Caribbean Beat — September/October 2017 (#147)

Nor were the French, the former colonial masters of Saint-
Domingue, much friendlier to the Haiti that replaced it. In 1825,
still furious at the loss of its lucrative plantation colony and with
warships ready to attack, France demanded 150 million francs
in compensation for “lost” slaves and property from the civil
war–devastated republic, reducing the debt to 90 million francs
in 1838, to be paid over thirty years. This was the equivalent
of US$21 billion in current terms. It was not until 1947 that all
associated interest and fees were paid off, and by then Haiti was
poverty-stricken and bankrupt. In 1915 — the year of the US
invasion — it was estimated that eighty per cent of the government’s
budget went on servicing the debt.
If this seems vindictive, then consider the events that followed
the arrest in Port-au-Prince on 21 September, 1897 — 120
years ago — of one Emile Lüders. As his surname suggests,
Lüders was of German parentage: his father was from Hamburg
and his mother Haitian, and
though born in Haiti, he retained
German citizenship. On that day,
he was at his business, the Écuries
Centrales (Central Stables) in
the bustling city centre, when
the police arrived. They were
looking for his employee Dorléus
Présumé, suspected of theft, who
happened to be washing a coach
outside the stables. From upstairs,
Lüders heard Présumé shouting and rushed down to help him.
In the ensuing altercation, Lüders allegedly struck a policeman,
and both he and Présumé were arrested.
In what seems like an unusually speedy process of justice,
both men were sentenced to a month’s imprisonment by the
Police Tribunal that same day. Perhaps foolishly, Lüders decided
to appeal to the Correctional Tribune. It was then that it was
discovered that his temper had already got him into trouble — he
had been jailed for six days in 1894 for assaulting a soldier. The
sentence was changed to one year’s imprisonment.
This news was transmitted to the German chargé d’affaires,
Count von Schwerin, whose main task was to oversee the
welfare of a community of about two hundred Germans, mostly
coffee traders. He demanded Lüders’s immediate release as
well as the firing of the police officers involved. When the US
minister Powell also insisted that Lüders should be set free, the
issue swiftly reached the desk of President Tirésias Simon Sam.
For perhaps understandable reasons, Sam duly gave in, and on
22 October Lüders left Haiti for Hamburg.
All might have thought that was the end of the story, but
Count von Schwerin had other ideas. He had alerted
Berlin to the mistreatment of a German national and
requested military support. On 6 December, two German warships,
SMS Charlotte and SMS Stein, dropped anchor in the bay of
Port-au-Prince. The Charlotte’s Captain Thiele was rowed over to
a jetty, where he presented a written ultimatum to be delivered to
Perhaps the Germans would
never have opened fire, fearful
of an international incident,
but who was to know?
President Sam. It demanded $20,000 in compensation for Lüders,
his safe passage back to Haiti, a formal apology to the German
government, a twenty-one gun salute to the German flag and —
most cruelly — a reception in honour of Count von Schwerin. Sam
was given four hours to agree. Otherwise the German warships,
armed with powerful canonry, would open fire on the capital and
the presidential palace, just a few blocks away from the waterfront.
A white flag was to be raised over the palace if President Sam
wished to capitulate.
Which he did. There is a longstanding belief in staunchly
patriotic Haiti that the citizenry was prepared to resist the
German attack, but this would have been foolish. The Haitians
were outgunned, the city a potential tinder box of wooden
houses and narrow streets. Perhaps the Germans would never
have opened fire, fearful of an international incident, but who
was to know? In the event, the money was paid, the apology
issued, Lüders reappeared, and
von Schwerin, in full diplomatic
dress, attended the reception at
the palace, drily described by
Powell as “an unpleasant affair.”
It was certainly an unpleasant
exercise in extortion and
humiliation, which seems to have
been overlooked by the US, the
self-appointed policeman of the
Caribbean at that time. The sense
of powerlessness and shame was deeply felt in Haiti, and anger
was directed at the president. Michael Largey recounts in his
excellent book Vodou Nation how the editor of the Haitian newspaper
L’Impartial published a notice after the event:
You are invited to attend the funeral of young Haiti, cruelly
assassinated by President Tirésias Augustin Simon Sam. The
funeral procession will leave the mortuary, located at the
National Palace, to give itself to the court of Berlin. Port-au-
Prince, 6 December 1897.
This seems a little unfair to Sam, who is generally thought to
have done a good job in the eighteen months he was in power
before the “Lüders affair.” He never really recovered, and
resigned before his six-year term was up. He spent many of his
remaining years in exile.
But at least he fared better than his cousin, Vilbrun
Guillaume Sam, elected president in March 1915. He unwisely
ordered the execution of 167 political prisoners, many from
among the capital’s wealthy elite. A furious mob burst into the
French embassy, where he was hiding, and literally tore him
apart. American warships just happened to be anchored in the
harbour, and President Woodrow Wilson, fearful of a hostile
Germany taking advantage of the chaos, ordered the Marines
ashore. It was the beginning of the nineteen-year occupation
that led to fifteen thousand Haitian dead and a sense of resentment
that still lingers today. n
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