Roaming Through the West Indies

by Harry Alverson Franck

In June, 1919, Captain Hanneken was appointed district commander, with headquarters in the old town of Grande Rivière, famous in Haitian military and political annals. A powerful fellow of more than six feet, who had reached the advanced age of twenty-five, he was ideal material for the making of a successful caco-hunter. Having recently returned from leave in the States, however, and his former stations having been in peaceful regions, he had little field experience in the extermination of bandits. Moreover, his extreme modesty and inability to blow his own horn had never called him particularly to the attention of the higher officials of the gendarmerie. No one expected him to do more than rule his station with the average high efficiency which is taken for granted in any of the hand-picked marines who are detailed as gendarme officers.

Captain Hanneken, however, had higher ambitions. Having familiarized himself in a month with the routine of his district, he found time weighing heavily on his hands. He turned his attention to the then most pressing duty in Haiti, the elimination of Charlemagne. Unfortunately for his plans, there were almost no cacos in the district of Grande Rivière. He could not encroach upon the territory of his fellow-officers; the only chance of “getting a crack” at the bandits was to import some of them into his own region.

Jean Batiste Conzé, a native of Grande Rivière, was a griffe, like Charlemagne; he also belonged to one of the “best families” of his home town. But there his similarity with the chief of the cacos ceased. He had always been a law-abiding citizen, and had once been chief of police on his native heath. Like all good Haitians, he realized the damage and suffering which the continued depredations of the bandits were causing his country. Moreover, he was at a low financial ebb; but that is too general a condition in Haiti to call for special comment, beyond stating that a reward of two thousand dollars had been offered for Charlemagne, dead or alive.

One night Captain Hanneken asked Conzé to call upon him at his residence. When he was certain that the walls had been shorn of their ears, he addressed his visitor in the Haitian “creole,” which he had learned to speak like a native:

“Conzé, I want you to go and join the cacos.”

“’Aiti, mon capitaine!” cried Conzé, “Moi, toujou’ bon habitant, de bonne famille, me faire caco?”

“Exactly,” replied Hanneken; “I want you to become a caco chief. I will furnish you whatever is necessary to gather a good band of them about you, and you can take to the hills and establish a camp of your own.”

The conference lasted well into the night, whereupon Conzé consented, and left the captain’s residence through the back garden in order to call as little attention as possible to his visit. A few days later, toward the middle of August, he disappeared from town, carrying with him in all secrecy fifteen rifles that had once been captured from the cacos, 150 rounds of ammunition, several swords, and a showy pearl-handled revolver that belonged to Hanneken. He was well furnished, too, with money and rum, the chief sinews of war among the cacos. With him had gone a personal friend and a trusted native gendarme who was forthwith rated a deserter on the captain’s roster.

Conzé took pains to be seen by the worst native element as he was leaving town, among whom he had already spread propaganda calling upon them to join him in a new caco enterprise. On the road he held up the market-women and several travelers, taking nothing from them, but impressing upon them the fact that he had turned bandit. All this was reported to Captain Hanneken by his secret police. He told them to keep their ears open, but not to worry, that he would get the rascal all in good season. One morning a written notice appeared in the market of Grande Rivière. It was signed by Conzé and berated the commander of the district in violent terms, calling upon the inhabitants to join the writer and put an end to his oppression. People recalled that Conzé and the big American ruler of the town had once had words over some small matter. Within three days the talk in all the district was of this member of one of Grande Rivière’s most prominent families who had turned caco.

Specially favored by his rifles, rum, and apparently unlimited funds, Conzé soon gathered a large band of real cacos about him. When questions were asked, he explained that he had captured the weapons from the gendarmerie by a happy fluke, and the wealthy citizens of Grande Rivière, disgusted with the exactions of American rule, were furnishing him with money. The new army established a camp at Fort Capois, at the top of a high hill five hours’ walk from Grande Rivière. Now and then they made an attack in the neighborhood, Conzé keeping a secret list of those who suffered serious damage and never allowing his men to give themselves over to the drunken pillaging that is so common to caco warfare. The people accounted for this by recalling that Conzé had always been a more kindly man than the average bandit leader. Meanwhile the new chief continued his recruiting propaganda. He made personal appeals to those of lawless tendency, he induced several smaller bands to join him, he sent scurrilous personal attacks on Captain Hanneken to be read in the market-place. The law-abiding citizens of Grande Rivière, well aware of the advantages of American occupation and fearful of a caco raid, appealed to the district commander to drive the new band out of the region. Hanneken reassured them in a special meeting of the town notables with the assertion that he already had a scheme on foot that would settle that rascal Conzé.