United States occupation of Haiti

The first United States occupation of Haiti began on July 28 1915 and ended in mid-August, 1934.

Causes

The constant political instability in Haiti at the turn of the 20th Century provided a potential opening for German influence during the ongoing World War I. In addition, it is alleged that a popular uprising against Haitian dictator Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam threatened American business interests in the country (such as HASCO). Due to these competing interests and the possibility of the Caicos supported, anti-American Rosalvo Bobo emerging as the next President of Haiti, the American government had no choice but to act quickly if they desired to preserve their economic dominance over Haiti. Thus in response, American President Woodrow Wilson sent 330 U.S. Marines to Port-au-Prince on July 28 1915. The specific order from the Secretary of the Navy to the invasion commander, Admiral William Deville Bundy, was to "protect American and foreign" interests. However, to avoid public criticism the occupation was labelled as a mission to “re-establish peace and order...[and] has nothing to do with any diplomatic negotiations of the past or the future” as disclosed by Rear Admiral Caperton.To further the reasons for intervention, the Haitian government had been receiving large loans from both American and French banks over the past few decades and were growing increasingly incapable in fulfilling their debt repayment. If an anti-American government was to prevail through the leadership of Rosalvo Bobo, there would be no promise of any debt repayment, and the refusal of American investments would likely have been assured. In order to prevent such an economic inconvenience, the occupation was set in motion and within six weeks, representatives from the United States controlled Haitian customs houses and administrative institutions such as banks and the national treasury. Through American manipulation, 40% of the national income was being used to alleviate the debt repayment to both American and French banks.Despite the large sums due to overseas banks, this poor economic decision greatly disfavoured the interest of the large majority of the Haitian population and put a harsh freeze on any kind of economic growth the country was in dire need of. For the next nineteen years, advisors of the United States governed the country, enforced by the United States Marine Corps.

Government and opposition

Representatives from the United States wielded veto power over all governmental decisions in Haiti, and Marine Corps commanders served as administrators in the provinces. Local institutions, however, continued to be run by Haitians, as was required under policies put in place during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.

Opposition to the Occupation began immediately after the Marines entered Haiti in 1915. The rebels (called "cacos" by the U.S. Marines) vehemently tried to resist American control of Haiti. In response, the Haitian and American governments began a vigorous campaign to disband the rebel armies. Perhaps the best-known account of this skirmishing came from Marine Major Smedley Butler, awarded a Medal of Honor for his exploits, and went on to serve as commanding officer of the Haitian Gendarmerie. (He later expressed his disapproval of the U.S. intervention in his book War Is a Racket.)

Philippe Sudré Dartiguenave, the mulatto president of the Senate, agreed to accept the presidency of Haiti after several other candidates had refused on principle. In 1917, President Dartiguenave dissolved the legislature after its members refused to approve a constitution written by Franklin D. Roosevelt (then Assistant Secretary of the Navy). However, a referendum subsequently approved the new constitution in 1918 (by a vote of 98,225 to 768). While generally a liberal document, the constitution allowed foreigners to purchase land. Jean-Jacques Dessalines had forbidden land ownership by foreigners, and since 1804, most Haitians had viewed foreign ownership as anathema.

Effects of the occupation on Haiti

The occupation by the United States had several significant effects on Haiti. An early period of unrest culminated in a 1918 rebellion by up to 40,000 former cacos and other disgruntled people. The scale of the uprising overwhelmed the Gendarmerie, but Marine reinforcements helped put down the revolt at an estimated cost of 2,000 Haitian lives.

Thereafter, order prevailed to a degree that most Haitians had never witnessed. The order, however, was imposed largely by white foreigners with deep-seated racial prejudices and disdain for the notion of self-determination by inhabitants of less-developed nations. Such attitudes particularly dismayed Haiti's mulatto elite, who had heretofore believed in their innate superiority over the black masses.

The white American occupiers, however, did not distinguish among Haitians, regardless of their skin tone, level of education, or sophistication. When it came to living conditions, the Americans inhabited the neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince in houses that the majority of Haitians would only dream of. Consequently the neighborhood in which the Americans lived was called the “millionaire's row.”The kind of reactionary mindset held among the Americans was quite standard and is well exemplified in Hans Schmidt's accounting of an officer's opinion on the matter of segregation: “I can't see why they wouldn't have a better time with their crowd, just as I do with mine."American intolerance provoked indignation and resentment — and eventually a racial pride that was reflected in the work of a new generation of Haitian historians, ethnologists, writers, artists, and others, many of whom later became active in politics and government. Still, as Haitians united in their reaction to the racism of the occupying forces, the mulatto elite managed to dominate the country's bureaucracy and to strengthen its role in national affairs.

The occupation greatly improved some of Haiti's infrastructure, though this was generally geared towards facilitating the exportation of goods and raw materials and the transport of military units. By doing so, the centralized power in Port-au-Prince was solidified. Roads were improved and expanded through the use of forced labor gangs. This violent form of "corvée labor" — with chain gangs, and armed guards permitted to shoot anyone who fled compulsory service — was widely regarded as tantamount to slavery.

The education system was re-designed from the ground up; however, this involved the destruction of the existing system of "Liberal Arts" education inherited (and adapted) from the French. Due to its emphasis on vocational training, the American system that replaced the French was despised by the elite. Thus, both of the major programs instituted by the government of occupation antagonized the Haitian populace: the use of forced labor enraged the lower classes of rural Haiti, and the educational "reforms" enraged the urban elite.

Effects of the occupation on U.S. politics

The occupation of Haiti continued after World War I, despite the embarrassment that it caused Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and the scrutiny of a congressional inquiry in 1922. By 1930, President Herbert Hoover had become concerned about the effects of the occupation, particularly after a December 1929 incident in Les Cayes, in which Marines killed at least ten Haitian peasants during a march to protest local economic conditions. Hoover appointed two commissions to study the situation. A former governor general of the Philippines, William Cameron Forbes, headed the more prominent of the two.

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

The Hoover administration did not fully implement the recommendations of the Forbes Commission; but United States withdrawal was under way by 1932, when Hoover lost the presidency to Franklin Roosevelt, the presumed author of the most recent Haitian constitution. On a visit to Cap-Haïtien in July 1934, Roosevelt reaffirmed an August 1933 disengagement agreement. The last contingent of U.S. Marines departed in mid-August, after a formal transfer of authority to the Garde.

Because the local (U.S.-trained) military was the only cohesive and effective institution left in the wake of withdrawal, the result was a sequence of military-backed dictatorships, all attached to American patronage, which would define the next 50 years of Haiti's history.

Further reading

• Renda, Mary A. (2001). Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-4938-3.
• Schmidt, Hans (1995). United States occupation of Haiti (1915-1934). Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-2203-X.
• Harper's Magazine advertisement: Why Should You Worry About Haiti? by the Haiti-Santo Domingo Independence Society
• Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. New York, Basic Books: 2002. ISBN 0-465-00721-X
• Weston, Rubin Francis (1972). Racism in U.S. Imperialism: The Influence of Racial Assumptions on American Foreign Policy, 1893-1946. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 0-87294-219-2. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)

References

• Schmidt, Hans. The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1995.
• Weinstein, Brian and Aaron Segal. Haiti; Political Failures. Cultural Successes. (Hoover Institute Series on Politics in Latin America) New York: Praeger, 1984.
• Weston, Rubin Francis. Racism in U.S. Imperialism: The Influence of Racial Assumptions on American Foreign Policy, 1893-1946. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press. 1972