was a matter of US self-interest. It was not principally and
exclusively
a philanthropic act because after US troops landed in Haiti, it
took
much pressure from local dissidents and American sympathizers to
force
the occupation troops to withdraw (Weatherly [U. G., Haiti: An
Experiment
in Pragmatism. The American Journal of
Sociology, Vol. 32,
No.
3 (1926), pp. 353-66], 1926: 354). The
public statements made by the
White
House and the State Department that the United States came to
rescue
a friendly neighbor in trouble were purely whitewashing
propaganda
created for international and national consumption (Buell [R.
L. The American Occupation of Haiti (New
York: Foreign Policy
Association,
1929), 1929: 341). The occupation was
instead a strict
application
of the Monroe Doctrine that viewed the Caribbean as mare
nostrum.105
Racism is a much more difficult
issue to address, particularly because of what one
author
called "the American racial mores of the day"106 have changed so
dramatically
since
1915. Nevertheless, the case that the
Americans conducted their Occupation with
severe
racial prejudices is based on three basic arguments or sets of evidence: language
used
by the Americans, testimony of racial prejudice by Haitian citizens, and an
allegation
that Marine Corps policy deliberately selected Southerners for duty in Haiti,
"because
they can handle Negroes."
The chief villain in the racist
language argument is Colonel (later Major General)
Littleton
W. T. Waller, USMC (1856-1926). As the
first commander of the Marine
Brigade
pacifying and garrisoning Haiti, he might be expected to have set a tone for
the
conduct
of the Occupation. Waller was of the
old Marine Corps, when it was referred to
as
America's "colonial infantry."
He was a veteran of the Spanish-American War, served
in
the Boxer Rebellion, commanded the Marine Battalion on Samar, and commanded
brigades
in interventions in Cuba and Mexico before the landing in Haiti.
Colonel Waller was born into a
slave-holding family in Virginia before the Civil
War. A family who lost eleven members, ten of
them children, in the Nat Turner Slave
Rebellion
in 1831.107 Waller was also infamous as
the "Butcher of Samar." In
January
1902,
while commanding the Marine Battalion (as was customary in those days, the
battalion
was provisional and otherwise undesignated), Waller allegedly ordered the
murder
of eleven natives on Samar, one of a number of atrocity cases that arose out of
the
Philippine
Insurrection. Waller was
court-martialed for murder in March 1902 and was
eventually
acquitted.108
Writing Colonel (later Major General
Commandant) John A. Lejeune, then
Assistant
to the Major General Commandant of the Marine Corps, in October 1915,
Waller
remarked, "you can never trust a nigger with a gun." Hans Schmidt quotes this
remark
twice in his The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934 and once in
Maverick
Marine, a biography of Smedley Butler, in building his case on the role of
American
racism in the Occupation of Haiti.109
Elizabeth Abbott, in Haiti: The
Duvaliers
and Their Legacy, uses the phrase to characterize the entire US Occupation.110
Waller
probably was a racist--given his background and history this is probably an
unremarkable
conclusion--and, as Schmidt makes his case in both US
Occupation--quoting
Waller liberally--and Maverick Marine, this was certainly the
manner
in which Waller spoke on a regular basis.111
However, on occasion, Waller rose
above his racist prejudices: recall
from Part I
his
disagreement with shutting down the Haitian Senate even when it would serve
immediate
Occupation objectives as well as Haitian President Dartiguenave's. Waller
was
also ready to counsel his protégé Smedley Butler on curbing his behavior
towards the
elite: "There is more harm done by such an act
than can be remedied by months of work
and
labor."112 Another point to
remember is that Colonel Waller commanded 1st
Provisional Brigade of Marines for only 15 months (Annex
A, Appendix 1), and was
senior
American officer present (after Caperton's departure for Santo Domingo) only
from
May to November 1916.
A much more appropriate person for
scrutiny would be John H. Russell, twice
brigade
commander of 1st Brigade and United States High Commissioner from 1922 to
1930. If any officer's personal prejudices had a
significant influence on United States
policy
in Haiti, it would be his. Yet, to many
observers, General Russell, who spoke
rather
good French, was decidedly not a racist.
A Haitian who had no shortage of critical
remarks
about the Occupation, B. Danache, who once called Waller and Butler
"torturers
without
scruple," had kind words for both General and Mrs. Russell.113 Even critics of
the
Occupation note that General Russell "pursued a policy designed to
eliminate racial
friction."114
Finally, as we discuss language, we
must acknowledge that what constitutes
permissible
language in racial, sexual, or any other context, changes as society evolves.
Insensitive,
even brutal, racial characterizations colored the language of many white
Americans,
and not just southerners or racists, in the early part of this century, which
is
why
use of language is so inaccurate a gauge of racism. Even Smedley Butler, whose use
of
crude racial characterizations is well documented, and his wife are seen by a critic of
the
Occupation as "perhaps relatively liberal, and at least made an effort to
be polite and
gracious."115
However we characterize the official
racial tone of the Occupation, it was
certainly
seen by at least part of the Haitian population as racist. This segment was the
elite,
particularly the mulâtres. As they were
the literate class in Haiti, their opinion is
the
one on the written record. As they
spoke French, and many spoke English before the
Occupation
was through, they were the Haitians that outsiders--supporters of the
Occupation
as well as critics--sought out to talk to.
And the elite did not mince words:
"The Americans have taught us many things," Le
Nouvelliste [Port
au Prince] newspaper owner Ernest
Chauvet told author Seabrook [author
of The Magic Island, 1929]. "Among other things they have taught us
that
we are niggers. You see, we really didn't know that
before. We thought
we were negroes."116
The problem with this position is
that, despite elite perceptions otherwise, most
Americans
appear to have had separate opinions of the elite and the noir peasantry, the
former
rather negative, the latter rather positive.
One of the more noted of these separate
characterizations
is from Smedley Butler's testimony before the Senate investigating
committee
in 1921:
The Haitian people are divided into two classes; one
class wears shoes and
the
other does not. . . Those that wear
shoes I took as a joke. . . They
wore
cut-away coats, brass-head canes, stove-pipe hats 3 inches in
diameter,
and anything else they could put on to make themselves
conspicuous. But the people who were barefooted, the
women wearing
themselves
hubbards and the men dungarees half way up to their knees,
with
scarred feet, indicating the hardest kind of toil, and with great blisters
on
their hands, and with the palms of their hands as hard as a piece of sole
leather--those
people you could absolutely trust.117
Other famous Marines besides Smedley
Butler served in Haiti, particularly in the
early
years, and some of their memoirs echo Butler's characterization of the two classes
in
Haiti: A. A. Vandergrift, who served
twice in Haiti, once as Butler's adjutant, and was
later
Commandant of the Marine Corps118, or Frederick M. "Dopey" Wise,
another double
veteran
of Haiti and Chef of the Gendarmerie d'Haiti from July 1919 to January
1921.119
Memoirs
of enlisted Marines with Haitian service are more rare, but best known of
these,
The
White King of La Gonave, by Marine Sergeant and Gendarmerie Lieutenant Faustin
Wirkus,
may not offer the colorful parallels of Butler, but the general comparisons in
his
book
are much the same.120 Former Brigade
commanders Eli Cole and Russell also have
been
quoted in similar statements showing favor towards the peasantry and distrust
towards
the elite.121
To some writers, the Marine and American attitude towards the
elite constitutes
racism;
I read mostly contempt for a parasitic level of society. Even Hans Schmidt, the
most
quoted writer of the racist analysis of the Occupation, in building his case,
comes
close
to recognizing this contempt:
The cultural clash between Americans and the Haitian
elite was all
the more exacerbated because the
Americans, who subscribed to political
ideologies
of democracy and egalitarianism, were repulsed by the very
concept
of elitism and that was fundamental to the social and economic
position
of the elite in Haiti. This revulsion,
of course, ignored the
paradox
of American racial and cultural elitism.
During the early years of
the
occupation American military commanders were especially trenchant
in
this respect, scorning the aristocratic pomposity of the elite while
expressing
affection for the common people. This
attitude was firmly
rooted
in ideals of democratic egalitarianism. . .122
How the actual peasant noir felt
about this American attitude comes to us only
second
hand, the old peasant quoted in Abbott's Haiti (fn 91), for instance. Other
interpretations
come to us filtered through one political view or another, such as the
anti-Occupation
Occupied Haiti (1927) by Emily Balch:
It may be true that the peasants in general like the
Occupation. It is
possible that they are sufficiently
conscious of the benefits that have come
with it, and ascribe them
sufficiently clearly to the Americans.
One is told
that they now build their houses on
the roadside as they did not date to do
in the old days, for fear of being
seized by some revolutionary enterprise
or to serve as soldiers. Again this story is laughed at, and one is
told the
houses always stood as they do now.
It is hard to believe that given the deep-seated
traditional belief that
the return of the white men spelled
a return of slavery, and given the land
situation,
the peasants do not feel uneasy under their new white masters.123
However, there is no mistaking how
the elite felt: Americans had not
understood:
the
social experiment [that was Haiti, nothing] that calls for shame or
concealment.
. . [T]hey throw the history of Haiti
in our face--its long
tissue
of revolutions and massacres. . . .
Efforts to help the masses have
been
made again and again and in many ways, . . .
The American
invasion
might have been a good thing if, although unjust and even
infringing
for a time upon our independence, it had been temporary and
had
led ultimately to the reign of justice and liberty. But such is not the
case.
. . .
"Even the good that they do turns to our hurt, for
instead of
teaching
us, they do it to prove that we are incapable.
They are exploiters.
. ."124
Bit if the Americans had contempt
for the elite, the elite returned it in kind:
"But it is a grand joke, isn't it?" Chauvet
continued. 'The sergeant's
wife
or the captain's, who maybe did her own washing at home, is our
social
superior and would feel herself disgraced to shake hands with any
nigger. Why, many of those white Marine Corps people
couldn't have
entered
my mulatto father's house except by the servants' entrance."125
Haitian civil courts never were
controlled by the Occupation and were also
perceived
as anti-white and anti-American:
"though a black foreigner might win his case
against
a Haitian, a white man stood little chance and a white American none at
all."126
Most
curious--to me at least--is the Haitian elite's scorn towards American Blacks,
whom
they
considered servile. In 1924, the
Haitian ambassador in Washington informed the
State
Department that even the noirs looked down on American Blacks [something I
doubt,
as relatively few noirs then lived in the cities and larger towns where they
would
have
come in contact with them]. This had
serious impact on American representation in
Haiti
which, since the end of the 19th Century, had been largely black, a small legion
which
had included Ambassadors (ministers) Frederick Douglass (1889-91) and Dr. H.
W.
Furniss (1905-1913), and CPT Charles Young, 9th Cavalry, USA, the first black
American
military attaché and the first military attaché assigned to Haiti. As a result, the
President
was forced to appoint White diplomats to Haiti rather than Black
Republicans
he had wanted to reward.127
Balch repeats the elite's
accusation--repeated in turn by Schmidt (less the
prostitution)
and Abbott, that the Occupation brought about the hereto unknown
phenomenon
of public intoxication and prostitution.128
Other sources confirm the public
intoxication--as
it was Prohibition back in the United States,
Americans
tended
to take advantage of being out of the United States in that regard (much to the
disapproval
of the British, incidentally).129 As of yet, other sources do not confirm the
prostitution
charge.
While I do not doubt that many an
individual American was a racist, or at the least
used
language with nasty racial characterizations, it must be remembered that this
behavior
is being reported by a class of people who have been displaced from positions
of
power
or influence and, in many cases, income by the Occupation. The elite also feared
rising
American influence--to their disadvantage--among the noirs. This was the same
class,
through various patriotic organizations, which fed atrocity stories back to the
Nation
and other periodicals in 1919-1922, many of which were found to be exaggerated
or
without basis in fact. (Part I) Therefore, the magnitude of the reports--not
the
existence
of prejudicial behavior--must be taken with several grains of salt.
For more than 30 years, various
writers and periodicals such as Harry Franck in
Roaming
Through the West Indies (1920),130The New York Times (1920),131 Balch
(1927),132
James Leyburn in The Haitian People (1941),133 Selden Rodman in Haiti: The
Black
Republic, The Complete Story and Guide (1954),134 and even Time magazine
(1954)135
repeated as fact or alluded to a Marine Corps policy that had recruited
Southern
officers
for service in Haiti "because they can handle blacks." (Colonel Waller, true to
form,
had made a similar statement about his qualifications in a letter to Lejeune in
1916.136)
The truth of the matter is that no
such policy existed. In 1964, an
analysis by a
history
student in Wellesley College, followed up by both critics and supporters of the
Occupation--both
academic and Marine--shows, statistically that the charge is inaccurate.
In
fact, as shown in Table 1, the proportion of Southern officers to the total
number of
Marine
officers serving in Haiti varies randomly from year to year; the lack of a
pattern
or
of a fixed proportion of officers being Southern strongly suggests the lack of
policy
in
such a matter. In addition, no one has
found any documentary evidence, or personal
Table 1, Southerners in the
Population
Southern
Marine
Marine Southern Southern Marines
Year U.
S. Population1 Population2 in Haiti3 Populaiton4 Marines5 in Haiti6
1910
92,228,531 24.28
1916
328 77 22.56 19.48
1917 372
72 24.73 31.94
1918
1919 1767
59 20.43 28.81
1920 106,021,431 1098 80 23.78 22.67 22.5
1921 976
75 22.54 22.66
1922 1028
88 20.82 21.59
1923 1043 118 21.57 20.34
1924 1067 109 21.56 18.35
1925 1101 119 22.16 18.49
1926 1094
94 22.21 29.79
1927 1121
97 21.23 24.74
1928 1185
90 20.84 26.67
1929 1173
80 20.72 30
1930 122,906,848 1180 88 23.44 20.51 23.86
1931 1183
87 19.7 17.24
1932 1173
77 20.03 15.58
1933
1934
1940 132,165,131 24.06
__________________________________
1 Includes total United States population for the
50 states only.
2 Includes total population of commissioned and
warrant officers of the U.S. Marine Corps, only if born in one of what are now
the 50 states.
3 Includes all United States born commissioned
and warrant officers in the U.S. Marine Corps stationed in Haiti.
4 The percentage of U.S population born in one of
the following states: Alabama,
Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia.
5 The percentage of Marine Corps Officers born in
one of the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia.
6 The percentage of Marine Corps officers in
Haiti born in one of the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia,
Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas,
Virginia.
Source:
Ann Hurst Harrington. 137
recollection,
that any such policy existed, either for First Brigade or the Gendarmerie.
Ironically,
while the majority of Marine officers serving in Haiti were not Southern, many
of
President Wilson's appointees
were. Except for the possible exception
of John
McIlhenny,
who had awful personal relations with President Dartiguenave, most of these
men
acquitted themselves well.138
Analysis of the racial situation,
based on all of the above, is of an Occupation that
had
no officially racist policy, perhaps even one discouraging racist behavior and
word
during
the Russell years, yet due to the racist attitudes of individuals--both
American and
the
Haitian elite--the general social climate in Haiti's cities was, at times, very
racially
charged. However, amongst the noirs in the countryside,
those Americans who had
regular
contact with them through the Gendarmerie and other means, with exceptions,
generally
shared feelings of affection and mutual respect with the people they were in
contact
with.
Culture.
In 1930, President Hoover's Forbes
Commission, amongst its findings, included
"The
failure of the Occupation to understand the social problems of Haiti, its
brusque
attempt
to plant democracy there by drill and harrow, its determination to set up a
middle
class--however
wise and necessary it may seem to Americans--all these explain why, in
part,
the high hopes of our good works in this land have not been
realized."139 This is
probably
the major failing of the Occupation, and when one wonders why the effects of
the
Occupation were so short lived, this is why.
The Occupation addressed problems and
applied
solutions that simply did not apply to Haiti.
One must remember that for the bulk
of its first century of freedom, Haiti was an
isolated
country, partially because the United States wanted little contact with a free
Black
country, and partially because the Haitians wanted the blancs to have no excuse
to
reestablish
slavery. This led to a peculiarly
insular Haitian society and a peculiarly
Haitian
method of transferring power and governing the country. It had also been a poor
country
for all of its history since independence and this led to intense competition
for the
riches
of the country. This fed a competition
for power in Haiti, for it was those in power
who
disbursed the riches.
Initially, the elite--made up of the
mulâtres descended from the French
colonialists--had
the easiest access to power through education, social position and
birthright. For the noir, the route to power led through
the military, and by the beginning
of
the 20th Century this had become so routine that American officers observed
that
"there
is a regular procedure in this warfare" that one Senator likened to
American
elections.140 A ritual battle would be fought near the
town of Saint-Marcs, and the
challenger
to the Presidency, if he won, marched on Port au Prince, and was voted into
the
Presidency. In most cases, the new
President then disbursed the spoils of his victory
until
challenged by a new power. The military
noirs thus became part of the elite.
Through all this squabbling for
power, the peasantry, exclusively noir, stood by,
struggling
to provide a living for themselves and their families, and, if they
participated
Click
here to view image
in
the process at all, it was in being exploited or killed. It was this situation the
Americans
sought to change through the imposition of a new constitution and the orderly
installation
of several Presidents. The class of
Haitians who temporarily lost power and
income
through this process--the elite--resisted.
Many of the American reforms were in
the
long run essentially pointless. Putting
Haitian finances to rights and
restoring their
credit,
to which a great deal of effort was eventually expended (Annex B; Annex C,
Appendix
17), was of little interest to the elite.
Their accounts had never been that
important
to them, except as a source of graft.
Increased credit meant nothing more than
increased
opportunity for future graft.
An improved Gendarmerie, intended as
a source of public order during the
Occupation,
was, after the Occupation, quickly politicized and became an efficient tool
for
forcing the transfer of power. It was
much more efficient than the corruption-plagued
pre-Occupation
Haitian Army that had so lost any efficiency that private armies--the
Cacos--had
become more effective in forcing the transfer of power.
Improved agriculture techniques and
education for the noir peasantry were
resisted
by the elite because anything that enfranchised the peasantry increased the
competition
for the power and the riches. However,
many peasants resisted agricultural
reforms
simply because they were new and untried in Haiti, and in many cases they were
right
in resisting inappropriate agricultural methods. Improved medical facilities for the
peasantry
were only a source of plunder for the elite,142 the elite had their own
hospitals
and
doctors.
One glaring example of the American
inability to grasp the Haitian culture was
the
Occupation's allowing the Borno presidency to use the Gendarmerie to persecute
practitioners
of Voodoo. The Americans were persuaded
that Voodoo was witchcraft,143
even
though individual Americans, serving with the Gendarmerie for example, were
perfectly
capable of understanding Voodoo's role as a religion.144
In some ways those who accuse the
Americans of racism have a point: many
of
the
American administrators--Marine and civilian--were incapable of understanding
that
Haitians
were a culture completely different from the Black culture that they had been
accustomed
to in the United States and thought they knew; witness Colonel Wise
complaining
about "one of those American Treaty Officials arrived with a book entitled
'The
Development of the Negro Mind,' from which he quoted on all occasions!"145
Despite all the good intentions,
despite the years of hard work, despite the lives
lost
or ruined, the Occupation failed to have a lasting impact on Haiti (except
perhaps in
legend),
because the areas the Occupation sought to improve were not those areas that
would
fundamentally alter Haitian society.
Part III
The Never-ending Story
Without going into the Duvaliers and
what led to the Second United States
Occupation
of Haiti, some observations about the fall of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the
Second
Occupation, and the recent turn-over of the pacification effort to the United
Nations,
based on my research on the First Occupation are offered.
The military coup that overthrew
Aristide was nothing special in Haitian politics.
United
States political actors and events made it so.
While the election that brought
Aristide
to power was nominally democratic, it does not mean that Haiti was a
democratic
country subsequently overthrown by a military coup. The elections were
simply
a new means of seizing power, and therefore the riches, in Haiti and was
probably
viewed
by the elite--and Aristide--and no more valid, or less valid, a method than
marching
on Port au Prince at the head of a Caco army.
Haiti is a more violent country than
it was prior to the First Occupation.
Part of
this
is because the Duvaliers politicized the noir peasantry more than his
predecessors,
and
those seizing power must either organize them or suppress them. Aristide organized
the
peasantry, Cedras suppressed them. It
is still all part of the struggle for power in
Haiti.
Aristide was able to bring a new
player into the struggle for power in Haiti--the
United
States, acting this time as an agent for Aristide instead of itself. The departure of
the
United States, particularly if the United Nations is unable to maintain order,
will
simply
renew the struggle for power.
Change to a different political
system will not occur in Haiti unless either the
culture
of seizing political power and therefore riches changes, or one of the parties
departs
the scene. Neither seems likely. Absent Aristide, the elite--still mulâtre
although
with
a strong noir, primarily military, component--will resume the struggle for
power and
riches
amongst itself.
The noir peasantry, who a hundred
years ago fled to the hills to escape oppression
or
exploitation, however, now has nowhere to go.
The lush forests that Smedley Butler
fought
through are largely gone for lumber, fuel, or charcoal. Charcoal is often the only
cash
crop the noir peasantry has access to.
Forests, which covered about 60 per cent of
Haiti
in 1923, now cover only 3 per cent. The
coffee trees, that provided the crop that
John
Russell and his advisors were so worried about Haitian dependence on, have gone
for
charcoal with the most recent U.S. embargo.
The farmland, of which originally only
11
percent of the country was even considered suitable, has mostly washed away, no
longer
held to the ground by the trees.146
The chances for Haitian migration
are largely gone. These is probably
little more
room
in the Dominican Republic for any more illegal workers; Cuba has not been a
source
of employment since Castro came to power; the United States has cut off illegal
migrations
during the Aristide crisis.
The
question is becoming, given the lack of real political reform in Haiti
(Aristide
in
power will soon be indistinguishable from the elite); given the destruction of
the
Haitian
economy--which the American embargo hastened, but didn't cause; given the
prospects
for no end to the oppression of the noir peasantry; given the lack of a safety
valve
so these people can escape; when will
these people explode?
Annexes
Annex
A: The US Marine Corps' Military
Campaigns in the First United States
Occupation
of Haiti.
The day after the mob attacked
Guillaume Sam and dragged his body through the
streets, Admiral Caperton landed troops to restore
order.147
Under command of Capt. George Van
Orden, USMC, the Cruiser Squadron
Marine
Officer, a two-battalion landing force composed of three companies of seamen,
12th
Company of Marines (earlier detached from 2nd Regiment), and the Marine
detachment
from the Washington, was landed at 5:45pm.
The landing force cleared the
streets
from the harbor to the foreign legations and established guards there. The 12th
Company
furnished most of the guards, while the remainder of the landing force
bivouacked
nearby.148 The 24th Company,
transported from Guantanamo, Cuba,
reinforced
the landing force the following day.149
Caperton
radioed for a regiment of Marines on the 28th.150 Col. John A. Lejeune,
Assistant
to the Commandant and, in the temporary absence of the Major General
Commandant,
Acting Commandant, detached the 2nd Regiment from the Advanced Base
Brigade
in Philadelphia and dispatched it to Haiti aboard the battleship USS
Connecticut
(BB-18)
within 24 hours of notification. In his
memoirs, Lejeune stated that the
necessary
arrangements took an hour to accomplish over the phone. A week later,
Caperton
requested further reinforcements and Lejeune dispatched 1st Regiment on the
armored
cruiser USS Tennessee (CA-10) (often reported as a battleship, even in
contemporary
sources) as the requested reinforcements, and the Advanced Base Brigade
headquarters
under Col. Littleton W. T. Waller to take charge. Admiral Caperton would
be
the senior American officer present in Haiti, Col. Waller became the senior
American
officer
ashore.151
Second Regiment, commanded by Colonel Eli
Cole, landed at Port au Prince on 4
August
1915. The next day, Col. Cole, 2nd
Regiment, and the Washington landing party
persuaded
the Haitian commander of Fort Nationale, Port au Prince, to surrender his
command
to the Marines. Fourteen cannon, 450
rifles, and a million rounds of
ammunition
were captured with the fort. The
garrison and other Haitian troops in Port au
Prince
were detained for a time at the old Dessaline Barracks.152 On 8 August, the
Haitian
gunboat Nord Alexis arrived at Port au Prince from Cap Haitien, with 766
Haitian
soldiers
to be demobilized by Marines. After
putting 30 of the most destitute into the
hospital,
the Marines paid off the remainder at 10 gourdes (about $2.00) a head. The
soldiers
were apparently quite delighted at the deal (Caperton described them later as
destitute
and with nothing to eat) and apparently happy to go, although some thought they
had
to bribe their way out of the Navy Yard, and offered some of their bounty to
the
Marine
sentries.153
First
Regiment (Col. Theodore P. Kane), Colonel Waller, a signal company and
Headquarters,
1st Brigade arrived in Port au Prince on 15 August 1915. Colonel Cole
took
command of First Regiment (Col. Kane took over Second Regiment) and took it to
Cap
Haitien, landing about 18 August. The
Artillery Battalion (at the time the only
artillery
battalion organized as such in the Marine Corps), equipped with 12 3-inch
landing
guns and two 4.7-inch heavy field guns were landed on 31 August after a return
trip
to the United States by the USS Tennessee.154
Col. Waller's campaign guidance was
written
by Admiral Caperton (Annex C, Appendix 3).
Martial law was proclaimed by
Admiral
Caperton in Port au Prince and vicinity on 3 September 1915.155
In accordance with Admiral
Caperton's instructions to Colonel Waller, 2nd
Regiment
secured Port au Prince and its environs, while Colonel Cole and 1st Regiment
occupied
Cap Haitien on the northern coast.
After initial expectations of an attack on Cap
Haitien
from the local Caco bands did not materialize, local patrolling began. The
landing
of the USS Connecticut battalion (composed of seamen equipped as infantry),
allowed
Colonel Cole to send 19th Company by sea to Port de Paix on 24 August as the
first
step in spreading control along the northern coast. A military government was
proclaimed
in Cap Haitien under Colonel Cole on 1 September 1915.156
At this time, Major Smedley D.
Butler, battalion commander of 1st Battalion, 1st
Regiment,
reported on various operations to both, or either, Colonel Cole, his regimental
commander,
and Colonel Waller, the brigade commander.
On one such operation
reporting
to Colonel Waller, Butler and his
adjutant, First Lieutenant A. A. Vandergrift,
took
ship to Gonaives, where Butler took commander of a tiny ad hoc battalion
consisting
of
7th Company and the Marine detachment of the USS Castine (PG-6), a total of
five
officers
and 104 Marines, counting Butler and Vandergrift. Butler's mission was to open
the
rail line (which no longer appears on modern maps) to the interior town of
Ennery,
approximately
30 kilometers inland.
Butler's problem was a Caco chief
named Rameau, a "General, in command of a
rabble
of thieves and vagabonds, squatting in the surrounding bushes," whom he
notified,
when
he arrived in Gonaives on 20 September 1915, that he would not tolerate any
interference
with the rail line or with the food supply for Gonaives. He also told Rameau,
through
the American consul, that he wanted to meet with him to give him the warning in
person. Before the meeting could come off, however,
Butler and several squads from 7th
Company
were off chasing Cacos who had been burning the rail line. By the time he
returned
to Gonaives, 24 hours later, Butler had chased the Cacos out of their
headquarters
in a small town named Poteaux, and had a chance to warn Rameau in
person. Rameau led about 450 Cacos, who, according
to Butler's report to Waller, "not
half
of whom had serviceable rifles."
Rameau came into Gonaives the following
morning,
the 22nd, and met with Butler who again repeated his warning, and offered
Rameau
money
for his guns and men.
The morning of the 23rd, Butler and
sixty Marines boarded a small train for
Ennery. The major problems encountered on the trip
were those repairing the damage
caused
by the Cacos, and it was 9:30 at night before the train reached Ennery. After hasty
repairs
to the locomotive, the Marines headed back to Gonaives, stopping briefly at
Potceaux
to discover that Rameau and his men "had left for their homes the morning
[sic]
and
that all was quiet."157
Major
Butler returned to the north on 9 October, landing from the USS Nashville
(PG-7)
at Fort Liberté with 15th Company, 2nd Regiment and several attached officers
from
the 11th. At the same time, reinforced
elements of 13th Company
occupied
Grande Riviere from Cap Haitien. Butler
expanded his operating area south to
Ouanaminthe,
routing Cacos out of several old French forts used as bases in the area.158
At
the same time, Colonel Waller was diplomatically disarming the old Haitian
army--about
750 from Fort Liberté and Ouanaminthe.
He also tried to bring in several
Caco
chiefs in the same manner.159 The
problem was that not all the Caco chiefs were
willing
to sign agreements with Waller nor be bought off.
First Regiment was now in position
to finish the war with the Cacos. Using
Major
Butler's battalion and elements of the USS Connecticut battalion, under
Butler's
command,
the Marines were in position by the end of October 1915 to remove Caco
bases
and forts from the north country and the border area with the Dominican
Republic.
In
a campaign that stretched from 9
October to 27 November 1915, Butler, at times
working
with 5th, 11th, 13th, and 23rd Companies as well as the 15th, plus the 2nd,
3rd,
and
4th Connecticut companies, destroyed four Caco camps and seven old French forts
used
as bases by the Cacos, destroyed 122 rifles, and reported 21 Cacos killed and at
least
10 wounded.160 An assault by Lt. Edward
A. Ostermann and six Marines of 15th
Company
seized old Fort Dipitié from about two dozen Cacos on the night of 24 October
1915.161 The campaign culminated in an assault on old
Fort Riviere under the cover of
automatic
rifles and machine guns and its capture after hand to hand fighting. A ton of
dynamite
was carried by mules to the fort to destroy it after its capture. While Butler did
not
report Caco casualties in the Fort Riviere assault, others present reported at
least 30
Cacos
dead.162 Other sources quote 50 dead
Cacos. In any case, Secretary of the
Navy
Josephus
Daniels telegraphed Caperton halting further operations. The campaign was
over
anyway.163 Second Regiment, besides
garrisoning and controlling Port au Prince,
apparently
secured the southern peninsula of Haiti through vigorous patrolling and
avoided
the sharp actions 1st Regiment experienced with the Cacos.164
Three enlisted men were reported
killed in the initial occupation of Haiti and one
officer
and 13 enlisted wounded.165 Two
officers and three enlisted men were awarded
Medals
of Honor for valor in the campaign.166
Nineteen Sixteen saw a shift in the
Marine forces in Haiti and in Santo Domingo
(now
the Dominican Republic), its neighbor on the island of Hispaniola. Various
companies
from 1st and 2nd Regiments were dispatched to the Dominican Republic
during
1916. In April, in a move to
rationalize the chain of command, all units in the
Dominican
Republic were subordinated to 1st Regiment, 2nd Provisional Brigade of
Marines;
and all units in Haiti were subordinated to 2nd Regiment, 1st Provisional
Brigade
of Marines. Second Regiment from this
point on represented all or most of the
"muscle"
for 1st Provisional Brigade of Marines.167
First Marine Brigade settled into a
normal
garrison routine.168
Building on resentments over the
corvée, an impressed labor system, a Caco
general
named Charlemagne started a Caco revolt in October 1918. Initially, the new
Gendarmerie
held off the rebels, but eventually they asked for help. First Marine
Brigade
was in a low strength period--barely battalion strength by World War II
standards--but
pitched in the defense of Port au Prince and participated in the aggressive
patrolling
of the north country and the Artibonite region that followed. Charlemagne
himself
was finally killed in 1919 by two Marine sergeants attached to the Gendarmerie
leading
a patrol of 12 Gendarmes in what amounted to a Special Operation (Annex C,
Appendix
10). The rebellion lingered on in the
Artibonite region, led by Benoit
Batraville,
and included a second assault on Port au Prince, before Benoit and his
followers
were hunted down in the border country and killed in May 1920. After the
death
of Benoit, most organized resistance from the Cacos ceased, although scattered
outlaws,
as they were often characterized, were skirmished with and captured up to the
end
of 1921. The campaign required the
enlargement of the 1st Provisional Brigade of
Marines
by 50%, and saw its first deployment of aircraft.169
The routine of 1st Provisional
Brigade of Marines after the Caco revolt soon
enough
returned to the norms of Caribbean garrison life.170 The strength of the 1st
Brigade
gradually waned to half that of a modern infantry battalion as commitments in
more
important areas drew away troops and resources from Haiti, reflecting service
realities
in a "tween wars" Marine Corps hard pressed for resources (see
Appendix 1).
Throughout its service in Haiti, 1st
Brigade endured incredible personnel and
command
turmoil. As can be seen in Appendix 1,
there were 18 brigade commanders in
19
years. Second Regiment had 22
commanders in the same period. Eighth
Regiment
had
nine commanders in six years. Even
allowing for the detachment of 1st Regiment to
Dominica
in early 1916, only two of six original companies of Marines were present in
mid-1917,
joined by five new companies. Two years
later, as the Caco revolt heated up,
six
new companies were added, and 8th Regiment was formed by the end of the year.
However,
by the mid-1920s, both regiments were ghosts of their former selves and 8th
Regiment
was deactivated 31 June 1925. That the
Brigade was able to quickly respond to
the
corvée crisis in 1919, to replace Gendarmes in the Hinche-Massaide region, and
then
to
lend effective support to the Gendarmerie during the early months of the Caco
revolt
appears,
at this distance, to be little short of miraculous. That the Brigade was able to
maintain
its professionalism, training, and discipline--most of the atrocity allegations
in
1919-21
were of Marines serving as Gendarmerie officers--is a tribute to the inherent
strengths
of the Marine Corps in those leans years between the World Wars.
The 1st Brigade played a very
limited role in the civil disturbances in
October-December
1929. The sole "combat", if
it can be called that, was the so-called
"Les
Cayes Massacre" when a section of Marines, defending themselves against a
mob of
some
1500, killed 12 and wounded another 23 rioters.171
Department of State
August 15, 1934
Statement
by the Secretary of State
Haiti:
Today the withdrawal of our Marine and naval forces from
Haiti is being
completed. Under an agreement between the two Governments of August
7, 1933, the Haitian Garde, which
has been trained and partly officered by
our Marines, would be turned over to
the complete command of Haitian
officers on October 1, 1934, and our Marine and naval
forces would be
withdrawn during the month of October. However, when President
Roosevelt visited Cap Haitien July 5
last, President Vincent [of Haiti]
requested that, if at all possible,
the date for carrying out these movements
should be advanced; and President Roosevelt stated that
we would
advance the date for turnover the command of the Garde to
August 1,
instead of October, and would
withdraw our forces from Haiti in the
following
fortnight. . . 172
Companies C and D, 2nd Marines were
transferred to the United States in July
1934.
Headquarters, 2nd Marines and Company B
were deactivated.173
Appendix
1: First Provisional Brigade of Marines
There have been a number of "1st
Provisional Brigade of Marines" in the history
of
the US Marine Corps, dating back to at least 1899, usually organized for
expeditionary
purposes. The early history of "1st Marine
Regiment" follows a similar pattern.
The first permanent Marine regiments were
organized in 1913 as part of the
Advance
Base Force. 1st and 2nd Marines were
originally designated 1st and 2nd
Regiments,
Advance Base Force Brigade. However,
except for one exercise, on the
island
of Culebra with the Atlantic Fleet in early 1914, both regiments would see more
service
as expeditionary regiments.
After returning to the United States in
late 1914, after duty in Vera Cruz, Mexico,
First
and Second Regiments were reequipped as fixed and mobile (base) defense
regiments,
respectively. According to the 1915
report of the Commandant of the Marine
Corps,
1st Regiment was to reorganize and reequip with four 5-inch gun companies, a
searchlight
company, an engineer company, a mine company, and an air defense
company. Second Regiment was split between the
Advanced Base Force base at the
Philadelphia
Navy Yard, Pensacola Naval Air Station, the New Orleans naval station, and
the
USS Washington (probably the 12th Company).
The Artillery Battalion (one wonders
why
they decided to maintain an artillery battalion of three 3-inch gun batteries
when 1st
Regiment
was to have four 5-inch (fixed) gun batteries) was stationed at the Naval
Academy. Nevertheless, the entire brigade would
deploy, in stages over July and August
1915,
as infantry regiments and an artillery battalion. "The force in Haiti
includes the
technical
companies which have been engaged in advance base training in
Philadelphia.
Owing
to this interruption in the training of the fixed defense force, its efficiency
as an
advance
base organization will be materially interfered with."
First Provisional Brigade of Marines were
apparently the first significant
deployed
Marine force to use motor transport for troops and artillery. A Marine aviation
squadron
deployed to Haiti in 1919 and was
attached to 1st Brigade. The
1919
Commandant's
report states the squadron, and a detachment in Santo Domingo were
performing
a wide variety of missions:
"Offensive operations with machine guns and
bombs;
reconnoitering, photographing, and photographic map making; contact patrols
and
cooperating with ground troops; quick transmission of messages, papers, and
officers;
regular mail service between different units." The Marine squadron, under
various
designations, would remain attached to 1st Brigade until it was withdrawn in
1934.174
August
1915:
1st Provisional Brigade
3rd Company (Signal)
1st
Regiment 2nd Regiment
1st Battalion 1st
Battalion
5th
Company 15th Company
11th
Company 16th
Company
19th
Company 17th Company
23rd
Company 2nd
Battalion
2nd Battalion 7th Company
4th Company 12th
Company
6th Company 20th
Company
22nd Company 24th
Company
USS Connecticut Battalion Marine Detachment, USS 1st
Conn. Company Washington
2nd Conn. Company
3rd Conn.
Company
4th Conn. Company
Marine Detachment, USS
Connecticut
Artillery Battalion
1st Company
9th
Company
13th
Company
Reported
Marine Corps Strength in Haiti (August 1915):
88 officers, 1,941 Marines.
September
1916:
1st
Provisional Brigade of Marines
2nd
Regiment
Naval
Detachment
1
& 2 Secs, 7th Company
1
& 2 Secs, 17th Company
16th
Company
18th
Company
19th
Company
20th
Company
22nd
Company
23rd
Company
(11th & 15th Companies detached;
10th Company to return to 2nd Regiment in
November.)
Reported
Marine Corps Strength in Haiti (December 1916): 61 officers, 1,020 Marines.
June
1917:
1st Provisional Brigade of Marines
2nd
Regiment
15th
Company
19th
Company
53rd
Company
54th
Company
57th
Company
64th
Company
65th
Company
Reported
Marine Corps Strength in Haiti (December 31, 1918): 64 officers, 884 Marines
(including
Gendarmerie detachment).
June
1919:
1st Provisional Brigade of Marines
2nd
Regiment
36th
Company
53rd
Company
54th
Company
57th
Company
64th
Company
65th
Company
100th
Company
148th
Company
153rd
Company
196th
Company
197th
Company
1st
Division, Squadron E, Marine Aviation Force (attached)
Reported
Marine Corps Strength in Haiti (July 1, 1919):
98 officers, 1,526 Marines
(including
Gendarmerie detachment).
December
1919:
1st Provisional Brigade of Marines
2nd Regiment 8th
Regiment
53rd Company 36th Company
54th Company 57th
Company
62nd Company 63rd
Company
64th Company 100th
Company
153rd Company 148th
Company
197th Company 196th
Company
Squadron
E, Marine Aviation (attached)
(Redesignated 4th Air Squadron, 1 January
1921)
Reported
Marine Corps Strength in Haiti (December 31, 1919): 83 officers, 1,261
Marines
(including Gendarmerie detachment).
July
1924:
1st Provisional Brigade of Marines
2nd Regiment 8th Regiment
53rd
Company 36th Company
54th
Company 57th Company
64th
Company 63rd Company
153rd
Company 100th Company
197th
Company 148th Company
196th
Company
Observation
Squadron No. 2 (VO-2M) (attached)
(redesignated 1 March 1923)
July
1925:
1st Provisional Brigade of Marines
2nd Regiment 2nd Battalion, 2nd Regiment
36th
Company 54th Company
53rd
Company (Machine Gun)
63rd
Company
64th
Company
VO-2M
(attached)
January
1933:
1st
Marine Brigade
2nd Marines
Company
B
Company
C
Company
D
VO-9M (attached) (redesignated 1 July 1927)
Commanders
1st
Provisional Brigade of Marines
Col Littleton W. T. Waller 15 Aug 1915 - 21 Nov 1916
BrigGen Eli K. Cole 22 Nov 1916 - 27 Nov 1917
Col John H. Russell 28 Nov 1917 - 6 Dec 1918
BrigGen Albertus W. Catlin 7 Dec 1918 - 14 Jul 1919
LtCol Louis McCarty Little 15 Jul 1919 - 1 Oct 1919
Col John H. Russell 2 Oct 1919 - 14 Jan 1922
Col George Van Orden 15 Jan 1922 - 28 Mar 1922
Col Theodore P. Kane 29 Mar 1922 - 15 Nov 1923
Col William N. McKelvy 16 Nov 1923 - 21 Jan 1924
BrigGen Ben H. Fuller 21 Jan 1924 - 11 Jun 1925
Col William N. McKelvy 12 Jun 1925 - 25 Jun 1925
Col Harold C. Snyder 26 Jun 1925 - 29 Jul 1925
BrigGen Ben H. Fuller 30 Jul 1925 - 7 Dec 1925
Col John T. Myers 8 Dec 1925 - 24 Jan 1928
Col Presley M. Rixey, Jr. 25 Jan 1928 - 22 Feb 1928
Col Louis M. Gulick 23 Feb 1928 - 24 Jun 1929
Col Richard M. Cutts 25 Jun 1929 - 11 May 1931
BrigGen Louis McCarty Little 3
Jun 1931 - 15 Aug 1934
1st
Regiment
Col Theodore P. Kane 8 Aug 1915 - 15 Aug 1915
Col Eli K. Cole 16
Aug - 8 May 1916
2nd
Regiment (later, 2nd Marines)
Col Eli K. Cole 31
Jul 1915 - 15 Aug 1915
Col Theodore P. Kane 16 Aug 1915 - 30 Jun 1916
Col Eli K. Cole 1
Jul 1916 - 30 Nov 1916
LtCol Philip M. Bannon 1 Dec 1916 - 10 Jan 1918
Maj Richard S. Hooker 11 Jan 1918 - 31 Mar 1918
Maj John W. Wadleigh 1 Apr 1918 - 28 Apr 1918
LtCol Richard S. Hooker 29 Apr 1918 - 20 Jul 1919
LtCol Thomas H. Brown 21 Jul 1919 - 2 Oct 1919
Col Randolph C. Barkeley 3 Oct 1919 - 20 Oct 1921
Col George Van Orden 21 Oct 1921 - 9 Jul 1923
Col William N. McKelvy 10 Jul 1923 - 10 Jun 1925
Maj Maurice E. Shearer 11 Jun 1925 - 30 Jun 1925
Col Harold C. Snyder 1 Jul 1925 - 8 Apr 1926
Col Macker Babb 9 Apr 1926 - 30 Jun 1927
Maj Archibald Young 1 Jul 1927 - 19 Aug 1927
Col Presley M. Rixey 20 Aug 1927 - 21 May 1929
Col Richard P. Williams 22 May 1929 - 30 May 1930
Col Edward B. Manwaring 31 May 1930 - 15 May 1932
Col Harry G. Bartlett 16 May 1932 - 16 Jun 1932
Col James T. Buttrick 17 Jun 1932 - 27 Dec 1933
Col Eli T. Fryer 28
Dec 1933 - 31 May 1934
Maj Samuel P. Budd 1 Jun 1934 - 15 Aug 1934
8th
Regiment
LtCol Thomas M. Clinton 17 Dec 1919 - 4 Jan 1920
LtCol Louis McCarty Little 5 Jan 1920 - 28 Jul 1920
LtCol Thomas M. Clinton 28 Jul 1920 - 19 Sep 1920
LtCol Louis McCarty Little 20 Sep 1920 - 30 Apr 1921
Col Dickinson P. Hall 1 May 1921 - 9 Apr 1923
Col James T. Bootes 9 Apr 1923 - 29 Apr 1923
LtCol Harry R. Lay 30 Apr 1923 - 30 May 1923
Col James T. Bootes 31 May 1923 - 20 Jul 1924
Col Harold C. Snyder 24 Jul 1924 - 31 Jun 1925
Artillery
Battalion
Maj Robert H. Dunlap 15 Aug 1915 - 17 May 1916
1st
Division, Squadron E, Marine Aviation Force (later 4th Air Squadron, VO-2M, and
VO-9M)
Capt. Harvey B. Sims 22 Feb 1919 - 30 Nov 1919
Capt Roy S. Geiger 1 Dec 1919 - 20 Jan 1921
Capt Arthur H. Page, Jr. 21 Jan 1921 - 28 Mar 1921
Maj Francis T. Evans 29 Mar 1921 - 4 Mar 1923
Capt. Louis M. Bourne 5 Mar 1923 - 12 Nov 1925
Maj Roy S. Geiger 13 Nov 1925 - 8 Jul 1927
Capt. Russell A. Presley 9 Jul 1927 - 28 Aug 1928
Maj Francis T. Evans 29 Aug 1928 - 2 Jul 1930
Maj James E. Davis 3 Jul 1930 - 15 May 1932
Maj James T. Moore
16 May 1932 - 15 Aug 1934175
Appendix
2: Ships of the 1915 Haitian Campaign..
Ship
Name Pennant Type Comments
United
States Ships176
USS
Connecticut* BB-18 Pre-Dreadnaught
Battleship
USS
Washington** CA-11 Armored Cruiser renamed USS Seattle,
November
1916
USS
Tennessee CA-10 Armored Cruiser renamed USS Memphis,
May 1916
USS
Castine PG-6 Gunboat
USS
Nashville PG-7 Gunboat
USS
Marietta PG-15 Gunboat
USS
Sacrament PG-19 Gunboat
USS
Eagle none Converted
Yacht
USS
Jason AC-12 Collier (Coal carrier)
USS
Osceola AT-48 Tug
USS
Solace AH-2 Hospital
Ship
Haitian
Ships177
Nord Alexis unknown Gunboat fate
unknown
if any
Pacifique unknown Gunboat Blown
ashore, August
if any 1915
_________________________________
*Not
believed assigned to Cruiser Squadron, US Atlantic Fleet, 1915.
**Flagship,
Rear Admiral William B. Caperton, Cruiser Squadron, US Atlantic Fleet.
Appendix
3: The Gendarmerie (Garde) d'Haiti,
1916-1934.
For the United States, the easiest
part of the Haitian-American Treaty to
implement
would be the requirement for an American-officered constabulary to establish
law
and order in Haiti. This would become
known as the Gendarmerie d'Haiti
From the documentary evidence, the
actual Gendarmerie Agreement appeared to
be
in some period of negotiation between the United States and Haiti. An original
English-language
draft, for example, set forth a requirement for 1,296 Gendarmes178,
while
the final document required 2100 (Annex C, Appendix 7). Additionally, the
American
officers in the original document would report to the Haitian Secretary of
State
for
the Interior, in the final document they report to the President of Haiti.
While the Gendarmerie agreement was
not officially signed until August 1916,
the
documentary evidence shows that the United States was actively recruiting and
organizing
a Gendarmerie in December 1915 and January 1916, using Article X of the
American-Haitian
Treaty as their authority (Annex C, Appendix 7). (The Gendarmerie
Agreement
would be renegotiated at least twice before the end of the Occupation (Annex
C,
Appendices 14 and 18)). By 1 February,
1916, the first Chef of the Gendarmerie,
Smedley
Butler and Colonel Waller felt they were in a position to take over the law
enforcement
mission.
The organization of the Gendarmerie
was completed by October 1916, and a total
of
117 Gendarmerie posts were established throughout the country. Four Gendarmerie
districts
were established in the country, consisting of Port au Prince, the Cape, the
Artibonite,
and the South. Eighteen Gendarmerie
companies were raised and were
roughly
divided amongst the four districts.
What amounted to a battalion (1st, 4th, and
17th
companies) garrisoned Port au Prince.179
A small coast guard of six officers,
eight petty officers, and 30 seamen was
authorized
by the original agreement. By 1921, a
force of four former-US Navy
submarine
chasers (relatively small, wooden patrol boats with a nominal anti-submarine
capability
[probably removed for the Haitians]) was in operation.180
Haitians were recruited as
volunteers, clothed in uniforms supplied by the Marine
Corps,
and provided with surplus American weapons (Krag rifles by most reports).
While
Butler would brag to the Senate investigating committee in 1921 that he was
able
to
recruit the best men in Haiti for the Gendarmerie, he was also forced to admit
that
initially
he had problems with disease in the ranks ("95 percent of them had blood
diseases
and 85 percent had intestinal worms") that had to be eradicated before the
troops
could
be effective.181
The Caco revolt of 1918-20 was the
Gendarmerie's first major crisis, and one
might
argue its finest hour. The initial Caco attacks initially fell on Gendarmerie
posts,
and
there are many reports of outnumbered gendarmes loyally defending their posts,
often
successfully, and in some cases bravely protecting their wounded Marine
officers. 182
Limited
offensive operation, particularly in the Artibonite, were conducted by small
Gendarmerie
units and their Marine offices. 183 Eventually, however, the Marine Brigade
had
to be called in to assist in a problem that had grown out of control.
Major A.S. Williams, Butler's
successor, was the man who had outlawed the
corvee'
(it was certain officers ignoring this order that led, in part to the
investigations of
1920-22
and, in some Marines' opinions, one of the primary causes of the Caco
revolt.)184
Colonel
Frederick M. ("Dopey") Wise, Williams, successor, found that the
Gendamerie
at
the height of the Caco revolt had been pretty much worn down and out:
I found
the Gendarmes in Port au Prince well drilled, well
uniformed, well armed. They had been the show troops of
my
predecessors. But outside of Port au Prince they were in
bad shape. Their
uniforms were in rags. Most of then were barefooted. Their rifles were a
joke. They were discarded Krags, most of them with the
sights knocked
off. If they hit a house at point-blank range with those
weapons they were
doing well. Their barracks were tumble-down. Their morale
was pretty
low..185
Colonel
Wise got money from the financial advisor for uniforms, barracks, an
increased
rations allowance, and new Springfield '03 rifles from the Marines. He spread
the
Marine standard of drill throughout the Gendarmerie and emphasized
marksmanship.
His
troops responded well, and became a significant fighting force.186 The special
operation
that killed Charlemagne, the principle Caco leader, was led by two Marine
enlisted
men serving as Gendarmerie officers, but also included 12 gendarmes; all their
intelligence
came from gendarme sources as well, including at least one man operating
under
cover with the Cacos (Annex C, Appendix 10).
The Gendarmerie Agreement of 1916
had been renegotiated in 1920 to allow for
easier
financial administration by the Chef of the Gendarmerie, although Colonel Wise
did
not receive everything he had wanted, and the ability of the Gendarmerie to
surge by
467
men in times of emergency, finances permitting. Established strength would still be
81
American officers, 383 Haitian non-commissioned officers, and 2100 gendarmes,
but
would
also now include 39 Haitian officers.187
(Annex C, Appendix 14) Soon
after
General
Russell arrived in Port au Prince as High commissioner, an Ecole Militare for
the
commissioning
of Haitian officers (capacity 12) was established in Port au Prince, with
a
Haitian officer as deputy to its American commander.188
One complaint about the Marine
officers up to the time of the Caco revolt
.
. . was that the ex-enlisted Garde officers were ill-educated, raw rankers,
an
accusation that during World War I, wen the best Marines of all ranks
were
going to France, was probably true. But
Russell's earliest effort was
to
upgrade this class of officer not only by diligent selection but by a
three-month
indoctrination course before the officers were passed for duty
with
the Garde. In 1930, 49 Garde officers
were college graduates; 51 had
high
school diplomas or some college courses.
That same year 85 spoke
French
and 92 also spoke Créole. The entire
group, 116 Americans in all,
averaged
over four years in Haiti and thirteen years in the Corps.189
Although the Gendarmerie (Garde
after 1928) was the local police force as well as
the
Haitian military, it had never received significant riot control training,
which is one of
the
reasons the Marines had to be called into handle the Les Cayes incident that
eventually
resulted in 12 deaths. Nevertheless,
General Russell could say in his final
report:
. . . the Garde d'Haiti is less than a fourth of the
numerical strength of the
old forces. An
officers' school as been created and a military career is
one which a self-respecting Haitian
can adopt. The men are modernly
housed, equipped, uniformed, educated if illiterate, and
paid $10.00 a
month, a suitable pay for Haitian conditions. Prisons are immaculately
clean and airy; buildings have workshop facilities. Graft has been
eliminated. A
modern accounting and purchasing system has been
introduced which has effected important economies. Due to supervision
by district commanders Haitian communal revenues,
previously dissipated
in graft and unwise expenditures, have greatly increased
and communal
administration strengthened. A reorganized medical department has more
than halved the death and disease rate among personnel
and prisoners. In
the first four years of the Occupation, the Garde also
carried over an
important road-building program.190
In 1930, General Russell reported a
force of 2,622 enlisted gendarmes, in a total
strength
of 3,460 (one gendarme for every 3.4 square miles and 690 inhabitants of Haiti);
36%
of its officers were Haitian, and the Ecole Militaire had graduated 17
aspirants the
previous
year. In addition to its police and
military duties, Russell reported the
following:
¨
Communications;
309.5 miles of telephone lines, 9 airfields built through Garde
labor.
¨
Police
services, fire and traffic control.
¨
communal
administration; Garde commanders were communal advisors and had to
supervise the collection and distribution of communal
revenues.
¨
Marksmanship;
a hitherto unknown Haitian military skill.
¨
Construction,
a four year program that resulted in 24 modified and eight new
outpost buildings.
¨
Coast
Guard, which also has the responsibility for 15 lighthouses and a buoy
system.191