The Importance Of The American Accupation Of Haiti

In 1915, the United States began its often forgotten nineteen-year long occupation of Haiti. Justified by the Roosevelt Corollary of 1904, the proposition that established the United States as a self-proclaimed international police power, the occupation was framed by the American government as a “progressive intervention” meant to benefit the Haitian people. Haitians, however, despised the occupation as it deprived them of the autonomy they struggled to obtain from their French colonizers, and subjected them to Jim Crow racial values that considered all dark-skinned Haitians as inferior beings. In reality, despite the American government’s claims of wanting to help the Haitians, it willfully ignored the Haitians’ needs and demands simply to

The first year of the occupation did see some racial harmony (due to a lack of American wives to restrain their marine husbands, who drank heavily and mingled with “dusky belles” ), but the imposed racial segregation from 1916 onward resulted in hostility between Americans and Haitians. Americans were extremely patronizing to the Haitians, castigating them for both their assumed French values and their inherent Afro-Latino culture. The social hierarchy that Haitians had created for themselves based off of French society was completely ignored by Americans, resulting in all Haitians being treated as peasants, and even worse, savages . The constant barrage of humiliation that Haitians faced resulted in anger and resistance to the occupation, eventually exploding into the tumultuous riots of 1929. In addition, the United States employed especially violent tactics during the occupation, including the use of airstrikes and the presence of excessive marine forces. The violence pushed Haitians to engage in mass demonstrations and students’ strikes against the marines and the occupation, leading to tragic events such as the Cayes massacre, during which 12—24 Haitians died . The uprisings, coupled with the overtly racist rule imposed on a nation that already struggled and fought for its freedom, led to an extremely hazardous situation in Haiti that caused waves of instability to remain for years after the occupation