6 December 1929 · Haitian
Marines fire on fifteen hundred people at Aux Cayes and kill twelve2 sources
›Read the full entryClose
A depressed coffee market and harsher taxes brought feeling against the occupation to a head in the autumn of 1929, and a change to the scholarship policy at the agricultural college run by the occupation's technical service set off student strikes. Facing the threat of a general strike that might include the Gendarmerie itself, the client president Borno announced he would not seek another term, which did not stop the movement. Customs employees in the capital joined the students and the strike went national, with small detachments of marines facing thousands of demonstrators in towns around the country. On 6 December 1929 at Aux Cayes on the southern coast, marines opened fire on a crowd of fifteen hundred, killing twelve and wounding twenty three. Renda marks this as the end of the period of relative quiet that had run since 1922 under High Commissioner Russell.
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.