There is a certain amount of friction between the several classes of Americans in Port au Prince, not to mention heroic efforts in “keeping up with Lizzie.” Ten-course dinners with all the formality and ostentation which go with them are of daily occurrence; “bridge” flourishes by day and by night, with far from humble stakes, and dances, whether at the American Club or in private houses, are not conspicuous for their simplicity. The two things go together, of course; it is of little use to disagree with a man if you cannot prove yourself his equal by “putting up as good a front” as he does. Roughly speaking, our fellow-countrymen in the Haitian capital may be divided into four classes, though there are further ramifications and certain points of contact. Each class has its own faults and virtues, and comes naturally by them. The half dozen civilian officials who hold the chief offices of our “advisory” share in the civil government have in too many cases been chosen for their political standing rather than for their ability or experience in such tasks as that they are facing. The navy and the marine officers, between whom a rift now and then shows itself, have the characteristics of the military calling the world over. They are by nature direct and autocratic, rather than persuasive and tactful; they have an almost childish petulance at any fancied slight to their rank, which does not make it easy for them to coöperate with the civilian officials. Of their efficiency in their chosen profession there is no question, but our policy of assigning them to administrative positions simply because they are already on the national pay-roll and expecting them to shine in tasks which call for a lifetime of training quite opposite to that they have received has its drawbacks. The very qualities which make for success in pacifying the country hamper them in dealing with the better class of natives, who are, to be sure, negroes, yet who have the sensitive French temperament and are much more amenable to persuasion than to bullying. By chance or design the great majority of our officers in Haiti are Southerners, and they naturally shun any but the most unavoidable intercourse with the natives. This is one of the chief bones of contention between the forces of occupation and the American civilians engaged in business. The latter, while still keeping a color-line, contend that the natives of education should be treated more like human beings. They deplore the narrow view-point, the indifference to industrial advancement, the occasional schoolboy priggishness of the officers, and the latter retaliate by considering the term business man as synonymous with money-grabbing and willingness to cater to the natives for the sake of trade. Not that these differences cause open rifts in the American ranks, but the atmosphere is always more or less charged with them. The native of education, on his side, resents the whole American attitude on the race question, and not wholly without reason. The color-line is justifiable in so far as it protects against intermingling of blood, characteristics, and habits, but there is a point beyond which it becomes d—d foolishness, and that point is sometimes passed by our officers in Haiti. After all, the Haitians won their independence without our assistance, and to a certain extent they are entitled to what they call their dignité personelle. The Southerner is famed for his ability to keep the “nigger” down, but he is less successful in lifting him up, and that is the task we have taken upon ourselves in Haiti.
As every American should know, but as a great many even of those who pride themselves on keeping abreast of the times do not, Haiti has been an American protectorate since the summer of 1915. There is a native government, to be sure, ranging all the ebony way from president to village clerks, but if it functions efficiently, and to a certain degree it does, it is thanks to a few hundred of our own marines and certain representatives of our navy. How this strange state of affairs, so contrary to the forgiving spirit of the present administration, came about is a story brief and interesting enough to be worth the telling.
The Spanish discoverers—for one must be permitted a running start if one is to race through the reeking fields of Haitian history—soon wiped out the native Indian population in their usual genial, but thorough, way. Fields will not plant, or at least cultivate, themselves, however, even in so astonishingly fertile a land as the island that embraces the republics of Haiti and Santo Domingo. Hence the Frenchmen to whom the western end of the island eventually fell, after varying vicissitudes, followed the custom of the time and repopulated the colony with negro slaves. Prosperity reigned for a century or more. There are still jungle-grown ruins of many an old French plantation mansion to be found not merely within the very boundaries of the Port au Prince of to-day, but in regions that have long since reverted to primeval wilderness. Unfortunately, for the French at least, the slave-traders supplied this particular market with members of some of Africa’s more warlike tribes, the descendants of whom, taking the theories of the French Revolution au pied de la lettre, concluded to abolish their masters. Under a genuine military genius with the blood of African chieftains in his veins, one Toussaint l’Ouverture, and his equally black successor, Dessalines, the slaves defeated what was in those days a large French army, commanded by the brother-in-law of the great Napoleon, and drove the French from the island. New Orleans and Philadelphia received most of the refugees, whose family names are still to be found in the directories of those cities. Except for a few persons the French never returned, and Haiti has been “the Black Republic” since 1804.
The result was about what our Southern statesmen would have prophesied. In theory the government of Haiti is modeled on that of France; in practice it has been the plaything of a long line of military dictators of varying degrees of color and virtually all rising to power and sinking into oblivion—usually of the grave—on the heels of swiftly succeeding revolutions. There have been a few well-meaning men among them, the last of whom, named Leconte, was blown up in 1912, palace and all. Most of them were interested only in playing Cæsar, or, more exactly, Nero, over their black fellow-citizens until the time came to loot the national treasury and flee, a program which was frequently cut short by appalling sudden death. The detailed recital of more than a century of violence, of constant bloody differences between the mulattoes and the genuine blacks, would be a tale too long for the modern reader.
In 1915 the presidency was occupied by a particularly offensive black brother named Guillaume Sam. Though it has not been so recorded, Sam’s middle name was evidently Trouble. Foreign war-ships took to dropping in on Port au Prince and demanding the payments of debts to foreigners. Up in the northern peninsula, as usual in mango-time, when the trees of the island constitute a commissary, revolution broke out, and, to top off his woes, Sam was busy marrying off his daughter and installing her in a new palace. In his wrath at being disturbed at such a time Sam passed the word to his chief jailer to clean out the penitentiary, some of the political prisoners in which were no doubt in sympathy with the revolutionists, but many of whom were there merely because they had aroused the personal enmity of Sam, or some of his cronies. The sentence was carried out more like a rabbit-hunt than an execution. In an orgie in which the primitive instincts of the African had full play the two hundred or more prisoners were butchered in circumstances better imagined than described. Among them were many members of the “best families” of Port au Prince. It is not recorded that any of this class took personal part in the revenge that followed, but they undoubtedly instigated it. The rank and file of the town, those same more or less naked blacks who are ordinarily docile and childlike, surrounded the palace. Sam had taken refuge in the French legation. For the first time even in the turbid history of Haiti, the sanctuary of a foreign ministry was violated by the voodoo-maddened mob. Sam was dragged out, cut to pieces, and tossed into the bay. Then our marines landed and, to use their own words, “the stuff was all over.”
American control is due to continue for at least twenty years from that date. A treaty drawn up soon after the landing of our forces, and subsequently renewed, provides for the form under which our “assistance” shall be exercised, as well as specifying the time limit. An American financial adviser, who is far more than that in practice, an American receiver of customs, and heads of the engineering and sanitation departments, are required by the terms thereof, and the final decision in most matters of importance lies with the American minister. Unlike the Republic of Santo Domingo in the eastern end of the island, Haiti still retains her native government, but its acts are subject to a relatively close supervision by the officers above named, despite the pretense that our share is only “advisory.”
There are both natives and foreigners who contend that Haiti is fully capable of governing itself if the white man will go away and let the Black Republic alone. The following incident is not without its bearing on the subject:
The Rotary Club of Port au Prince decided in the fifth year of American occupation to assess every member five dollars for the purpose of providing a community Christmas for the poor children of the city. Never had a Christmas-tree been seen in Haiti outside the homes of American or other foreign residents. The vast majority of Haitians had no conception that so benevolent a being as Santa Claus existed.
The Port au Prince branch of the club had been very recently organized. Its membership included not only the representative business men of all grades in the foreign colony, but it had made a special point of overlooking the color-line and admitting as many Haitians as white men. A little closer intercourse now and then between the two races, it was felt, would do no one any harm, and the experience of similar clubs in Cuba suggested that it might do considerable good. The military colony, of course, took no part in this flagrant violation of its strict Southern principles beyond granting its official blessing, but the civilians had long contended for a broader-minded attitude.