Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940

by Mary A. Renda

The U.S. invasion of Haiti in July 1915 marked the start of a military occupation that lasted for nineteen years--and fed an American fascination with Haiti that flourished even longer. Exploring the cultural dimensions of U.S. contact with Haiti during the occupation and its aftermath, Mary Renda shows that what Americans thought and wrote about Haiti during those years contributed in crucial and unexpected ways to an emerging culture of U.S. imperialism.

At the heart of this emerging culture, Renda argues, was American paternalism, which saw Haitians as wards of the United States. She explores the ways in which diverse Americans--including activists, intellectuals, artists, missionaries, marines, and politicians--responded to paternalist constructs, shaping new versions of American culture along the way. Her analysis draws on a rich record of U.S. discourses on Haiti, including the writings of policymakers; the diaries, letters, songs, and memoirs of marines stationed in Haiti; and literary works by such writers as Eugene O'Neill, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston.

Pathbreaking and provocative, Taking Haiti illuminates the complex interplay between culture and acts of violence in the making of the American empire.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, School, Academic, American History, United States, War

440 pages, Paperback

First published June 18, 2001

Reviews

[Stefania Dzhanamova · Rating 4 out of 5]

The USA invaded Haiti in July 1915 and held it under military occupation for nineteen years. During their stay there, marines installed a dummy president, dissolved the legislature at gunpoint, denied freedom of speech, and forced a new, more favorable to foreign investment, constitution on the Caribbean nation. With the help of the marines, US officials took control of Haitian financiers and imposed their own standards of efficiency on the administration of the nation’s debt. Meanwhile, the marines fought against the Cacos (local insurgents), who maintained an armed resistance in the countryside for several years, and imposed a brutal system of forced labor that gave rise to even more fierce Haitian revolt. According to official US estimates, 3,000 locals were killed during the occupation, but a more thorough accounting reveals that the death toll may have reached 11,500(!!!). In addition, the military invasion strengthened the Haitian military, which, now called the Gendarmerie, was officered by marines and modeled to resemble the Marine Corps.

The occupation was a temporary arm of the state created to – in this case – “bring about political stability in Haiti”, to secure US control over it regarding the States’ strategical interests in the Caribbean (This reason is quite more plausible.), and to “integrate Haiti more effectively into the capitalist economy”.

However, intercultural dynamics naturally complicated the occupation. While some members of the Haitian elite eagerly cooperated with the US military, other locals, long suspicious of foreign powers and of government in general, were less willing to comply. They adopted a distant, distrustful attitude to the “blancs” (as foreigners were called), engaging in various form of daily resistance; the Cacos, who represented a small but significant part of the population, even mounted armed rebellion. Subsequently, the glaring racism of many Marine Corps officers and the crying brutality of forced labor aggravated the population’s abhorrence of the US presence. Instead of laying the groundwork for democracy, the useful work of the Navy Medical Corps and the construction of roads, buildings, bridges, and telephone systems only increased the efficiency of the occupation as a police state, with marines in command of every district.

Taking Haiti aims to show that this military occupation was one of the important arenas in which the USA was remade through overseas imperial ventures in the first third of the century. Mary A. Renda presents a concise version of events in Haiti between 1915 and 1934. Renda’s account of the occupation centers primarily on the marines who implemented US policy and who were a vital part of the apparatus established to carry out the invasion of 1915. Since the marines themselves were people who brought along their own ideas, fears, and ambitions, they could not simply be positioned in Haiti like guns, but had to be included into the project of carrying out US rule. The author examines how the occupation placed the Americans in Haiti, how they negotiated their relationship to the nation they were sent to, and how they reacted to the forces that attempted – through paternalism – to fix them in a particular relation to Haiti.

Very interesting and profound research. Worth a read.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mary Renda's Taking Haiti offers a cultural analysis of the invasion. It's certainly an interesting perspective to explore, as Renda examines the American occupation's impact on American culture: she argues that the plethora of military memoirs and travel writing from the era, for instance, directly led to America's fascination with voodoo and zombies. Similarly, it's fascinating to see how many American writers (Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Eugene O'Neill, Orson Welles) drew inspiration from the period through plays, poems, novels and political activism. The book is less successful looking at the occupation itself, becoming too preoccupied in psychoanalysis of the "masculine" role playing of American Marines and officials confronted with a culture they neither respected nor understood. There may be value in such an approach, but really it seems too much like literary criticism or Fawn Brodie-esque psychobiography to seem applicable to real life. And again, there's little consideration of Haitian reactions to the occupation, leaving a gap in the research.

[Randall Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

“By the turn of the century, U.S. Marines had landed on Haitian soil illegally eight times “to protect American lives and property”. Invading a sovereign nation at will, and doing it multiple times, is par for the course for the United States. In 1917, General Smedley Butler used forced labor to build Haitian roads. How thoughtful. After the target Cacos were subdued, the U.S. forces stayed on in an occupation that included throwing people in jail anyone who objected to the “no longer necessary” occupation. Slave-owning Jefferson severed diplomatic ties with Haiti as an ass kissing favor to Napoleon; many Latin American countries followed the United States then in dooming the new black nation. Toussaint “demonstrated for all time what a slave and a black man could accomplish.”

This book is about the strong paternalist approach toward Haitians by the U.S. armed forces during its occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934. “Paternalism was the rhetoric used to justify the intervention.” Mary covers well all the cultural plays and books about Haiti during this time. American black culture had eagerly adopted the Haitian theme as a safe way to “challenge the ideology of white domination in the 1930’s.” The famous Voodoo Macbeth of Orson Welles, which was set in Haiti, was also a New Deal Project. Most of U.S. improvements in Haiti were made for easier military control; “military cartographers literally remapped the country, dividing it into departments, districts, and subdistricts, which could be policed”. Alfred McCoy (Policing America’s Empire) shows us that this had just been done in the Philippines and now lessons learned there were to now be used as a template for control of Haiti. From 1915 to 1934, “formally, the United States was at peace with Haiti.” Yeah, well that didn’t stop the illegal invasion and lengthy occupation of a black nation, did it?

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haiti. Birthplace of zombies. First and only successful slave revolution in history. The first country in the Americas to outlaw slavery. And punished ever since by the powers of the west.

Haiti is inherently fascinating. Especially to white people. I can say that. I am one. This book charts (the clue's in the title) the story of the US's occupation of Haiti.

Basically, Daddy America wanted things run a certain way, and, oh, isn't it exotic and fascinating, ooh voodoo, naughty, kinky, we don't have a clue what's really happening here, so let's just make it up the way we want it and take it to Hollywood...

Sound familiar?

A great - and dare I say it - important book.

[gillyweed]

“I will serve cunt before I serve this country” — Mary Renda, writing that methods section, probably

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Incredibly thorough accounting and deft close reading...but the writing is so dense it seems like she was paid by the word and it ultimately obfuscates her points.

[Erin]

w'24 - derby - us militarism in caribbean

[Max Frischling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does a good job of giving an overview but it could have been significantly shorter. There could have also been more presented about Haiti and its culture itself

[Katie Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Micro-history at its finest. Johnson tells a narrative of the industrial revolution, the rise of modern celebrity, and Jacksonian Democracy all through the story of famous daredevil Sam Patch. Easy to read and engaging, highly recommended.

[Meghan Sweeney · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting insight into the sex lives and daddy issues of American marines in Haiti but overall the book was a slow read and weighed down with academic rhetoric.