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Haiti DECADES OF INSTABILITY, 1843-1915
Leyburn summarizes this chaotic era in Haitian history.
"Of
the twenty-two heads of state between 1843 and 1915, only
one
served out his prescribed term of office, three died while
serving, one was blown up with his palace, one presumably
poisoned, one hacked to pieces by a mob, one resigned. The
other
fourteen were deposed by revolution after incumbencies
ranging in
length from three months to twelve years." During this
wide gulf
between the 1843 revolution and occupation by the United
States
in 1915, Haiti's leadership became the most valuable prize
in an
unprincipled competition among strongmen. The overthrow of
a
government usually degenerated into a business venture,
with
foreign merchants--frequently Germans--initially funding a
rebellion in the expectation of a substantial return after
its
success. The weakness of Haitian governments of the period
and
the potential profits to be gained from supporting a
corrupt
leader made such investments attractive.
Rivière-Hérard enjoyed only a brief tenure as
president. It
was restive and rebellious Dominicans, rather than
Haitians, who
struck one of the more telling blows against this leader.
Nationalist forces led by Juan Pablo Duarte seized control
of
Santo Domingo on February 27, 1844
(see The Infant Republic
, ch.
1). Unprofessional and undisciplined Haitian forces in the
east,
unprepared for a significant uprising, capitulated to the
rebels.
In March Rivière-Hérard attempted to reimpose his
authority, but
the Dominicans put up stiff opposition. Soon after
Rivière-Hérard
crossed the border, domestic turmoil exploded again.
Discontent among black rural cultivators, which had
flared up
periodically under Boyer, re-emerged in 1844 and led to
greater
change. Bands of ragged piquets (a term derived
from the
word for the pikes they brandished), under the leadership
of a
black, former army officer named Louis Jean-Jacques Acaau,
rampaged through the south. The piquets who were
capable
of articulating a political position demanded an end to
mulatto
rule and the election of a black president. Their demands
were
eventually met but not by the defeated Rivière-Hérard, who
returned home to a country where he enjoyed little support
and
wielded no effective power. In May 1844, his ouster by
several
rebel groups brought to power Philippe Guerrier, an aged
black
officer who had been a member of the peerage under
Christophe's
kingdom.
Guerrier's installation by a mulatto-dominated
establishment
represented the formal beginning of politique de
doublure;
a succession of short-lived black leaders was chosen after
Guerrier in an effort to appease the piquets and to
avoid
renewed unrest in the countryside. During this period, two
exceptions to the pattern of abbreviated rule were Faustin
Soulouque (1847-59) and Fabre Nicolas Geffrard (1859-67).
Soulouque, a black general of no particular distinction,
was
considered just another understudy when he was tapped by
the
legislature as a compromise between competing factions.
Once in
office, however, he displayed a Machiavellian taste for
power. He
purged the military high command, established a secret
police
force--known as the zinglins--to keep dissenters in
line,
and eliminated mulatto opponents. In August 1849, he
grandiosely
proclaimed himself as Haiti's second emperor, Faustin I.
Soulouque, like Boyer, enjoyed a comparatively long
period of
power that yielded little of value to his country. Whereas
Boyer's rule had been marked by torpor and neglect,
Soulouque's
was distinguished by violence, repression, and rampant
corruption. Soulouque's expansive ambitions led him to
mount
several invasions of the Dominican Republic. The
Dominicans
turned back his first foray in 1849 before he reached
Santo
Domingo. Another invasion in 1850 proved even less
successful.
Failed campaigns in 1855 and in 1856 fueled mounting
discontent
among the military; a revolt led by Geffrard, who had led
a
contingent in the Dominican campaign, forced the emperor
out of
power in 1859.
Geffrard, a dark-skinned mulatto, restored the old
order of
elite rule. After the turmoil of Soulouque's regime,
Geffrard's
rule seemed comparatively tranquil and even somewhat
progressive.
Geffrard produced a new constitution based largely on
Pétion's
1816 document, improved transportation, and expanded
education
(although the system still favored the upper classes).
Geffrard
also signed a concordat with the Vatican in 1860 that
expanded
the presence of the Roman Catholic Church and its
preponderantly
foreign-born clergy in Haiti, particularly through the
establishment of parochial schools
(see Religious Life
, ch. 7).
The
move ended a period of ill will between Haiti and the
church that
had begun during the revolutionary period.
Intrigue and discontent among the elite and the
piquets beset Geffrard throughout his rule. In 1867
General Sylvain Salnave--a light-skinned mulatto who
received
considerable support from blacks in the north and in the
capital-
-forced Geffrard from office. The overthrow profoundly
unsettled
the country, and Salnave's end came quickly. Rural
rebellion
among anti-Salnavist peasants who called themselves
cacos
(a term of unknown derivation) triggered renewed unrest
among the
piquets in the south. After several military
successes,
Salnave's forces weakened, and the leader fled
Port-au-Prince.
Caco forces captured him, however, near the
Dominican
border, where they tried and executed him on January 15,
1870.
Successive leaders claimed control of most of the country
and
then regularly confirmed their rule ex post facto through
a vote
by the legislature, but none succeeded in establishing
effective
authority over the entire country.
Rebellion, intrigue, and conspiracy continued to be
commonplace even under the rule of Louis Lysius Félicité
Salomon
(1879-88), of the National Party (Parti National--PN), the
most
notable and effective president of the late nineteenth
century.
During one seven-year term and the beginning of a second,
Salomon
revived agriculture to a limited degree, attracted some
foreign
capital, established a national bank, linked Haiti to the
outside
world through the telegraph, and made minor improvements
in the
education system. Salomon, the scion of a prominent black
family,
had spent many years in France after being expelled by
Riviére-
Hérard. Salomon's support among the rural masses, along
with his
energetic efforts to contain elite-instigated plots, kept
him in
power longer than the strongmen who preceded and followed
him.
Still, Salomon yielded--after years of conflict with
forces led
by the Liberal Party (Parti Liberal--LP), and other
disgruntled,
power-hungry elite elements.
Political forces during the late nineteenth century
polarized
around the Liberal and the National parties. Mulattoes
dominated
the Liberal ranks, while blacks dominated the National
Party;
both parties were nonideological in nature. The parties
competed
on the battlefield, in the legislature, within the ranks
of the
military, and in the more refined but limited circles of
the
literati. The more populist Nationalists marched under the
banner
of their party slogan, "the greatest good for the greatest
number," while the blatantly elitist Liberals proclaimed
their
preference for "government by the most competent."
Haitian politics remained unstable. From the fall of
Salomon
until occupation by the United States in 1915, eleven men
held
the title of president. Their tenures in office ranged
from six
and one-half years in the case of Florvil Hyppolite
(1889-96) to
only months--especially between 1912 and 1915, the
turbulent
period that preceded the United States occupation--in the
case of
seven others.
Although domestic unrest helped pave the way for
intervention
by the United States, geostrategic concerns also
influenced
events. The United States had periodically entertained the
notion
of annexing Hispaniola, but the divisive issue of slavery
deterred the nation from acting. Until 1862 the United
States
refused to recognize Haiti's independence because the
free,
black, island nation symbolized opposition to slavery.
President
Ulysses S. Grant proposed annexation of the Dominican
Republic in
1870, but the United States Senate rejected the idea. By
the late
nineteenth century, the growth of United States power and
the
prospect of a transoceanic canal in either Nicaragua or
Panama
had increased attention given to the Caribbean. Annexation
faded
as a policy option, but Washington persistently pursued
efforts
to secure naval stations throughout the region. The United
States
favored the Môle Saint-Nicolas as an outpost, but Haiti
refused
to cede territory to a foreign power.
The French and the British still claimed interests in
Haiti,
but it was the Germans' activity on the island that
concerned the
United States most. The small German community in Haiti
(approximately 200 in 1910) wielded a disproportionate
amount of
economic power. Germans controlled about 80 percent of the
country's international commerce; they also owned and
operated
utilities in Cap Haïtien and Port-au-Prince, the main
wharf and a
tramway in the capital, and a railroad in the north. The
Germans,
as did the French, aiming to collect the nation's customs
receipts to cover Haiti's outstanding debts to European
creditors, also sought control of the nearly insolvent
National
Bank of Haiti. This kind of arrangement was known
technically as
a customs receivership.
Officials in Washington were especially concerned about
Germany's aggressive employment of military might. In
December
1897, a German commodore in charge of two warships
demanded and
received an indemnity from the Haitian government for a
German
national who had been deported from the island after a
legal
dispute. Another German warship intervened in a Haitian
uprising
in September 1902. It forced the captain of a rebel
gunboat (that
had waylaid a German merchant ship) to resort to blowing
up his
ship--and himself--to avoid being seized.
Reports reached Washington that Berlin was considering
setting up a coaling station at the Môle Saint-Nicolas to
serve
the German naval fleet. This potential strategic
encroachment
resonated through the White House, at a time when the
Monroe
Doctrine (a policy that opposed European intervention in
the
Western Hemisphere) and the Roosevelt Corollary (whereby
the
United States assumed the responsibility for direct
intervention
in Latin American nations in order to check the influence
of
European powers) strongly shaped United States foreign
policy,
and when war on a previously unknown scale had broken out
in
Europe. The administration of President Woodrow Wilson
accordingly began contingency planning for an occupation
of
Haiti.
Escalating instability in Haiti all but invited foreign
intervention. The country's most productive president of
the
early twentieth century, Cincinnatus Leconte, had died in
a freak
explosion in the National Palace (Palais National) in
August
1912. Five more contenders claimed the country's
leadership over
the next three years. General Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, who
had
helped to bring Leconte to power, took the oath of office
in
March 1915. Like every other Haitian president of the
period, he
faced active rebellion to his rule. His leading opponent,
Rosalvo
Bobo, reputedly hostile toward the United States,
represented to
Washington a barrier to expanded commercial and strategic
ties. A
pretext for intervention came on July 27, 1915, when
Guillaume
Sam executed 167 political prisoners. Popular outrage
provoked
mob violence in the streets of Port-au-Prince. A throng of
incensed citizens sought out Guillaume Sam at his
sanctuary in
the French embassy and literally tore him to pieces. The
spectacle of an exultant rabble parading through the
streets of
the capital bearing the dismembered corpse of their former
president shocked decision makers in the United States and
spurred them to swift action. The first sailors and
marines
landed in Port-au-Prince on July 28. Within six weeks,
representatives from the United States controlled Haitian
customs
houses and administrative institutions. For the next
nineteen
years, Haiti's powerful neighbor to the north guided and
governed
the country.
Data as of December 1989
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