2021-KINAM MAGAZINE FEBRUARY - MARCH BOOK

poisoned.
The United States
and the Caribbean
Meanwhile, the United States
was expanding its sphere of
influence in the Caribbean. In
1898, it had won Cuba and
Puerto Rico from Spain in the
Spanish-American War: Cuba
was granted freedom but Puerto
Rico was not. The Panama
Canal opened in 1914. The
United States had invested
heavily in building it and had
even gone to great pains to
separate Panama from Colombia
in order to be able to administer
it. The strategic value of
the canal, both
economically
and militarily,
was
enormous.
In
1914,
the
United
States
had also
been
meddling
in the Dominican
Republic,
which shares the
island of Hispaniola with
Haiti.
Haiti in 1915
Europe was at war and Germany
was faring well. President
Woodrow Wilson feared that
Germany might invade Haiti in
order to establish a military base
there: a base that would be very
close to the precious Canal. He
had a right to worry: there were
KINAM MAGAZINE — FEBRUARY | MARCH 2021
many German settlers in Haiti
who had financed the rampaging
?cacos with loans that would
never be repaid and they were
begging Germany to invade and
restore order. In February of
1915, pro-US strongman Jean
Vilbrun Guillaume Sam seized
power and for a while, it seemed
that he would be able to look
after US military and economic
interests.
The US Seizes Control
In July of 1915, however, Sam
ordered a massacre of 167
political prisoners and he was
himself lynched by an angry
mob that broke into
the French Embassy
to get at
him. Fearing
that anti-
US caco
leader
Rosalvo
Bobo
might
take over,
Wilson
ordered an
invasion. The
invasion came
as no surprise:
American warships had
been in Haitian waters for most
of 1914 and 1915 and American
Admiral William B. Caperton
had been keeping a close eye on
events. The marines that
stormed the shores of Haiti were
met with relief rather than
resistance and an interim government
was soon set up.
Haiti Under US Control
Americans were put in charge of
— 91 —
public works, agriculture,
health, customs, and the police.
General Philippe Sudre
Dartiguenave was made president
in spite of popular support
for Bobo. A new Constitution,
prepared in the United States,
was pushed through a reluctant
Congress: according to a debated
report, the author of the
document was none other than a
young Assistant Secretary of the
Navy named Franklin Delano
Roosevelt. The most interesting
inclusion in the constitution was
the right of whites to own land,
which had not been permitted
since the days of French colonial
rule.
Unhappy Haiti
Although the violence had
ceased and order had been
restored, most Haitians did not
approve of the occupation. They
wanted Bobo as president,
resented the Americans’ highhanded
attitude towards the
reforms and were indignant
about a Constitution that was
not written by Haitians. The
Americans managed to irk every
social class in Haiti: the poor
were forced to work building
roads, the patriotic middle class
resented the foreigners and the
elite upper class was mad that
the Americans did away with the
corruption in government
spending that had previously
made them rich.
The Americans Depart
Meanwhile, back in the United
States, the Great Depression hit
and citizens began wondering
why the government was spending
so much money to occupy