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A transition Period Leading to the First US Occupation

The last decades of the 19th century were marked by political unstability as well as development of a Haitian intellectual culture. Major works of history were published in 1847 and 1865. Haitian intellectuals, led by Louis-Joseph Janvier and Antenor Firmin, engaged in a war of letters against a tide of racism and social Darwinism that emerged during this period.

The Constitution of 1867 saw peaceful and progressive transitions in government that did much to improve the economy and stability of the Haitian nation and the condition of its people. Constitutional government restored the faith of the Haitian people in legal institutions. The development of industrial sugar and rum industries near Port-au-Prince made Haiti, for a while, a model for economic growth in Latin American countries.

Haitian politics remained unstable. From the fall of Salomon until occupation by the United States in 1915, eleven men held the title of president. Their tenures in office ranged from six and one-half years in the case of Florvil Hyppolite (1889-96) to only months--especially between 1912 and 1915, the turbulent period that preceded the United States occupation--in the case of seven different Presidents, each of whom was killed or forced into exile.

Reports reached Washington that Berlin was considering setting up a coaling station at the Môle Saint-Nicolas to serve the German naval fleet. This potential strategic encroachment resonated through the White House, at a time when the Monroe Doctrine (a policy that opposed European intervention in the Western Hemisphere) and the Roosevelt Corollary (whereby the United States assumed the responsibility for direct intervention in Latin American nations in order to check the influence of European powers) strongly shaped United States foreign policy, and when war on a previously unknown scale had broken out in Europe. The administration of President Woodrow Wilson accordingly began contingency planning for an occupation of Haiti.

The United States was more and more interested in the Caribbean. The US wanted to secure naval stations throughout the region as the prospect of a war in Europe loomed closer and closer by the early 1900's. Words had reached Washington that Berlin was considering setting up a coal station in Mole St Nicholas to serve the German naval Fleet. The United States used the Monroe Doctrine, a policy that opposed European intervention in the Western Hemisphere, and the Roosevelt Corollary whereby the US assured the responsibility for direct intervention in Latin America in order to check the influence of European powers, to invade Haiti in 1915. When in 1915 Haitian president Vilbrun Guillaume Sam executed 167 political prisoners, the US invaded the country using the event as an excuse.