Joseph Jolibois Fils and the Flaws of Haitian Resistance to U.S. Occupation (2010)

History has not been kind to Joseph Jolibois FiIs (ca. 1891-1936), and perhaps it should not be. In the eyes of the U.S. marines who occupied his homeland from 1915 to 1934, the publisher of Courrier Haitien mostly distinguished himself as slanderous, mentally unstable rabble-rouser supported only by the riff-raff of Port-au-Prince and man who seemed to relish his time in prison - time that added to four years and seven months over seventeen separate incarcerations.1 However, to Haitian nationalists such as Jean Price-Mars, Jolibois FiIs, as he was universally known, was hero of the working class and victim of imperialism, defender of press freedom unfairly and illegally jailed for political reasons.2 But history has barely scratched the surface of Jolibois's life, activism, and persecutions. While there are mentions of his activities in several publications, few authors have given him more than passing characterization as frenetic, quixotic opponent of the opposition.3 There are no books on Jolibois, no magazine features, no encyclopedia biographies, no Wikipedia entry. There is only one journal article on him, by Michel Hector, written in 1993. The Hector article is well researched and focused on largely ignored facet of his activism - his tour of Latin America from 1927 to 1930. But it is too forgiving ofjolibois's sins, calling him a true internationalist militant, tireless forger of solidarity with the Haitian people and assuming that Latin Americans and other Haitians esteemed him.4 Jolibois may remain mystery because many refuse to face the unsettling possibility that the most consistent and transnational opponent of the U.S. occupation was failure and perhaps even madman. A broader array of sources - U.S., British, and French government documents, the U.S. and Haitian press, and the correspondence ofjolibois and his peers - can provide us more balanced assessment of the resonance and effectiveness ofjolibois's dissent. Both Haitian and U.S. documents tend to confirm that, whether victim or agitator, Jolibois was singularly unsuccessful in creating the links between social groups and nations that he saw as lynchpins of anti-occupation movements. At home, his efforts to unite the mulatto elite with the rising black urban sectors masked divide that emerged late in the occupation. And his work abroad to create inter-American solidarity met with success only with radical groups in Mexico and to some extent in Argentina while failing with other Latin Americans, who responded to Jolibois with the racism and cultural disdain with which they had long treated Haitians. If anything, Jolibois's life was instructive because of its failure. ORIGINS AND MOTIVATIONS OF JOLIBOIS Much remains unknown about Jolibois, but what moved him to oppose the occupation to the extent he did seems to be mixture of true ideological belief and unrestrained personal ambition, both sentiments so strong that Jolibois felt justified in trespassing the standards of truth, decorum, and loyalty of early-century Haiti. Remarkably little is known about Jolibois's upbringing or family before the 1920s. He was born in Jeremie in 1891 or 1892 and given fair education. ' He was not milat, or elite mulâtre; marines considered him full-blooded negro.6 He was apparently once grocer, but also client of Minister Heuraux, and as such changed his political allegiances according to his patron's wishes. We also know that he opposed the occupation from the very start, unlike many elite Haitians. Barely two days after the landing of the marines in July 1915, Jolibois, then in his early twenties, wrote to Le Matin naming Haitians felled by the supposedly unopposed landing force.' He also had direct run-ins with marines. Of 1916, when he was substitute Commissaire du Gouvernement at Petit-Goâve, Jolibois wrote that three times my magistracy was invaded and violated by the marines. Twice I was obliged to fight hand to hand. …