United States Occupation of Haiti - Haitian Reactions To The Occupation

Haitian Reactions To The Occupation

Aside from the caco rebels, Haitian writers and public figures also responded to the Occupation. For example, one public figure, a minister of public education, Dantès Bellegarde, continuously discussed his issues with the event. In his book, La Résistance Haïtienne (l’Occupation Américaine d’Haïti), Bellegarde outlines the contradictions of the Occupation with the realities. He states that President Wilson wrote the new Haitian Constitution to benefit the Americans. His main purpose was to remove the previous Haitian clause that stated foreigners could not own land in the country. The original clause was designed to protect Haiti’s independence from foreign powers. With the clause removed, Americans could now own land. Furthermore, Bellegarde discusses the powerlessness of Haitian officials in the eyes of the Occupation because nothing could be done without the consent of the Americans. However, the main issue that Bellegarde articulates is that the Americans tried to change the education system of Haiti from one that was French based to that of the Americans. Even though Bellegarde was resistant he had a plan to build a university in Haiti that was based on the American system. He wanted a university with various schools of science, business, art, medicine, law, agriculture, and languages all connected by a common area and library. However, that dream was never realized because of the new direction the Haitian government was forced to take.

Another figure that was highly regarded during the period was Jean Price-Mars. He associated the reasons behind the Occupation to the division between the Haitian elite and the poorer people of the country. One of the dividers between the two groups was Vodou. The elites did not recognize Vodou because they connected it to an evil practice. Thus, in a book titled Ainsi Parla l’Oncle,. Price-Mars elaborates on what voodoo really was so that the elite could have a better understanding. After all, Vodou was the base that connected the slaves when they were brought from various regions in Africa.

Along with Haitian figures, the NAACP sent James Weldon Johnson, an African American, to Haiti to discover the real situation because it was depicted as a mission to progress and pacify the country in the United States. Nevertheless, Johnson’s trip results in him exposing the harsh truths of the Occupation in several articles in the magazine The Nation. In one of his articles, “Self-Determining Haiti” he talks about how the marines demoralized the people through their racist views and the slave-like system they imposed in building the great road from Port-au-Prince to Cap-Haïtien. Johnson also dismantles the previous notions of Haiti being a poor unsanitary country by talking about its beauty and stating that there were programs to advance Haiti before the Marines arrived rather than it being a result American intervention.