The first United States occupation of Haiti began on July 28, 1915 and ended in mid-August, 1934. Other occupations include ones that began in 1994 and 2004 (though under the UN banner, the US was the prime mover of the actions). Belligerent military occupation occurs when the control and authority over a territory belonging to a state passes to a hostile army. ... is the 209th day of the year (210th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1915 (MCMXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday[1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...

Causes

The instability in Haiti provided a potential opening for German influence during the ongoing World War I. In addition, it is alleged that a popular uprising against Haitian dictator Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam threatened American business interests in the country (such as HASCO). In response, American President Woodrow Wilson sent 330 U.S. Marines to Port-au-Prince on July 28, 1915. The specific order from the Secretary of the Navy to the invasion commander, Admiral William Deville Bundy, was to "protect American and foreign" interests. 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. During this period, the government of Haiti was effectively under the control of the U.S. Marines. “The Great War ” redirects here. ... A dictator is an authoritarian, often totalitarian ruler (e. ... Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam was President of Haiti from March 4 to July 27, 1915. ... The Haitian American Sugar Company (HASCO) was an American business venture which sought to produce and sell sugar and other goods in Haiti and the United States. ... Federal courts Supreme Court Circuit Courts of Appeal District Courts Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Local Government Other countries Atlas  US Government Portal      For other uses, see President of the United States (disambiguation). ... Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856—February 3, 1924), was the twenty-eighth President of the United States. ... The United States Marine Corps (USMC) is a branch of the United States military responsible for providing force projection from the sea,[1] using the mobility of the U.S. Navy to rapidly deliver combined-arms task forces and is one of seven uniformed services. ... Categories: Caribbean geography stubs | Capitals in North America | Haiti ... is the 209th day of the year (210th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1915 (MCMXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday[1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Flag of the United States Secretary of the Navy. ... For other uses, see Admiral (disambiguation). ... Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting customs duties and for controlling the flow of animals and goods (including personal effects and hazardous items) in and out of a country. ...

Government and opposition

Representatives from the United States wielded veto power over all governmental decisions in Haiti, and Marine Corps commanders served as administrators in the provinces. Local institutions, however, continued to be run by Haitians, as was required under policies put in place during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. The word veto comes from Latin and literally means I forbid. ... Province is a name for a secondary, or subnational entity of government in most countries. ...

Opposition to the Occupation began immediately after the Marines entered Haiti in 1915. The rebels (called "cacos" by the U.S. Marines) vehemently tried to resist American control of Haiti. In response, the Haitian and American governments began a vigorous campaign to disband the rebel armies. Perhaps the best-known account of this skirmishing comes from Marine Major Smedley Butler, who won a Medal of Honor for his exploits, and went on to serve as commanding officer of the Haitian Gendarmerie. (He later expressed his disapproval of the U.S. intervention in his book, "War Is a Racket".) Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881–June 21, 1940), nicknamed The Fighting Quaker and Old Gimlet Eye, was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. ... The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded by the United States. ... A gendarmerie or gendarmery (pronounced ) is a military body charged with police duties among civilian populations. ... See: Intervention (counseling) - an orchestrated attempt by family and friends to get a family member to get help for addiction or other similar problem. ... War is a Racket (1935) is a short work by former U.S. Marine Brigadier General Smedley Darlington Butler, where Butler discusses how business interests have commercially benefited from warfare. ...

Philippe Sudré Dartiguenave, the mulatto president of the Senate, agreed to accept the presidency of Haiti after several other candidates had refused on principle. In 1917, President Dartiguenave dissolved the legislature after its members refused to approve a constitution written by Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, a referendum subsequently approved the new constitution in 1918 (by a vote of 98,225 to 768). While generally a liberal document, the constitution allowed foreigners to purchase land. Jean-Jacques Dessalines had forbidden land ownership by foreigners, and since 1804, most Haitians had viewed foreign ownership as anathema. Philippe Sudré Dartiguenave (1863 - 19XX) was a Haitian general and political figure. ... Mulatto (Spanish mulato, small mule, person of mixed race, mulatto, from mulo, mule, from Old Spanish, from Latin mÅ«lus. ... Assistant Secretary of the Navy (abbrev. ... FDR redirects here. ... Elections Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      A referendum (plural referendums or referenda), ballot question, or plebiscite (from Latin plebiscita, originally a decree of the Concilium Plebis) is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. ... Look up liberal on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Liberal may refer to: Politics: Liberalism American liberalism, a political trend in the USA Political progressivism, a political ideology that is for change, often associated with liberal movements Liberty, the condition of being free from control or restrictions Liberal Party, members of... Jean-Jacques Dessalines Jean-Jacques Dessalines (September 20, 1758–October 17, 1806) was a leader of the Haitian Revolution and an Emperor of Haiti (1804–1806 under the name of Jacques I). ... Anathema (in Greek Ανάθεμα) meaning originally something lifted up as an offering to the gods; later, with evolving meanings, it came to mean: to be formally set apart, banished, exiled, excommunicated or denounced, sometimes accursed. ...

Effects of the occupation on Haiti

The occupation by the United States had several significant effects on Haiti. An early period of unrest culminated in a 1918 rebellion by up to 40,000 former cacos and other disgruntled people. The scale of the uprising overwhelmed the Gendarmerie, but Marine reinforcements helped put down the revolt at an estimated cost of 2,000 Haitian lives. Look up rebellion in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Thereafter, order prevailed to a degree that most Haitians had never witnessed. The order, however, was imposed largely by white foreigners with deep-seated racial prejudices and disdain for the notion of self-determination by inhabitants of less-developed nations. Such attitudes particularly dismayed Haiti's mulatto elite, who had heretofore believed in their innate superiority over the black masses. THE FUTURE OF BRITAIN, LONG LIVE THE WHITES!!!!! ... Self-determination is a principle in international law that a people ought to be able to determine their own governmental forms and structure free from outside influence. ... A developing country is a country with low average income compared to the world average. ... For other uses, see Elite (disambiguation). ... Look up innate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The white American occupiers, however, did not distinguish among Haitians, regardless of their skin tone, level of education, or sophistication. Their intolerance provoked indignation and resentment — and eventually a racial pride that was reflected in the work of a new generation of Haitian historians, ethnologists, writers, artists, and others, many of whom later became active in politics and government. Still, as Haitians united in their reaction to the racism of the occupying forces, the mulatto elite managed to dominate the country's bureaucracy and to strengthen its role in national affairs. Historical data for native populations collected by R. Biasutti prior to 1940. ... Ethnologyis a genre of cultural anthropology and| anthropological study, involving the systematic comparison of the beliefs and practices of different societies. ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box:      This article is about the sociological concept. ...

The occupation greatly improved some of Haiti's infrastructure. Roads were improved and expanded through the use of forced labor gangs. This violent form of "corvée labor" — with chain gangs, and armed guards permitted to shoot anyone who fled compulsory service — was widely regarded as tantamount to slavery. Unfree labour is a generic or collective term for forms of work, especially in modern or early modern history, in which adults and/or children are employed without wages, or for a minimal wage. ... Corvée, or corvée labor, is a term used in feudal societies. ... 1894 illustration of chain gang performing manual labour. ... Slave redirects here. ...

The education system was re-designed from the ground up; however, this involved the destruction of the existing system of "Liberal Arts" education inherited (and adapted) from the French. Due to its emphasis on vocational training, the American system that replaced the French was despised by the elite. Thus, both of the major programs instituted by the government of occupation antagonized the Haitian populace: the use of forced labor enraged the lower classes of rural Haiti, and the educational "reforms" enraged the urban elite. In the history of education, the seven liberal arts comprise two groups of studies, the trivium and the quadrivium. ... Vocational education (or Vocational Education and Training (VET)) prepares learners for careers or professions that are traditionally non-academic and directly related to a trade, occupation or vocation in which the learner participates. ... A group of people forming the total population of a certain place. ... A social class is, at its most basic, a group of people that have similar social status. ...

Effects of the occupation on U.S. politics

The occupation of Haiti continued after World War I, despite the embarrassment that it caused Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and the scrutiny of a congressional inquiry in 1922. By 1930, President Herbert Hoover had become concerned about the effects of the occupation, particularly after a December 1929 incident in Les Cayes, in which Marines killed at least ten Haitian peasants during a march to protest local economic conditions. Hoover appointed two commissions to study the situation. A former governor general of the Philippines, William Cameron Forbes, headed the more prominent of the two. “The Great War ” redirects here. ... The Paris Peace Conference was an international conference, organized by the victors of the World War I for negotiating the peace treaties between the Allied and Associated Powers and their former enemies. ... Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964), the thirty-first President of the United States (1929–1933), was a world-famous mining engineer and humanitarian administrator. ... Les Cayes, formerly Aux Cayes, is a town and seaport in southwestern Haiti with a population of approximately 45,904 people (1995 estimate). ... Categories: 1911 Britannica | Historical stubs | Feudalism ... William Cameron Forbes (May 21, 1870 – December 24, 1959), was governor-general of the Philippines and an investment banker. ...

The Forbes Commission praised the material improvements that the U.S. administration had wrought, but it criticized the exclusion of Haitians from positions of real authority in the government and the constabulary, which had come to be known as the Garde d'Haïti. In more general terms, the commission further asserted that "the social forces that created [instability] still remain — poverty, ignorance, and the lack of a tradition or desire for orderly free government." Constabulary may have several definitions. ...

The Hoover administration did not fully implement the recommendations of the Forbes Commission; but United States withdrawal was under way by 1932, when Hoover lost the presidency to Franklin Roosevelt, the presumed author of the most recent Haitian constitution. On a visit to Cap-Haïtien in July 1934, Roosevelt reaffirmed an August 1933 disengagement agreement. The last contingent of U.S. Marines departed in mid-August, after a formal transfer of authority to the Garde. Looking into Cap-Haïtien from the northern edge of downtown Cap-Haïtien (or Le Cap) (Okap or Kapayisyen in Kréyòl) is a city of about 111,094 people (2003 census) on the north coast of Haiti. ...

As in other countries occupied by the United States in the early 20th century, the local (U.S.-trained) military was often the only cohesive and effective institution left in the wake of withdrawal. This sowed the seeds for a sequence of military-backed dictatorships, all attached to American patronage, which would define the next 50 years of Haiti's history. Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler were two of the 20th centurys most notorious dictators. ... ...

Further reading

• Renda, Mary A. (2001). Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-4938-3. 
• Schmidt, Hans (1995). United States occupation of Haiti (1915-1934). Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-2203-X. 
• Harper's Magazine advertisement: Why Should You Worry About Haiti? by the Haiti-Santo Domingo Independence Society
• Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. New York, Basic Books: 2002. ISBN 0-465-00721-X