Race and the United States Occupation of Haiti

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The United States foreign expansion after the Civil War was characterized by an intensified interest in establishing political and military control in the Caribbean and the Pacific. One of the most important nations in the Caribbean was the French colony of Saint-Dominigue which would later be named Haiti following a slave rebellion resulting in the Haitian Revolution. Saint-Dominigue became the single richest colony in the western hemisphere, including the United States. By the 1780s, Saint-Domingue produced about 40 percent of all the sugar and 60 percent of all the coffee consumed in Europe and accounted for more coffee and sugar exports than every other colony in the British West Indies, combined. The role of race played a predominant role in the United States occupation of Haiti between 1915 and 1934 due to the class distinctions already present in Haiti as well as the bigotries and racism expressed by the Americans.

Haiti is one of the most unusual countries in Latin America as it is the only French-speaking nation in the Caribbean as well as the first to receive its independence. Haiti’s most unique characteristic, however, is in regard to race. “The population of Haiti on the eve of the French Revolution was made up of over 90% black slaves, with whites numbering only about 40,000 out of a total population of 519,000” . This large disparity can be explained due to the fact that, at one time, Haiti was one of the wealthiest places in the world during French colonization. At the time of the French Revolution in 1789, the sugar production of Saint Dominique exceeded that of all the British West Indies, and on the eve of the revolution the colony accounted for more than one-third of the foreign commerce of France. “Saint-Domi...

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... the United States succeeded in creating infrastructure and a powerful police presence, the poverty, ignorance, and the lack of a tradition for orderly free government were completely unchanged leaving no substantial benefit for millions of uneducated poor black Haitians. The real lasting impact was the further degradation of the Haitian people with the mulatto elite still in control of the bureaucracy and national affairs setting the stage for pro-U.S. military dictators with the resources to ignore human rights and violently suppress the opposition.

Works Cited

Mont-Reynaud, Marie-Josée. "The Failure of the American Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934." Haiti Forever, Mar. 2002. Web. 04 Mar. 2011. .

Schmidt, Hans. The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1995. Print.

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