This week in Haiti
The First U.S. Occupation of Haiti Revisited
The First of Two Parts
July 28 marks the day 86 years ago when the U.S. Marines landed in Haiti in 1915 to begin a 19-year military occupation. Haitians observe the anniversary with anti-imperialist events. For example, the National Popular Party (PPN) will be holding meetings and rallies in towns like Cap Haïtien, Cayes, Jacmel, and the capital."The United States Occupation of Haiti: 1915-1934" by Hans Schmidt, published in 1971, is one of the best accounts of the period. Rutgers University Press made a second printing of the book in 1995 after the second U.S. military occupation of Haiti on Sept. 19, 1994.
This week we present the first part of chapter entitled "The Intervention", in which Schmidt lays bare the premeditation, racism and brutality of the U.S. invasion. He also highlights the Haitian resistance struggle, which is so belittled in mainstream historical accounts.
The immediate occasion for Unites States intervention was the overthrow of Haitian President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam in July, 1915. Declarations issued by the State Department that intervention was undertaken for humanitarian reasons to prevent anarchy and bloodshed were spurious and misleading. American warships had been maintaining a close vigil in Haitian waters throughout the unsuccessful attempts to negotiate an American customs receivership, and had been alerted for possible landing operations as early as July 1914.
Plans for military occupation of Haiti were drawn up well in advance, showing that intervention was not precipitated by a single, anarchic revolution. A detailed Navy Department "Plan for Landing and Occupying the City of Port-au-Prince", drawn up in November, 1914, begins: "Situation - The government has been overthrown; all semblance of law and order has ceased; the local authorities admit their inability to protect foreign interests, the city being overrun and in the hands of about 5,000 soldiers and civilian mobs."
This description could pass for a news report of the actual landings which took place nine months later. Another contingency plan, constructed in the summer of 1914, contained sample letters for notifying Haitian authorities of American intentions: one such, under a 1914 dateline with the day and month left blank, stated that "the purpose of the President of the United States is solely for the establishment of law and order." This same plan stipulated that naval landing forces at Port-au-Prince should not be used against organized armed troops ashore, which would instead be subjected to gunfire from American warships standing out in the harbor. The Haitian army's capacity for resistance was correctly judged to be negligible, with one 1914 intelligence report describing Haitian soldiers as a mob armed with worthless rifles. When it became clear that the Haitians would not agree to a negotiated customs receivership and that military force was necessary to achieve American ends, the only missing detail in the military invasion plans was an appropriate Haitian revolution that would justify United States intervention on the customary pretext of protecting American lives and property. In fact, there was no record of any American life having been lost or property destroyed prior to the intervention.
The overthrown of President Guillaume Sam provided the United States with the requisite opportunity. Not only were Haitian politics becoming increasingly chaotic, with seven presidents in the preceding five years, but the overthrow of Sam was exceptionally bloody and repugnant to public opinion both within Haiti and in the United States. Sam, in office less than five months, was implicated in the massacre of 167 political prisoners who were murdered by Sam's army commander as Port-au-Prince was being taken by revolutionary forces. After the massacre of prisoners, many of whom were members of prominent elite families, Sam took refuge in the French legation, and chief executioner General Oscar Etienne in the Dominican legation. Enraged mobs violated the legations and killed both Sam and Etienne. Sam was dragged from the French legation and publicly dismembered. Portions of his body were then paraded around the streets of Port-au-Prince in a grotesque spectacle accompanied by vindictive cries from the mob.
Even before learning of the unprecedented violation of foreign legations, the State Department ordered marines under the command of Rear Admiral William B. Caperton to land at Port-au-Prince. Unlike previous revolutions, when French, German, and sometimes British marines were landed for short periods to protect their nationals, this time the United States intended to go in alone. Admiral Caperton was instructed to request the captains of British and French warships in the area to abstain from landing forces, and to assure them that the United States would protect all foreign interests. The French minister had, in fact, requested a French landing party after the violation of the French legation, but a navigational error delayed the French cruiser Descartes and helped avert possible Franco-American complications. The Descartes remained in Haitian waters for several months, until the French received a satisfactory response to their protest over the violation of the legation.
The macabre overthrow of Sam was cited as justification for intervention by subsequent apologists for American policy. The United States, as the self-appointed trustee of civilization in the Caribbean, was obligated to maintain minimal standards of decency and morality. The weakness of this argument was readily demonstrated by opponents of the intervention. A prominent Haitian writer, referring to an incident in a Southern United States town where a black man was dragged from the local jail and burned alive in the town square, pointed out that barbarity also existed in the Unites States. In a 1929 United States congressional debate, several congressmen noted that the number of Haitian presidents assassinated over the years was almost the same as the number of American presidents assassinated and that since 1862, the year of the American recognition of Haiti, the number was identical - three presidents killed in each country. Likewise, the frequent overthrow of governments was not unique; France had eleven governments from 1909 to 1914.
Whatever the moral implications of American intervention, the missionary impulse did not figure prominently in the deliberations of United States policy makers in the Wilson administration. Policy discussions centered around strategic considerations, with the sensational demise of Sam serving only to make intervention more palatable to moralists outside the government, and to those administration officials, notably Secretary of the Navy [Josephus] Daniels, who had qualms about the moral rightness of military incursions into friendly neighboring countries. Secretary of State [Robert] Lansing took a decidedly cynical approach, writing Wilson a few days after the intervention: "We have no excuse of reprisal as we had at Vera Cruz, to take over the city government and administer the offices. There would appear to me to be but one reason which could be given for doing so, and that is the humane duty of furnishing means to relieve the famine situation. If our naval authorities should take over the collection of customs on imports and exports these might be expended on the ground of dire necessity for the relief of the starving people."
Since food shortages were caused by Haitian guerrillas cutting off roads to marine-occupied cities as a part of their military resistance to American intervention, Lansing's humanitarian argument was doubly specious.
Three hundred thirty United States sailors and marines landed at Port-au-Prince on July 28, 1915, and were quickly reinforced by troops dispatched from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. As the New York Times remarked on July 31, "The force being sent to Haiti is much larger than is necessary for mere protection of foreign interests." The intervention was immediately sanctified by the spilling of American blood as two American sailors, one of whom was a nephew of Samuel Gompers, were killed in action. The two men were described in American diplomatic and newspaper reports as having been killed by Haitian snipers. President Wilson expressed his personal condolences, but even these first casualties proved to be lacking in the romantic battlefield pageantry that was to be conspicuously absent in many of the American military skirmishes in Haiti. Subsequent military reports disclosed that there were no indications of enemy fire in the area where the two sailors were killed and that they were accidentally shot in the night by rifle fire from their comrades in the Seaman Battalion, which was untrained for shore action and under severe nervous strain in unfamiliar surroundings. The Americans were intimidated by the sound of constant firing in the city throughout the night, but there was no danger since the firing was just a traditional form of celebration at the fall of a tyrant.
Many of the American troops that landed in Haiti were unfamiliar with the abject poverty and unsanitary conditions which now surrounded them. Port-au-Prince, with its background of picturesque mountains, was one of the most beautiful harbors in the world when viewed from the sea, but first impressions on landing were unfavorable. One young marine, anticipating exotic adventure in a tropical paradise, later described his first day ashore as follows: "It hurt, It stunk, Fairyland had turned into a pigsty. More than that, we were not welcome. We could feel it as distinctly as we could smell the rot along the gutters.... In the street were piles of evil-smelling offal. The stench hung over everything. Piles of mango seeds were heaped in the middle of the highway, sour-smelling. It was not merely that these, mingled with banana peels and other garbage, were rotting - the whole prospect was filthy.... Haitians of the working class have the ugliest feet in the world. In my bewilderment I somehow blamed them for the horrid things on which they stood. We were all annoyed."
The hostility of the Haitians also tended to make things unpleasant for the newly arrived marines. Night curfew patrols were forced to march warily down the middle of the streets of Port-au-Prince in order to avoid being showered with household waste dropped from darkened second-story windows.
Organized military resistance to the invasion, both at Port-au-Prince and at the other locations throughout the country where American troops were landed, was minimal. Admiral Caperton, the senior officer in charge of the intervention, cabled Secretary of the Navy Daniels and President Wilson: "U.S has now actually accomplished a military intervention in affairs of another nation. Hostility exists now in Haiti and has existed for a number of years against such action. Serious hostile contacts have only been avoided by prompt and rapid military action which has given U.S. control before resistance has had time to organize."
Faced with the overwhelming military superiority of American forces, those Haitians who were determined to resist the intervention took to the hills and there organized guerrilla bands.
At the time of the intervention American authorities found that the general economic situation, and especially the food supply in Port-au-Prince, was disorganized. Under the impact of military invasion, many additional economic functions were temporarily suspended. The situation was further complicated when Haitian guerrilla forces, erstwhile cacos, cut off the food supplies to major cities in an attempt to exert pressure on United States forces. The United States, which assumed a measure of responsibility along with military control, was thus called upon to provide relief for the destitute population of Port-au-Prince until such time as the food supply could be restored. Secretary Daniels, assessing the Haitians according to racial stereotypes of Negroes in the Southern United States instead of viewing them as a distinct foreign people, was skeptical about the effects that free relief might have upon them, and wrote to President Wilson: "It is very dangerous to begin to supply provisions because the Haitiens are like negroes in the South after the war and would quit work entirely, deserting plantations if our Government undertakes to feed them."
This wholesale misapplication of the presumed lessons of white American historical experience with Negroes indicates the extent of misinformation and prejudice with typically clouded the minds of cognizant United States officials. Aside from the implicit racial slur, Daniels was badly confused, since the problem in Haiti involved feeding the urban population of Port-au-Prince and, moreover, there were no plantations in Haiti comparable to those in the American South during the Civil War era. In spite of Daniels' apprehensions, navy doctors and medical corpsmen undertook relief work among "a large population of sick and practically starving people" in Port-au-Prince in August, 1915. The navy medical personnel, aided by the American Red Cross, which contributed a fund of $1,500 in January, 1916, gave medical attention to indigent Haitians in Port-au-Prince and distributed food on a regular basis to those who had been investigated and certified as destitute. This was the beginning of a long series of constructive humanitarian projects originated by the navy medical corps that was to continue throughout the occupation.
Shortly after intervening, the United States restored the Haitian treasury service to the American-controlled Banque Nationale, which had been deprived of the service by the Haitian government during a dispute earlier in the year, and assigned American naval officers to supervise the collection of all customs duties. These customs and financial adjustments fulfilled long-standing objectives of United States diplomacy and resulted in effective control of the Haitian government's purse strings. American officers who took over customhouses and local government administration were often appalled at the inefficiency and corruption characteristic of local institutions. The marine officer who took charge of the coastal town of Jérémie audited the mayor's books and found evidence of extensive graft. A navy pay corps officer, under orders to assume "complete authority over all port activities and coastwise trade" at Petit Goâve, found that customs facilities included stones and pieces of iron used as weights to measure for duties. Within several weeks of the landings United States forces were in control of all governmental agencies and revenues in the coastal towns of Haiti. Military control of the occupied towns and cities varied in style and emphasis according to the personalities of local commanders, but in all cases American authority was predominant. The marine officer at Jérémie, a veteran of other banana wars, remarked that "in Cuba we didn't have the absolute authority we had here."
With American forces in effective control, the Wilson administration turned to the problem of developing suitable political machinery through which the United States could govern the country. Apparently little advance consideration had been given to the problem, since both Wilson and Lansing were uncertain as to how they should proceed. Both agreed on the necessity of prolonged military occupation but at the outset neither had any clear idea of how this could be done within the framework of international law. On the sixth day after the intervention, Lansing wrote Wilson that he was "not at all sure what we ought to do or what we legally can do." Wilson replied that he too feared that "we have not the legal authority to do what we apparently ought to do" but that the United States must send sufficient troops to subordinate local authorities and completely control the country. Excepting these irregularities, Wilson insisted that "constitutional government" be established and maintained, but he did not specify that the existing Haitian Constitution should be respected. In keeping with the continuing interest the United States had in establishing order and stability in the Caribbean, Wilson's plans were to retain military control over Haiti until a strong and stable Haitian government could be set up under American auspices.
Although American military leaders in Haiti favored outright military government, the Wilson administration decided to work through existing Haitian political machinery, including a Haitian chief executive. In deciding to set up a Haitian client-president, Lansing wrote Wilson: "I do not see why it would not be as easy to control a government with a president as it is to control the Haitian Congress and administrative officers." The first important step in the political reconstruction of Haiti was the selection of a suitable client-president. By taking military control of Port-au-Prince in late July the United States had prevented the election of Dr. Rosalvo Bobo as the new president of Haiti. Bobo headed the caco army that precipitated the downfall of Sam and was about to appropriate the rewards of successful revolution by intimidating the Haitian legislature into electing him to the recently vacated presidency. Admiral Caperton, acting in accordance with advice given him by a prominent Haitian confidant, postponed the election and took measures to disarm the 1,500 caco troops who were demanding the election of Bobo. Bobo's adherents hung together for several weeks, until he disbanded them after having been told by Admiral Caperton that the United States would forbid his candidacy if the troops remained in the city.
Dr. Bobo was a man of considerable personal accomplishment. He had traveled widely, held degrees in law and medicine from the universities of Paris and London, and was fluent in many languages. Captain Edward L. Beach, Caperton's chief of staff who represented the admiral in all dealings with Bobo and who wrote a lengthy chronicle describing the various negotiations, commented that Bobo "was greatly beloved in Haiti because the poor and needy sick always had the first call on his services, and none of these ever received a bill from him," but Beach noted that Bobo was unbalanced and, as an "idealist and dreamer," was "utterly unsuited to be Haiti's President." Moreover, Bobo had long been known to the State Department as an opponent of United States encroachments in Haiti. In 1911 Bobo had opposed the McDonald railroad and fig banana concessions, and as minister of the interior in 1914 he had worked to thwart the proposed American customs receivership. The proclaimed object of his revolution against Sam was to prevent the "tremendous disgrace" of an American receivership. On top of all his other liabilities, Caperton and Lansing believed that Bobo was bordering on insanity. Given these grave misgivings about Bobo, the United States began to look for an alternative candidate.
In seeking a suitable client-president, Admiral Caperton approached three of Haiti's most distinguished politicians: J.N. Leger, who for twelve years had been Haitian minister to Washington; Solon Menos, who was the current minister in Washington; and former president F.D. Légitime. Each declined, with J.N Leger, whom Captain Beach recommended as "Haiti's most distinguished citizen," peremptorily refusing with this explanation: "I am for Haiti, not for the United States; Haiti's president will have to accept directions and orders from the United States and I propose to keep myself in a position where I will be able to defend Haiti's interests."
Caperton's trusted Haitian confidant, referred to as "X" in Captain Beach's chronicle and probably J.N. Leger, also refused to form a provisional government because of the ignominy of holding office under American auspices.
Faced with the reluctance of the foremost politicians to associate themselves with the Occupation, Caperton turned to Philippe Sudre Dartiguenave, president of the Haitian Senate, who was eager to volunteer his services. Dartiguenave, in declaring his candidacy to Captain Beach, insisted only that the United States guarantee to protect him if he were elected. He agreed to the United States financial control and customs receivership, and offered to cede Môle-Saint-Nicolas outright, recommending to Beach a plan by which the United States would land troops at the Môle before the election, with a formal treaty of cession coming later. In negotiating his candidacy with United States representatives, Dartiguenave also made specific commitments to settle outstanding difficulties between the Haitian government and the Banque Nationale and to pay the various claims made against the government by the American-owned National Railways.
Dartiguenave headed a faction of legislators and claimed to control the Haitian congress which, under strong pressure from Caperton (who made it clear the United States insisted on effective control), was to elect the new president. Bobo's supporters, who controlled the guerrilla forces still active in the interior of the country and included the leading citizens who comprised the Committee of Public Safety through which Caperton governed Port-au-Prince, were still the dominant political group. Dartiguenave was threatened with immediate assassination if he did not withdraw his candidacy; he was then provided with a nine-man marine bodyguard by the Americans.
With Dartiguenave and Bobo having emerged as the leading candidates, Captain Beach conducted a series of interviews with them in order to select the better man. Bobo's limitations as a long-time opponent of United States interests were well known, but Dartiguenave also had his drawbacks. Caperton's trusted Haitian confidant "X" did not think highly of Bobo, but preferred him to Dartiguenave whom "X" characterized as being "surrounded by grafters with whom he has grafted, which accounts for his candidacy." Bobo, seeing his chances for selection deteriorate with each passing day, desperately offered to make any concessions the United States might demand, but Dartiguenave, in the series of interviews with Beach, made a much more favorable impression than did the temperamental Bobo, who became irate and impetuous. Admiral Caperton recommended Dartiguenave to Washington, where Bobo was already viewed with disfavor because of his anti-American background, and Daniels replied, "Allow election of President to take place whenever Haitians wish. The U.S. prefers election of Dartiguenave." Daniels later confessed to William Allen White that, "Of course, you and I know that this was equivalent to American making Dartiguenave President."
There were some qualms within the Wilson administration about the heavy-handed methods being employed by the United States in Haiti. Lansing wrote to Wilson: "I confess that this method of negotiation, with our marines policing the Haytien Capital, is high handed. It does not meet my sense of a nation's sovereign rights and is more or less an exercise of force and an invasion of Haytien independence."
Secretary of the Navy Daniels, known as an anti-imperialist, was chided by his fellow Cabinet officers for his role in the intervention. Secretary of the Interior Frank K. Lane, with a wink toward President Wilson, addressed Daniels at a Cabinet meeting as "Josephus the First, King of Haiti," and another colleague, referring to the election of Dartiguenave, asked mockingly, "Will the candidate you and Lansing picked manage to squeeze in?" Daniels did not appreciate the situation and later wrote to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1915, that "You know that the things we were forced to do in Haiti was a bitter pill for me, for I have always hated any foreign policy that even hinted of imperialistic control."
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