Price-Mars’ Attempts to Organize the Haitians During the Early Years of the American Occupation, 1916–18

Abstract

For Rear Admiral William B. Caperton, ordered to enter Haiti in 1915 as the agent of “gunboat diplomacy,” the country was a tragic land of disorder, “a land of seething discontent, professional revolutionaries, and a national and ingrained political dishonesty.”¹ Rival factions had tried to gain his support in forming governments, and even the “better class” of Haitian, he was convinced, believed that only a permanent intervention could save Haiti from its social and political ills.² At the time of the July 28 landing, Caperton assured the Haitian Committee of Safety that the action was “entirely friendly and for the preservation of order and protection of legations.”³ In effect, however, he became the nation’s governor. There was no Haitian authority with the power to resist or even protest;⁴ nor was there any uprising of fierce Haitian patriots from the stunned populace.⁵ The self-appointed Committee of Safety, consisting mostly of Sam’s adversaries,⁶ had seized authority in Port-au-Prince but, when assured that Caperton had come only to restore order, had cooperated with the US force in carrying forward the US administration’s design for pacification.