A closer look

The U.S. Occupation of Haiti

How did notions of racial superiority and paternalism shape U.S. actions and policies in Haiti?

by Pennee Bender, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY

United States Claims the Right to Intervene in the Americas

Since 1823, when it announced the Monroe Doctrine, the United States has defined the Americas as a U.S. area of influence and asserted a right to keep European powers out of the hemisphere. In the early twentieth century, as U.S.-based companies expanded their economic investments in agriculture, mining, and railroads in Central America and the Caribbean, the federal government protected these financial investments through gunboat diplomacy. Between 1903 and World War I, the United States sent naval warships to Caribbean and Central American nations on at least fifteen occasions to subdue rebellions, with the aim of safeguarding U.S. investments, imposing order, or protecting access to the Panama Canal. This interventionist approach to foreign policy assumed that the United States had the right and obligation to impose U.S. models of progress, efficiency, and order on other nations.

U.S. Military Cooperates with Banks and Business Interests

The U.S. interference in the Haitian economy and military invasion of Haiti offer a clear illustration of how U.S. paternalistic attitudes merged with financial interests and military strategies to establish the United States as a world power. Although Haiti attracted mostly French and German business interests, U.S. companies began investing in railroads and banking there. In 1910, during a period of constant political upheaval within Haiti, an international consortium of banks refinanced Haiti’s international debt and took control of the country’s treasury by taking over the Banque Nationale, Haiti’s only bank. In this reorganization, the U.S. State Department demanded that the European banks grant U.S. banks control over 50 percent of the Banque Nationale to prevent German or French control. The National City Bank (of New York) was one of the largest U.S. banks in the consortium, owning 10 percent. In 1914, National City Bank insisted that the Haitian government give it authority to collect Haiti’s custom revenues and thus control over most of Haiti’s finances. When the Haitian government refused its demands, the New York bank turned to the U.S. military to protect its investment in the Banque Nationale’s gold reserves. On December 17, 1914, U.S. Marines landed in Haiti and moved 0,000 in gold to the National City Bank’s New York vaults.

The U.S. Marines Invade Haiti

On July 29, 1915, eight months after the intervention on behalf of the banks, the newly proclaimed president of Haiti was violently overthrown by his political opponents. The U.S. government used this political unrest as an excuse to initiate a full-scale invasion of the island, claiming the need to protect lives and property. Given the war raging in Europe, the United States also sought to prevent Germany from claiming a naval fueling station in Haiti and from gaining access to the Panama Canal. But the military invasion plans had been in place for months, and as the African American press in the United States noted, racism and paternalism played an important role in how the United States treated Haiti differently from other nations. [document 1] After U.S. troops landed in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, U.S. leaders leaned on the Haitian political elite to select a new president who would agree to U.S. financial control and customs receivership.

U.S. Brutality Against Haitian Civilians Spurs Rebellion

The U.S. Marines placed Port-au-Prince under martial law, ruthlessly subdued armed resistance in rural areas, [document 2] and began training a new Haitian militia that would serve under U.S. military officers. Once the Marines controlled most of the country, the United States moved to institutionalize its authority and prepare the country for U.S. investment in Haiti's sugar and coffee plantations. The U.S. military and State Department demanded that Haiti adopt a new constitution that reduced restrictions on foreign land ownership and established an extensive roadbuilding program based on forced labor by Haitian peasants. The blatant racism of many of the U.S. Marines combined with the brutal roadbuilding conditions fueled a full-scale revolt in 1918. Led by Charlemagne Péralte and Benoît Batraville, up to thirty thousand rural fighters or cacos, took up arms against the Americans. In the intense Caco Wars of 1918–1919, U.S. troops committed atrocities against peasant fighters and civilians alike.

Resistance to the Occupation Within the United States

The American public had largely been unconcerned about the U.S. occupation in Haiti, although African American civil rights leaders, anti-imperialist activists, and members of the women’s peace movement had all spoken out in opposition. When descriptions of the outrages during the Caco Wars reached the United States, however, the abuses of power in Haiti became an issue in the 1920 presidential campaign. [document 4] In response, the U.S. Senate held investigative hearings in 1921 that exposed both atrocities and daily racial abuse by the military. But by then, the poorly armed cacos had been largely defeated and the forced labor program suspended. The U.S. government once again claimed to be implementing a benevolent program of modernization that was premised on the notion that the Haitians could not govern themselves.

The United States remained in Haiti for nineteen years, claiming the need to educate, civilize, and democratize the Haitian nation. By 1929, though, it was clear to the U.S. public that the occupation had not benefited Haiti. [document 5 & 6] Marines in Aux Cayes fired upon Haitians protesting the occupation and miserable conditions, killing demonstrators and drawing international condemnation. By the time the Marines withdrew in 1934, the U.S. government had forced the Haitians to create a strongly centralized government ruled from Port-au-Prince, which limited the widespread political participation Haitians had once experienced. These conditions laid the groundwork for the future dictatorships and military regimes that began emerging in Haiti in the 1940s. The intervention in Haiti, along with similar invasions and occupations of the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua, shaped a military culture and domestic acceptance of the United States as an imperialist power. As historian Mary Renda noted, the U.S. occupation was not a sideshow in U.S. history. Although the U.S. occupation of Haiti is unknown to most Americans, it helped set the model for a U.S. foreign policy based on military interventions and U.S. efforts in nation building for at least the next century.

Reflection Questions

Does any nation have a right to assume control over other countries within their claimed “sphere of influence”?

Should U.S. foreign and military policy help support U.S. business interests abroad?

Are there any situations in which one country should intervene in the internal affairs of another country?

How did notions of racial superiority and paternalism shape U.S. actions and policies in Haiti?

How do U.S. military and foreign policies affect U.S. citizens and U.S. civic culture?

Additional Reading

Yveline Alexis, Haiti Fights Back: The Life and Times of Charlemagne Péralte (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2021).

Mary A. Renda, Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915–1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).

Hans Schmidt, The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915–1934 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1971).

Related Chapters

Wars for Democracy, 1914-1920