1915 to 1918 · Haitianspan

The old army is disbanded and Marines become Haiti's police

A major from Pennsylvania was commissioned a Haitian general and called himself chief of police.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1929 · Haitianspan

The naval medical service builds eleven hospitals in fourteen years

The naval hospital in Port-au-Prince later became the Hotel Oloffson.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1929 · Haitianspan

The occupation built a club at Turgeau that Haitians entered only to serve

The claim that Washington staffed Haiti with Southerners was repeated for forty years and never held.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1946 · Haitianspan

The 1946 assembly was only the third Haiti held with no foreigners in the room

Trained teachers and women of means founded the Ligue Feminine d'Action Sociale in 1935.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 · Haitianyear only

A girl in Jeremie called the Marines boiled lobsters

Ghislaine Charlier was eight when she noticed the men who had been on her coast for fourteen years.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1918 · Haitianspan

Auguste Garoute was one of two men who refused to sign the protectorate

His wife's tea parties became the meetings out of which a women's movement was built.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

Women's injuries are recorded in the margins of American road reports

Five hundred miles of new road produced a paper trail where Haitian women appear as damage.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1930 · Haitianspan

The corvee returns and resistance costs more than two thousand Haitian lives

Butler told Franklin Roosevelt it would not do to ask too many questions about the work.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

Caco generals crossed the north dressed as market women

Petit Severe moved seven burro loads of rifles past the Americans in a woman's dress.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

Two women dictated statements in hospital days before they died

The Americans filed the collisions as unavoidable, or as the fault of careless Haitian women.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1925 · Haitianspan

Gendarmes knew the women on their beat and the women knew the limits

Four young peddlers at Petit Goave were arrested by a man who may have needed one of them.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

Market women returned to the same street and an officer demanded an example

What alarmed the gendarmerie was how accurately Haitian women had measured its power.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

Every road the occupation built was also a line of intelligence

Officers denied the roads were military while their reports tracked insurgents village by village.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

A family known to be contrary to the occupation is put under watch

Robert Cabeche, who had refused to sign the treaty, was tracked along with wives and children.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

The record of each death was also the instrument of its erasure

Injuries were filed under the miscellaneous business of necessary construction work.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

Haitian nationalists published abroad to get around the censors

Price-Mars, Thoby and Sylvain argued Haiti's case in papers the occupation could not close.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

Most Haitian women managed the occupation without either resistance movement

The Cacos and the Union Patriotique both promised protection. Women made their own reckonings.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

The children of the occupation gave the clearest account of what changed

Nadeve Menard reads the novels written under occupation for what growing up inside it did.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

The occupation appears in women's memories between a death and a heat wave

Marie Vieux-Chauvet's Claire mentions the Marines in passing, as Ghislaine Charlier did.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

Two women read Haitian history and find their foremothers had no rights

Catherine Flon and Defilee were national symbols. Living Haitian women could not vote.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

The American occupation renames the top rank in a Rara band

A rural chief who had been addressed as general became a colonel because of the marines.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

What the marines left behind was a pile of battered horns and jazz

Havana radio and returning cane cutters changed Haitian country music far more than the occupation did.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

Vodou priests led the countryside against the marines

Bellegarde-Smith puts the dead of the first American occupation at perhaps fifty thousand.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 · Haitianyear only

The occupation creates the constabulary that will choose Haiti's presidents

Elections were held up to 1929 and the Marines controlled every one of them.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

The occupation fills the top offices with light-skinned men

American rule consolidated the big estates, restored the corvee and sent labour to Cuba.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

Building codes under the occupation push Port-au-Prince out of wood

Fire was the stated reason, and there was hardly any timber left anyway.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1 to 17 January 1915 · Haitianspan

The American flag goes up over Haiti's national bank

Solon Menos called the removal of the gold a flagrant invasion of the republic.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

13 January to 5 June 1915 · Haitianspan

Two American missions to Haiti fail inside five months

Bryan sent an envoy to Port-au-Prince without credentials and he was shown the door.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

15 to 19 January 1915 · Haitianspan

A revolution at Cap Haitien in which nobody fires a shot

Metellus paraded a thousand men past the cathedral, went inside, and took the town.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

23 to 27 January 1915 · Haitianspan

Caperton arrives at a ruined town where one business is thriving

The American consul reported that the revolution looked more like a public holiday.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

25 January to 5 February 1915 · Haitianspan

An American admiral escorts a Caco army down the coast

Guillaume promised not to burn the towns he took, and largely kept to it.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

30 January 1915 · Haitian

The official gazette prints the terms of American financial control

Publishing the offer turned a private negotiation into a public accusation.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

12 to 22 February 1915 · Haitianspan

Haitian politicians queue up to be installed by the Americans

Delly offered to declare himself unable to keep order so Caperton would land troops.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

25 February to 9 March 1915 · Haitianspan

The presidency changes hands for the same fifty thousand in gold

Hilaire and Peralte took the money, and the National Assembly ratified the result.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

March to May 1915 · Haitianspan

Guillaume Sam locks up two hundred men from the leading families

The hostages were sureties for the quiet of Port-au-Prince, and most were elite mulatres.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

May to June 1915 · Haitianspan

Heads carried through the streets of Cap Haitien

A Caco general told the Paris-trained Bobo that the Angels had ordered the killings.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

14 June to 2 July 1915 · Haitianspan

Fuller tells Washington to land marines and dictate a treaty

Wilson read the report and noted that action was evidently necessary.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

from 1915 · Haitianspan

The occupation restores the state and shuts the rural ladder

For the first time since Christophe one power holds everything, and illiterate leaders vanish.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 · Haitianyear only

Haiti issues its first official document in Kreyol after a century

The language most Haitians speak reaches state paper in 1915 and legal parity only in 1987.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Diasporaspan

American writers turn the occupation into a literature of darkness

Travel narratives, novels, memoirs and plays fix Haiti as strange, tragic and headless.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

The occupation centralises the army and moves the state off the land

Disarming the provinces did not weaken the state; it shifted what the state lived on.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 to 1934 · Haitianspan

Fouchard lists the occupation last among the punishments for 1804

Nineteen years of American rule follow the indemnity, the isolation and the permanent state of alert.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 · Haitianyear only

Marines use a Haitian law to smash the temples and seize the drums

An article of the penal code already on the books became the warrant for a campaign against Vodou.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1915 · Haitianyear only

Jacques Nicolas Leger refuses the presidency and gives his reason

He was for Haiti and not for the United States, and he expected to be judged later.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

1 to 26 July 1915 · Haitianspan

The Cacos give the American officer coffee, oranges and a turkey

Beach expected devils at Petite-Anse and was given a chair in the shade.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

28 July 1915 · Haitian

The marines land, and stay nineteen years

Rotberg said the surprise is that they waited until 1915, not that they came.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

28 July 1915 · Haitian

The Washington anchors off Port-au-Prince and Marines come ashore

Nineteen years of occupation followed, with forced road labour and a camp in the north.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

28 July 1915 · Haitian

A crowd kills President Sam after he massacres political prisoners2 sources

The fourth president in two years dies, and the marines land the same day.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

28 July 1915 · Haitian

A day of recovered liberty that lasts less than twenty-four hours

Michel dedicates the book to the artillerymen who fired on the Marines from the Arsenal.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

28 July 1915 · Haitian

A mob drags the president out of the French embassy and Wilson orders Marines

Sam had 167 prisoners shot the day before. The occupation that followed lasted nineteen years.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

28 July 1915 · Haitian

Marines land and stay nineteen years, and the dead may number 11,500

Official American figures put Haitian deaths above 3,000; a fuller accounting reaches 11,500.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

27 July 1915 · Haitian

The order to kill the prisoners in the Port-au-Prince jail

Vilbrun Guillaume Sam killed his hostages and lost the city the same morning.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

27 to 28 July 1915 · Haitianspan

Edmond Polynice fires three times, one round for each son

The diplomats put the prison dead at between 160 and 200 and never agreed on a figure.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

28 July 1915 · Haitian

United States marines land at Port-au-Prince and stay nineteen years

Some of the Haitians who welcomed them were more frightened of Rosalvo Bobo.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

28 July 1915 to 15 August 1934 · Haitianspan

Nineteen years of American administration and 1,200 miles of road

Haitians named the withdrawal of 1934 the second independence.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

28 July 1915 · Haitian

The crowd takes Guillaume Sam out of the French legation

The smell of iodoform on a dressing gave away where the president was hiding.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

28 July 1915 · Haitian

A peasant brings the president's head to the legation gate

It is for Madame Vilbrun Guillaume, he said in Creole, and left the bundle.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

29 July 1915 · Haitian

France approves the occupation on condition it is not half hearted

Jusserand wanted energetic action, and French claims recognised at the end of it.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

29 July to 2 August 1915 · Haitianspan

Caperton blocks the election the Cacos are demanding

Four hundred marines held a city with fifteen hundred of Bobo's fighters still in it.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

August 1915 · Haitianmonth known

The legislature elects Dartiguenave under marine guard

The qualification that counted was a willingness to sign whatever Washington sent over.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

August to 26 September 1915 · Haitianspan

Butler lifts the siege of Gonaives and the Cacos kill two Marines

Rameau could not read the handbills issued in his name and asked to be given a ministry.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

2 August 1915 · Haitian

Wilson writes three instructions that will govern Haiti

Lansing said he did not know what could lawfully be done and got an answer in a day.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

4 August 1915 · Haitian

The Haitian army is disarmed and paid off with ten gourde notes

Three thousand rifles and four million rounds left the capital in mule wagons.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

4 to 12 August 1915 · Haitianspan

A commission in top hats sails north to collect Rosalvo Bobo

Bobo came south with twenty six generals and seventeen nuns aboard the same ship.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

6 August 1915 · Haitian

Rosalvo Bobo arrives with his title painted on his suitcase

Captain Beach met the claimant at the top of the ladder and told him the United States forbade it.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

6 to 8 August 1915 · Haitianspan

The Americans shop for a president and find Dartiguenave

Legitime, Menos and Leger all declined. The president of the Senate said he would not avoid it.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

9 to 11 August 1915 · Haitianspan

Washington states a preference and the assembly is called to a music hall

A telegram naming Dartiguenave, a decree torn off the walls, and terms read aloud from a stage.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

12 August 1915 · Haitian

Marines cordon the assembly and Dartiguenave wins on the first ballot

Caperton let the deputies carry pistols inside on the understanding they might shoot only themselves.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

12 to 17 August 1915 · Haitianspan

Dartiguenave takes office with no Te Deum and an American beside him

The first light skinned southerner in the palace since 1876 had no army except a foreign one.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

12 August 1915 · Haitian

Bayonets in the assembly and a president who signs what he is given

The army was dissolved, the treasury passed to Americans, and forced labour returned to the roads.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

12 August 1915 · Haitian

A president is elected one day and handed a treaty the next

Caperton dissolved the revolutionary committee, blocked Bobo, and had Dartiguenave chosen instead.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

13 to 24 August 1915 · Haitianspan

The draft treaty gives Washington the customs, the police and the money

Lansing told Wilson it invaded Haitian independence and that he could see nothing else to do.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

August 1915 · Haitianmonth known

Leogane's commander is sacked for refusing the occupiers the town

Peralte is replaced by a compliant appointee who becomes the last Haitian commander there.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

21 August 1915 · Haitian

A Port-au-Prince journal argues the convention is unconstitutional

The objection was legal, it was printed within a month of the landing, and it held.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

25 August to 3 September 1915 · Haitianspan

Haiti answers with a counter draft and the Americans take the customs houses

Navy paymasters became collectors at ten ports while Caperton proclaimed martial law.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

26 August 1915 · Haitian

A corporal fires twice at a fleeing man and kills a boy on an errand

Caroline Dagille found Ludowick Jeudi in a chair against a wall two hundred yards away.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

September to November 1915 · Haitianspan

Georges Sylvain gathers twelve men and the Union Patriotique is born

The elite began organising against an occupation their own quarrels had helped to invite.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

2 to 16 September 1915 · Haitianspan

Martial law comes at the president's own request and Borno signs

Provost courts for political offenders, censorship of the press, and a salute of twenty one guns.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

3 September 1915 · Haitian

Martial law is declared before the treaty is even signed

Caperton took the customs houses, sent Waller north against the Cacos, then declared martial law.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

16 September 1915 · Haitian

A treaty hands Washington the customs, the finances and the only army

Signed weeks after the marines land, it runs ten years and is quietly extended to 1936.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

3 October to 29 November 1915 · Haitianspan

Haiti's legislature is starved of salaries until it ratifies the treaty

The deputies gave way in seventy two hours. The Senate held out until an ultimatum at the palace.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

24 October to 17 November 1915 · Haitianspan

Butler maps the Caco forts and finds Haiti a crumpled piece of paper

Forty Marines spent a night surrounded below Fort Capois before the westward sweep began.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page

17 November 1915 · Haitian

Fifty Cacos die inside Fort Riviere and the first Caco war ends

The storming party found the gate bricked up and went in through a drain four feet high.

›Read the full entryClose

Opening… read it as its own page