The Haitian Peasantry and the US Occupation: Les paysans haitiens et l'occupation américaine d'Haiti (1915-1930)

We have recently taken another look at Kethly Millet's study of the US Occupation of Haiti and the peasantry. Millet's brief book examines the impact of the Occupation on the Haitian peasant. The peasantry, however, were not an undifferentiated mass of smallholder farmers. Some were landless, others were squatters on state-owned land, more were sharecroppers, a few were grand proprietors and medium-scale owners, and then there were the speculators who benefited from their relationship with, for example, exporters of coffee to move peasant-produced crops. Naturally, the impact of the US Occupation on the peasantry varied by region and by the social status of the peasant involved. In some regions, such as Plaisance, 15% of the peasantry were landless (according to Simpson and Dartigue). Furthermore, some areas of rural Haiti had already been impacted by foreign agro-industrial enterprise like Freres Simmonds and Plantation d'Haiti. 

The major impact of the US Occupation appears to have been an intensification of this process, despite the meager investments (compared to Cuba). HASCO, Compagnie Nationale de Chemin de Fer, road construction using corvee labor, a sisal plantation, a cotton plantation in Artibonite, bananas, and new taxes furthered the development of a rural proletariat while creating conditions that enlarged the scale of Haitian emigration to Cuba and the Dominican Republic. Wages for this burgeoning rural laboring class were 25 to 30 cents (US dollars) for 12 hour day and 10 cents for women and children, which were lower than wages one could have earned abroad. According to Millet, the imposition of taxes in September 1928 on local distillers also weakened the position of local guildive production. HASCO, which enjoyed a sugar monopoly, as well as other US companies rerouted water sources which negatively impacted small farmers.

So, hurt by taxes on small-scale distillers, rising unemployment, increased prices for basic subsistence and food in the late 1920s, and loss of land or resources,  Millet's explanation for the conditions leading to 1929 and the massacre at Marchaterre seems adequate. Of course, we know what happened after 1929, as the bad press of the incident spread internationally and steps were made to finally end the Occupation by 1934. But what, if anything, was the legacy of this period? The caco resistance was brutally crushed, and the poorly armed peasants could not unseat the Marines. Despite some gains in infrastructure, funded by the Haitians and with their own labor, the peasantry appear to have experienced mainly immiseration, emigration and top-down reforms that did little to fundamentally alter the economy or aid peasant agriculture.

The US Occupations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic

We have been rereading parts of Calder's The Impact of Intervention: The Dominican Republic during the U.S. Occupation of 1916-1924 and thinking about the role of US imperialism in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Calder's book should be read in conjunction with Hans Schmidt on the US Occupation of Haiti for a similar but distinct experience of US military imperialism and interests in the Caribbean region. And the two occupations were definitely linked, involving some of the same personnel and leadership (Russell, Knapp) and engaging in finalizing the Haiti-US border as well as requiring Haitian labor in Dominican sugar plantations and other projects, like roads. 

Despite overlapping for several years and probably achieving the same result (no major systemic reforms in "democracy" or government), there are still some noticeable differences in the US military occupations of the island. And these differences cannot be found solely in the fact that the US Marines ruled the Dominican Republic directly while using puppet presidents in Haiti. Of course, the longest lasting legacies of the US in the DR appear to have been in public works and the Guardia, probably the same for Haiti in terms of the reforms of the Haitian military. The various military dictators of Haiti post-1934 and the Trujillo regime cannot be understood without taking this into account, despite some of the very different aspects of the military under the Duvaliers and Trujillo. But clearly the political and economic centralization in the two capitals and the defeat of the cacos and gavilleros, the caudillos and regional strongmen, by the US Marines, facilitated authoritarian regimes. 

Calder's book explores several examples of areas in which the US Occupation intervened or changed the DR. Some of the same goals were pursued in Haiti, such as reforms in taxation, military, public works projects, elementary education (more schools) and favoring US exports to the Dominican market. Legislation beneficial to sugar companies in 1920 also furthered tensions in the east of the DR, where an uprooted peasantry manifested into the gavillero "bandits" or rebels fighting the Marines. The US Occupation also implemented additional reforms in both countries but ultimately failed as the only arena in which Haitians or Dominicans were allowed to express any opinion was in education. In the Haitian case, we have well-known examples of US discriminatory attitudes, racist beliefs which also manifested in US interactions with the Dominican population. But perhaps because they are generally speaking lighter-skinned than Haitians, Calder suspects the US was willing to end their occupation of the Dominican Republic before that of Haiti.

The gavilleros in some way resemble the cacos of Haiti, but the areas of staunch caco resistance in Haiti does not appear to have developed in areas of the country under the influence of HASCO or other sites with large-scale agro-industrial projects (which were on a far smaller scale than US investments in the DR). The Haitian peasant did experience uprootedness, dispossession and labor migration to Cuba and the DR during this period (1915-1934), but the cacos appear to have been less active in, say, the Leogane area or Cul-de-Sac plain, regions where HASCO had an impact on the rural population. However, the two do seem to resemble each other in the disconnect between them and their respective elite opposition movements. According to Calder, the Union Patriotique in did not become a mass movement until the late 1920s, while the Union Nacional in the DR received more international support than their Haitian counterpart.  And while both elite opposition groups included intellectual resistance to the Occupation, perhaps the huge numbers of Haitian laborers in the DR and US racism precluded any elite Dominican attempt to rethink the nation's relationship to "blackness." Perhaps another legacy of the US Occupation was to ensure the somewhat deeper integration of the DR into the US "co-prosperity" sphere at slightly better terms than what they were willing to offer Haiti?

The Kingdom of Allada

Robin Law's short history of the kingdom of Allada was a little disappointing. We were hoping for a study of the scope of his other monographs with rich analysis of the kingdom of Allada. Unfortunately, our existing sources are thinner than we realized, often mainly relevant to Allada's active involvement in slave trading and only hints at other aspects of the state's administrative, economic, political, social, or cultural dimensions. Furthermore, as Law convincingly demonstrates, the surviving oral traditions are often problematic and present a number of problems since they have lost the institutional framework of the old kingdom's court and the traditions of Allada and Dahomey have changed over time to express new or different genealogies, historical events, or composite characters. 

It is clear that Allada was probably the dominant kingdom of the Slave Coast (or at least a good chunk of it) but its own origins remain unclear (although it was in existence by the 16th century if not long before) and the exact nature of Allada's authority over its "fidalgos" and vassal provinces or territories is unknown. However, as Law suggests, there does seem to have been more than a little continuity in the court and structure of the state from Allada to Dahomey. That continuity plus the pieces of the puzzle Law endeavors to place in correct order with the aid of European contemporary sources and later traditions, provides the reader with some idea of the chronology of kings, the institutions of the kingdom, and the impact of slave trading on the kingdom's relations economy and foreign relations. Due to our unfamiliarity with the historiography of the Slave Coast, we were surprised how often Law disagreed or felt a need to add nuance to arguments by Akinjogbin, whose study of Dahomey seems to be quite seminal. We feel Law was probably correct about the qualifications he attached to Akinjogbin's interpretations of the impact of the slave trade as a factor in Allada's decline.

Unfortunately, this brief history is a bit too schematic and we wonder if more recent scholarship has uncovered new sources or attempted to integrate more fully studies on the 'Arada" or "Arara" in the Americas. There is a recently published study coauthored by Law on early Allada-Portugal relations, suggestive of important links between Christianity (or interest in it) as a way to strengthen Allada's economic ties to European traders. Perhaps the possible or alleged Christian presence in Allada could also be of interest, with at least one king being educated by the Portuguese in Sao Tome and Allada's ambassador to the court of Louis XIV being fluent in Portuguese and, at least nominally Christian. Who knows, maybe Latin Americanists and Caribbeanists examining so-called "Arada" or "Arara" captives in the Americas could potentially shed light on social, ethnic, religious, or political dynamics impacting Allada and its neighbors in the 1600s and 1700s. Law uses some of this material, particularly the work of Alonso de Sandoval but we are convinced more material might be available. 

Haiti in the New World Order

Alex Dupuy's Haiti in the New World Order: The Limits of the Democratic Revolution is one of those studies we should have read several years ago. Probably should have been done around the same time we read Dupuy's book on Aristide, but this one has the benefit of being written in the 1990s and focusing entirely on the first term of Aristide and how his eventual return to Haiti to complete that term was related to US foreign policy and neoliberal structural adjustments in a post-Cold War world. As Dupuy convincingly outlines in the early chapters, the new world order of neoliberal reforms promoted by the US, IMF, World Bank, and USAID would not have favored development for countries like Haiti and would not have alleviated the misery of the population. 

However, even a liberal capitalist state would have represented progress over the prebendary Haitian state and could have won over a share of the bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, one can see how the very conditions in which Aristide was allowed to return to Haiti after the first coup diminished the left-leaning social democratic agenda of Lavalas while recognizing how it deviated from Cold War-era US interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean (which usually involved intervention against leftist or left-leaning governments and support for military dictatorships). Aristide's first term must be contextualized in the new era in US foreign policy as well as the years of pro-democracy activism and struggles in Haiti since the fall of Duvalier in 1986. 

Reading Dupuy's book and thinking about his later analysis of Aristide as a politician who never relinquished the robe of the prophet for the clothes of the prince, one cannot help but feel Haiti may have been better off with Aristide remaining outside of formal politics. His real charisma and footwork for political, economic, and social changes in the 1980s was perhaps squandered or misdirected by his decision to run for president. Perhaps he really think believe it was a messianic or mystical relationship he enjoyed with the Haitian people and God was calling him to run to create a newer, better Haiti with dignified poverty instead of abject poverty most Haitians survive under. 

But his political and tactical errors of resisting a broad left coalition in government, employing threatening rhetoric against the bourgeoisie (which already hated or opposed him), his failure to thoroughly condemn violence or political mobs, and the "deal with the Devil" he agreed with to be returned to office almost ensured an unpleasant end to his political career. Just imagine if he had remained outside of formal politics but supported a broader left-leaning coalition that, while still facing pressure from the military, the haute bourgeoisie, and the US, was able to build a moderately progressive growth with equity economic policy for Haiti? Just imagine if the institutions and practice of democracy had been given the chance to actually develop and Aristide, as an outsider of the formal political process, could have used his charisma and influence to support this trend?

Perhaps it is naïve on our part to think the Duvalierist old guard and neo-Duvalierists would have ever agreed to this, but the last 36 years in Haiti have been a constant struggle for building democratic institutions and stability. The US role in this failed transition seems quite clear, and the old Duvalierists did not disappear since they played a role in 2004 and Martelly's presidency. We just wish Haiti could get a "do-over" for the last few decades, although it would be difficult to see huge progress made in Haiti becoming a "developed" or industrialized country. Perhaps things didn't have to become this bad, with the breakdown of the state, immiseration of the population, proliferation of gangs (and the Aristide years contributed to this), continued drug trafficking, fraudulent elections, and common human rights violations. When will Haiti's next chance for a democratic transition or something else to escape the current cycle present itself?

Against Decolonisation

Against Decolonisation: Taking African Agency Seriously by Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò is one of those catchy, polemical books that points out the several flaws in a certain type of decolonisation. Critiquing Wiredu, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, and other like-minded proponents influenced by them, Táíwo illustrates how their understanding of African agency, history, and languages suffers from a variety of flaws. One of their major flaws is equating modernity with colonialism or Westernization, a perspective that ignores the plethora of ways in which European colonialism in Africa actually preempted or prevented modernity through the imposition of a government without the consent of the governed and an extractive regime based on the utter exploitation and abuse of indigenous or local populations. 

Táíwò is basically saying those who ignore the ways in which liberal representative democracy has been engaged with, accepted, and appropriated by Africans to create modern societies are actually guilty of a misunderstanding of decolonisation (in the original sense of a formal end to European colonialism) and do not seriously engage with African intellectuals and politicians like Nkrumah, Senghor, Nyerere, or Cabral who saw value and utility in liberal democracy and other ideas, political philosophies, and customs of European origin. The obsession with African languages, defining and delimiting "African" in atavistic or retrograde fashions, and rejecting something of European origin because it may have entered a place like Nigeria through missionaries or even the colonial state does a disservice to the nuances of African intellectual history and the challenges people across the continent are engaged in to ensure a freer, more democratic government. 

Something of European or other external origins can be debated, analyzed, and perhaps adapted instead of blindly emulated or copied, but calling it "decolonizing" does not facilitate our understanding and may further obfuscate a deeper engagement with the full array of African intellectual production. Even the chronologies we use, like "precolonial" or terms like "traditional African religion" have to be rethought or reconsidered for what it suggests about the history of the continent and the impact of European colonialism. And trying to use decolonizing as a method of resurrecting "traditional" or ancient African monarchies, communalism, or spiritual practices is dangerous and does not help in the struggle to end customs like child marriages, ritual killings, or genital mutilation. I am sure most reasonable writers and activists who speak of decolonisation do not really want a return to the political or social order of "precolonial" Africa. Moreover, no one who has read Fanon or Cabral or, dare I say it, Haitian intellectuals of the 19th and 20th centuries, would see a return to premodern civilization as the basis for building a postcolonial state. 

Although ostensibly about Africa, much of what Táíwò discusses is also relevant to Haiti and the Caribbean. In "Haitian Studies" one can also find similar rhetoric of "decolonizing" or "decoloniality" (although perhaps closer in spirit to Latin American forms) that often cloud deeper understanding or analysis of Haiti's political, linguistic, and intellectual debates. In the Haitian case, I see it more often around the question of religion and language. According to some, language in Haiti needs to be decolonised by favoring education and literature in Haitian Creole, the only language spoken fluently by all Haitians. Instead of privileging French, Haitian Creole should be promoted to complete the mental decolonisation of Haitians. The linguistic realities of Haiti are of course more complicated than this kind of Manichaean worldview allows. I also wonder how anyone can only see the French language as colonial force in Haiti when the vast majority of Haitian literature has been composed in that language and French has been owned, claimed, and mastered by Haitians for two centuries. As for Creole in Haiti's schools, we have yet to truly see the basic reforms necessary to improve and update Haitian education or properly prepare curriculum and materials for Creole instruction. The situation is more difficult than proponents of Creole recognize or admit, and the relationship between French and Creole is not so black and white. 

As for religion and spiritual practices, I also wonder if Haitians could learn from Táíwò. Instead of assuming that the Vodou religion offers practical or useful ways of rethinking or reconsidering liberal democracy or that it could even offer a template of an alternative democracy because of the faith's alleged democratic or imaginary spirit, perhaps Haitian intellectuals would do better to dwell on Haitian engagement with liberalism, the legacy of 1804 (and 1789), and repeated attempts to build a representative democracy that respects and protects the individual with independent judiciaries and rights for women and sexual minorities. I see some parallels between Africa and Haiti in the dangers of "atavistic impulses" and exclusionary conceptualizations of Haitian identity that have been tried or toyed with in the past, with the usual disastrous results one can see in 20th century Haitian politics. And this is in a context where Haitian intellectuals have been working with allegedly "Western" values for over 200 years. I don't see how or why some Haitians think the "real" culture of Haiti is to be found in some resistant culture of Vodou and Creole that is the "real" Haiti (a breached citadel) and will be the foundation for another political system that better matches the Haitian's true nature or culture.

In short, everyone with time should read Against Decolonisation. It beats a dead horse occasionally, but at least forces us to remember that Africans (and people of African descent) have agency and we should take their histories and thinkers seriously instead of relegating them to the status of children or objects of a "colonial" history. We should also reject simple-minded or kneejerk reactions that hide or ignore history, deny or minimize cultural and intellectual exchange, or evince a lack of engagement with the languages we seek to promote as "authentic" or "decolonized" in Africa (or the Caribbean). There is no "authentic" or "pure" African (or Haitian) tradition or civilization that has not been shaped by the interaction with others, before and after formal colonialism, and we should not reduce local agency in the choices and practices made by African governments in the postcolonial era. Haitians should pay attention to this and try to take their history seriously.