Istwa Nou

Hostility in the capital ran against Dartiguenave as much as against the Americans. He had sat in the Senate in 1914 when members nearly lynched Joseph Justin for proposing a foreign overseer. On 2 September 1915 he privately asked the Americans to impose martial law, and Caperton did so the following day. What followed was a limited military government on the model of the American occupation of Veracruz. Provost courts tried political offenders and anyone charged with an offence against the occupation. A decree announced that press freedom would stand, while false or incendiary writing against the American or Haitian governments would go before military courts. Haitian journalists knew such rules from every government they had lived under. The difference was that the men making and enforcing them now were foreigners, and would be for years. On 16 September Louis Borno, who had replaced Sannon at the foreign ministry, signed the treaty. The next morning the U.S.S. Washington fired a twenty one gun salute and the city learned that Dartiguenave's government had American recognition.