Back before the United States of America entry into The Great War, the U.S. Marines engaged in an occupation of Haiti. This started in 1915. By 1920, black leaders in America were particularly worried about what this occupation by an unapologetically white nation (recall, Birth of a Nation had been released in 1915 and was a monumental success) symbolically meant, since Haiti was birthed in the blood of the white French that black slaves had murdered as they created the first black republic.
Yes, the Constitution of 1805 explicitly made Haiti a black republic.
Thus, the collapse of Haiti and white people from America emerging as a force for order—whereas explicit black power had been the primary mover of the government since black slaves revolted and killed all the white people on the island—was of grave concern to the nascent NAACP. Enter a historic document forever demonstrating that blacks in America knew what the collapse of Haiti meant for black people worldwide (hint: the confirmation of every stereotype of the unfitness for blacks to govern independently of colonial masters). Yes, this is the conclusion of James Weldon Johnson, a black man who visited Haiti early on in the US Marine occupation of the island:
“The Truth about Haiti. An N.A.A.C.P. Investigation,” by James Weldon Johnson, Crisis 5 (September 1920): 217–224
U.S. marines occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. By 1919, Haitian Charlemagne Péralte had organized more than a thousand cacos, or armed guerrillas, to militarily oppose the marine occupation. The marines responded to the resistance with a counterinsurgency campaign that razed villages, killed thousands of Haitians, and destroyed the livelihoods of even more. American organizations such as the NAACP opposed the U.S. occupation of Haiti. They sent delegations that investigated conditions and protested the blatant racism and imperialism of U.S. policy in Haiti in the early 20th century. An article from 1920, by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson, countered the standard justifications for U.S. occupation of Haiti.
In writing of my visit to Haiti for Crisis readers, I should like to tell all that I learned about political, economic and social conditions there, and to give, as well, the information and impressions I gained about the country and the Haitian people themselves. This, of course, will not be possible, for either of these phases of the subject, fully treated, would make a complete article. I have decided that something about each phase will be more interesting and more comprehensive than all about one. Therefore, what I say will of necessity be rather sketchy.
The Historic Background
I should like the reader, first of all, to take a swift glance at the historical and cultural background of the Haitian people. In order to fully understand present and actual conditions, it is necessary to be familiar with the fact that the Haitian people have a glorious history behind them. Haiti was the first of the American Republics, after the United States, to gain its independence. The story of the war for Haitian independence is one of the most thrilling chapters in the history of the world. If one reads only what alien historians have written, he gains the idea that the Haitian struggle was nothing more than the massacre of outnumbered whites by hordes of semi-savage blacks. There was massacre and savagery but it was on both sides. But the war itself was one which suffers very little in magnitude by comparison with the American Revolution. There were times when the French troops and the Haitian troops engaged, aggregated more than 80,000 men. The French troops were the best that Napoleon could send. The Haitian troops were not a band of lawless guerrillas but were well drilled and well officered. There were battles in which these troops compelled the admiration of the French for their valor, and their commanders, for their military ability and gallantry.
It should also be borne in mind that the Haitian Revolution was not merely a political revolution. It was also a social revolution. There was a complete overturn of both the political and social organization of the country. The man who had been the chattel became the ruler. The great estates of the colonial slave holders were cut up into small parcels and allotted among the former slaves. This last fact has a direct bearing on present conditions in Haiti, to which I shall refer later.
Haiti gained her independence 116 years ago and maintained her complete sovereignty down to 1915, the year of American intervention. None of the Latin-American Republics had the difficulties in maintaining their independence that Haiti encountered. The Black Republic did not receive from the United States the support which it had a right to expect. Haiti had fought France, England and Spain, but the United States was the last of all the strong nations to recognize her independence, when, indeed, she should have been the first.
Fitness To Rule
The unfitness of the Haitian people to govern themselves has been the subject of propaganda for the last century. Books and pamphlets and articles have been written, and lectures have been delivered many times over to prove that the Haitians not only were incapable of advancement, but were steadily retrograding into barbarism. An observation of the city of Port-au-Prince is sufficient to refute this oft made assertion. Port-au-Prince is a clean, well paved, well lighted city. Its newer business buildings are constructed of concrete and brick. The wooden shanties which one so often sees in magazines and books illustrating the business section of the town are relics of the old French régime. The residential section of Port-au-Prince is built on the slopes of the hills that rise back of the city. The homes of the well-to-do people are beautiful villas with well kept grounds, and there are hundreds of them.
This section of Port-au-Prince is superior to the residential section in any of the cities of the Central American republics. In fact, Port-au-Prince is one of the most beautiful of the tropical cities which I have seen. Haiti has been independent for more than a century and if the people had been steadily retrograding into barbarism during all of that time, Port-au-Prince today would be an aggregation of filth and decay instead of the city that it is. In Port-au-Prince one will meet Americans who, in response to the exclamation, “Why I am surprised to see what a fine city Port-au-Prince is!” will answer, “Yes, but you should have seen it before the Occupation.” The implication here is that the American Occupation is responsible for making Port-au-Prince a paved and well kept city. It is true that only one or two of the principal streets of Port-au-Prince were paved at the time of the intervention—five years ago—but the work had already been begun and contracts for paving the whole city had already been let by the Haitian Government. The American Occupation did not pave, and had nothing to do with the paving of a single street in Port-au-Prince. The regulations instituted by the American Health Officer may have something to do with the regularity with which the streets are swept, but my observation showed me that the Haitians have a “sweeping habit” which they must have acquired long years before the American Occupation.
The Americans have carried American prejudice to Haiti. Before their advent, there was no such thing in social circles as race prejudice. Social affairs were attended on the same footing by natives and white foreigners. The men in the American Occupation, when they first went down, also attended Haitian social affairs, but now they have set up their own social circle and established their own club to which no Haitian is invited, no matter what his social standing is. The Haitians now retaliate by never inviting Americans to their social affairs or their clubs. Of course, there are some semi-social affairs at which Haitians and Occupation officials meet, but there is a uniform rule among Haitian ladies not to dance with any American official.
A great deal of this prejudice has been brought about because the Administration has seen fit to send southern white men to Haiti. For instance, the man at the head of the customs service is a man who was formerly a parish clerk in Louisiana. The man who is second in charge of the customs service is a man who was formerly Deputy Collector of Customs at Pascagoula, Miss. The man who is Superintendent of Public Instruction was formerly a school teacher in Louisiana. It seems like a practical joke to send a man from Louisiana where they have not good schools even for white children down to Haiti to organize schools for black children. And the mere idea of white Mississippians going down to civilize Haitians and teach them law and order would be laughable except for the fact that the attempt is actually being made to put the idea into execution. These Southerners have found Haiti to be the veritable promised land of “jobs for deserving democrats”. Many of these men, both military and civilian officials, have moved their families to Haiti. In Port-au-Prince many of them live in fine villas. Many of them who could not keep a hired girl in the United States have a half-dozen servants. All of the civilian heads of departments have automobiles furnished at the expense of the Haitian Government. These automobiles seem to be used chiefly to take the women and children out for an airing each afternoon. It is interesting to see with what disdain, as they ride around, they look down upon the people who pay for the cars. It is also interesting to note that the Haitian officials and even the cabinet officers who are officially the superiors of these various heads have no cars. For example, the Louisiana superintendent has a car, but the Haitian Minister of Public Instruction has none. What the Washington Administration should have known was that in order to do anything worth while for Haiti, it was necessary to send men there who were able and willing to treat Negroes as men, and not because of their ability to speak poor French, or their knowledge of “handling niggers”.
The United States has failed in Haiti. It should get out as well and as quickly as it can and restore to the Haitian people their independence and sovereignty. The colored people of the United States should be interested in seeing that this is done, for Haiti is the one best chance that the Negro has in the world to prove that he is capable of the highest self-government. If Haiti should ultimately lose her independence, that one best chance will be lost.
Read the last paragraph again, penned by a black leader upon his return from white-occupied Haiti in 1920:
The United States has failed in Haiti. It should get out as well and as quickly as it can and restore to the Haitian people their independence and sovereignty. The colored people of the United States should be interested in seeing that this is done, for Haiti is the one best chance that the Negro has in the world to prove that he is capable of the highest self-government. If Haiti should ultimately lose her independence, that one best chance will be lost.
Haitian people did have their independence restored, and 104 years later, black rule in Haiti has seen the island nation collapse into cannibalism, riots, and ruin. The Negro, to paraphrase James Weldon Johnson, has thus proven in Haiti that he is not capable of the highest self-government, and Haiti—a country born out of white genocide and black power—will once again lose her independence, unless cannibalism is allowed to spread in a manner causing the ghost of George Romero to find racially unbecoming.
For the island nation that gave us the concept of the zombie has now definitely offered us a glimpse of what the future of Baltimore, Jackson (MS), Memphis, Birmingham, Montgomery, Gary (IN), Newark, Camden, New Orleans, and Atlanta will look under black rule.
James Weldon Johnson knew eventually white people would realize what the collapse of Haiti meant in 1920, and he worried what conclusions white people might take to ensure nothing like it ever happened again for their posterity. And as Haiti collapses in 2024, we must now make decisions on what this means for not just our posterity, but our present as well.
There should not be one Haitian in the USA. They have an island which has been powered by the belief in black supremacy/black power since 1805.
