10 May 1916 to December 1917 · Haitianspan
Caperton leaves for Santo Domingo and the occupation's manners go too
›Read the full entryClose
Caperton and Beach ran the first year of the occupation on charm. The French minister Girard noticed how carefully the American officers courted Haitian sympathy. Caperton accepted invitations to the Cercle Port-au-Princien and threw small coins to people along the road when he drove up to Pétionville. Even Danache, Dartiguenave's confidant, who loathed the occupation and thought Americans brutal, allowed that the two men spoke correct French and had manners, and remembered the admiral as a tireless dancer. On 10 May 1916 a crisis in Santo Domingo pulled Caperton next door, leaving Colonel Littleton Waller of the marine brigade in charge of Haiti. Two months later Caperton was given the Pacific Fleet and never returned. In his last letter to Admiral Benson he admitted the occupation was less popular than it had been. Waller sent Washington a blunter reading: the Haitian government had broken every promise, denied making them, and was insincere and unstable, with Borno running the cabinet. Both men were describing the same souring, which followed the dissolution of the Senate in April.
A code like HT-WIB-000044 is a bates number. It marks one page of our stamped scan of the book, so the same page can be found again by anyone working from the same copy. Open one to see every entry drawn from that page.