Haiti’s Liberty Trampled by Prejudiced American Rulers Capt. Marshall Cites Unjust Tactics of White Dictators

Background: On July 29, 1915, U.S. Marines invaded Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, claiming the need to protect foreign lives and property. They placed Port-au-Prince under martial law, ruthlessly subdued armed resistance in rural areas, and began training a new Haitian militia. Waves of resistance from Haitian peasants and workers continued throughout the nineteen-year occupation, and the African American press continued to call attention to the plight of the Haitians.

By Capt. Napoleon B. Marshall

In consequence of the annual reports of Gen. John H. Russell, the American high commissioner to Haiti, and a press bureau, the American people have the notion that Haiti is prospering under the American occupation. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have spent six years in the United States legation at Port-au-Prince and have been in a position to study minutely the trend of affairs in that unhappy republic.

When I left there a few days ago, misery prevailed everywhere. If the purpose of the occupation of Haiti by the armed forces of the United States was to crush the spirits of a free and sovereign people and reduce them to a dependent state, that purpose has been brilliantly achieved. . . .

[T]here are statesmen at Washington who insist that the fundamental intent of the American occupation is to secure the confidence of the Haitian people. I know that his was the hope of ex-Secretary of State Hughes and the late Senator McCormack, but the brigadiers in Haiti scoff at civilian counsel.

The economic side of this picture is darker still. Le Temps, a daily at Port-au-Prince, published a series of articles reviewing the economic condition of the Haitian people. We translate the following comment:

“Misery in the folded arms of the merchant! Misery of the discouraged bourgeoisie, of the hopeless small employee. Misery in the glazed eyes of the scantily –clad girls of the proletariat in the evenings on the street corners of the squalid outskirts of the city. Misery of the elite and the masses! Misery of a whole people. . . .

This is what is passing in Haiti, supported by martial law and the bayonets of American marines.

Source: The Chicago Defender, February 23, 1929