The U.S. Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934
Released: 1994-05-26T00:00:00

94-459 -- The U.S. Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934

May 26, 1994

Background

In the early twentieth century, Haiti suffered from a tumultuous political life and from chronic financial mismanagement. Eighty percent of the Haitian budget went to debt service, and U.S. government officials wereconcernedthat financial obligations to its own citizens might not be met. There was greater fear, also, that one among thewarring European countries -- especially France or Germany -- might establish a position of influence in the country,leading to naval bases that could endanger access to the newly constructed Panama Canal. These concerns wereheightened after the outbreak of World War I, when Haitian authority collapsed into bloody factional struggles inthesummer of 1915; the Administration of Woodrow Wilson determined to take action. In July 1915, Admiral WilliamB. Caperton, then embarked on the battleship Washington , was directed to land forces to establish orderandassume responsibility for administering the customhouses.

With virtually no resistance, a landing party of some 330 sailors and marines took control of the capital within a few hours. (There were only two U.S. fatalities, and these may have resulted from friendly fire; Haitian fatalitieswere also minimal.) Admiral Caperton called upon additional U.S. forces to take control of other coastal areas;resistance by guerrilla bands in the more mountainous areas of the country was temporarily put down, ending withthecapture of Fort Rivière in mid-November. By the end of 1915, the marine presence was reduced to 100officers and some 1,600 enlisted men. Although the Marine Brigade was extensively deployed to help put downresurgentguerrilla activity in 1918-1920, for most of the rest of the occupation, the 1,200-1,400 marines were assignedgarrison duty, with some patrolling of the countryside.

Establishing Control

Once firmly established in the major population centers, U.S. officials quickly ensured the election by the Haitian National Assembly of an amenable president, Philippe Sudre Dartiguenave, who had served as the presidentof theHaitian Senate. As a result of continuing unrest, Admiral Caperton also established censorship and promulgatedmartial law. These emergency measures were not rescinded for over ten years. In another move to ensure an orderlygovernment, the United States presented the Haitians with a treaty that permitted a U.S.-nominated official to collecttaxes and make debt repayments and other disbursements. The treaty, (1) ratified by Haiti in November 1915 andby the U.S. Senate the following February, also created a constabulary (or gendarmerie) composed of native Haitiansunder American direction to serve both as Haiti's military and police force. The treaty was to remain in force forten years and could be extended for another ten "if the purpose of this treaty has not been fully accomplished." InMarch 1917, the duration of the 1915 treaty was officially extended to twenty years.

Despite the treaty, the Haitian National Assembly was uncooperative in its relationship with U.S. officials. The State Department drafted a new Haitian Constitution which would have validated the occupation and allowedforeigners to own property in Haiti. The assembly, unwilling to ratify the document, was dissolved when Lt. Col.Smedley D. Butler, a U.S. Marine officer serving with the Haitian Gendarmerie, entered the capitol in June 1917,toread a dissolution order that Dartiguenave had been pressured to sign. Unwilling to risk the election of anotherAssembly, U.S. authorities effected the approval of the new constitution by plebiscite (only 769 votes out of 100,000were negative) in June, 1918. The new constitution created a Council of State, whose members were appointed bythe Haitian president, to perform all legislative functions until an Assembly could be reconstituted at a time to bedetermined.

Although the United States occupied the principal towns of the country, guerrilla bands remained in the mountainous interior of the country. Known as cacos (named after a Haitian bird of prey), these bandshad long played asignificant role in Haitian politics, fighting at times on behalf of one or more factions within the dominantfrancophone elite. Renewed attacks by guerrillas commenced in October 1918, and persisted for a number ofmonths(including a raid on Port-au-Prince in October 1919), until the marines and the Gendarmerie were able to neutralizethem by frequent patrolling, paying bounties for weapons turned in, and by eliminating their leaders. After 1920,there were only occasional outbreaks of caco violence.

The Gendarmerie, whose name was changed in 1928 to the Garde d'Haiti, became an essential part of the administrative structure of the country. Officered at first by Americans -- largely enlisted marines -- who were paidboth by theU.S. Marine Corps and by Haiti, the Gendarmerie, numbering 2,000-2,600 members, was deployed throughout thecountry and became largely responsible for maintaining law and order, settling disputes, and supporting publicworksprojects. It also served as Haiti's military force. Gradually, U.S. officers were replaced by Haitians, a process thatwas accelerated after 1929. Historians, otherwise critical of the occupation, acknowledge that Haitians had moresecurity intheir persons and property than they had ever previously known and that the Gendarmerie, during the occupation,functioned as an effective and impartial agency. (After U.S. forces departed in 1934, Haitian officers would becomemuchmore involved in political activities.)

Throughout the occupation, U.S. forces suffered minimal casualties, totaling 10 killed and 26 wounded (with 172 other casualties). Complaints of brutality against native Haitians led the U.S. Congress to conduct hearings onHaiti and theDominican Republic in 1922. (2) The specialcommittee rejected the more serious charges and concluded that most of the abuses occurred during the effort to putdown the caco insurrection in 1918-1919. The counterinsurgency effortresulted in the deaths, by some estimates, of over 2,000 cacos . (3) Although affirming that cruelty was not officially countenanced, the committeenoted that there were at least ten instances of illegal executions by Americans. Once the caco rebellion was suppressed, there were virtually no physical attacks by Haitians on U.S. marines or civilians.

After the 1922 congressional investigation criticized lack of coordination among U.S. officials in Haiti, U.S. civilian and military authority was consolidated. The senior U.S. representative from 1922 to 1930, General JohnH. Russell,USMC, served both as the senior marine in Haiti and as the U.S. High Commissioner, responsible to the StateDepartment. Reporting to him were U.S. officials (technically appointed by the President of Haiti) dealing withfinance, publicworks, sanitation, and agriculture, as well as the chief of the Gendarmerie. General Russell, described as aconscientious and somewhat imperious officer, became the most powerful figure in the country. He was laterappointedCommandant of the U.S. Marine Corps.

End of the Occupation

The onset of the Great Depression and declining markets for Haitian products, especially coffee, produced economic hardships and contributed to increased unrest among a population long denied a political role. December1929 riots inLes Cayes threatened to spread throughout the country. A detachment from the Marine Brigade in Port-au-Princewas sent to restore order, but a confrontation led to the deaths of at least 12 Haitians. Subsequent incidents wereendedwithout loss of life, but the Hoover Administration was concerned that it might become involved in hostilities thatU.S. public opinion would not support.

In early 1930, President Hoover appointed a bipartisan commission headed by W. Cameron Forbes, formerly the Governor General of the Philippines, to investigate conditions in Haiti. (4) After several weeks in the country during whichtestimony was taken from all sectors of the society, the commission submitted a report that argued that the UnitedStates could not relinquish its responsibilities for ensuring the financial stability of Haiti, but made several proposalsforchanges, especially the separation of civil and military responsibilities, increasing the number of Haitians in thegovernment, and, in general, for less intervention in Haitian domestic affairs. (5) In November, General Russell was replaced bya State Department official, Dana G. Munro, who was appointed Minister rather than High Commissioner. AnExecutive Agreement was negotiated in 1932 providing for the complete Haitianization of the Garde by October1934 and forthe withdrawal of the Marine Brigade, two years prior to the expiration of the extended 1915 Treaty.

Washington was nonetheless determined to pull out of Haiti at an earlier date. Arrangements were made for the election of a temporary Haitian president and the subsequent holding of national elections in October 1930 thatreturned astrongly nationalistic majority. The complete Haitianization of the Garde was completed. President FranklinRoosevelt paid an official visit to Cap-Haitien in July 1934 and the last marines departed the following month. Nonetheless, aU.S. financial adviser would remain until 1941 to oversee payments on the Haitian debt.

Accomplishments and Shortcomings of the Occupation

The U.S. occupation in large measure accomplished its goals of stabilizing Haitian finances. Security for investors was a key concern of the U.S. Government and to a large extent became the justification for the occupationonce thepotential threat of European intervention disappeared with the conclusion of World War I. A $16-million U.S. loanwas negotiated in 1922 to consolidate Haiti's outstanding foreign debts. Efficient collection of duties and prompt,evenadvance, payment of debts owed to U.S. banks soon restored the country's financial standing.

Eventually, some 60% of Haitian revenues were expended under U.S. supervision, the greatest percentage going to debt repayment. Some critics, including the Forbes Commission, argued that monies used for advance repaymentof debtscould have been more usefully allocated to domestic projects. There is consensus, however, that Haitian financeswere honestly handled during the occupation and that steps were taken to insure that foreign interests did not takeadvantageof the country. (6) In the 1920s, annual Haitiangovernment revenues of $8-10 million were double that of the pre-occupation period; coffee production and smallbusinesses grew significantly, but little progress was made in establishing asound permanently economic base for the country.

The occupation also resulted in the completion of a significant number of public works projects, mostly after 1920. Most important was the construction of roads and bridges throughout the country (some of which wascompleted through ahighly unpopular system of forced labor or corvée ). Although most of the 800 miles of roadswere not hard-surfaced, they greatly facilitated transportation between coastal areas and the rural uplands at a timewhen automobiles and truckswere being introduced into Haiti in significant numbers. A number of port facilities were erected, lighthouses wereconstructed, and a number of harbors were dredged. Efforts to improve agricultural productivity were complicatedby thesmall size of land holdings and a lack of accurate legal titles.

The United States undertook a major effort to provide access to modern health care to the mass of the Haitian population that in some cases had never come into contact with trained doctors and nurses. A National PublicHealth Servicewas created with a network of some 153 rural clinics and 11 hospitals supervised by U.S. Navy doctors, and effortswere made to provide basic medical instruction to the population. This effort was financed by the Haitiangovernment atU.S. encouragement.

The United States did not assume a responsibility to "build democracy," and U.S. officials did not devote significant efforts towards the encouragement of local self-government. Prior to the occupation, the Haitiangovernment had beenlargely the province of a narrow elite consisting of about 5 percent of the population. The Haitian presidents whoserved during most of the occupation, Dartiguenave (1915-1922), Louis Borno (1922-1930), and Eugene Roy, whoserved astemporary President from May-November 1930, were elected by the Council of State at the instigation of U.S.authorities. They, in turn, appointed members of the Council of State. There were no national elections held untilOctober1930, and local elections that produced unsuitable winners were invalidated. Newspapers were censored, andoffending editors jailed.

Inattention to efforts to promote democracy stemmed, in part, from a knowledge that any election might produce results hostile to U.S. interests and probably from racial attitudes that considered Haitians unsuited forself-government. Theyears of the Haitian occupation coincided with widespread racial segregation in the United States and oppositionby a majority of U.S. whites to a political role for blacks. These attitudes, brought to Haiti by the occupation, ledto social aswell as political discrimination against Haitians, even the educated and politically active elite, that was bitterlyresented and undercut well-intentioned development projects. To a large extent, U.S. racial attitudes ensured thatthere was nosignificant element of the Haitian populace that supported the U.S. presence. (7)

Education was also largely neglected during the occupation. Schooling in Haiti had been traditionally divided between francophone instruction for the elite and a very few rudimentary elementary schools for others. Little effortto changethis situation was undertaken. The mass of the population remained illiterate, and the elite continued to seek aneducation that did not lead to careers in commerce and industry. Efforts to provide technical training to developtheagricultural and industrial potential of the country (the Service Technique ) were not warmly receivedand did not reach a large number of students.