Following the assassination of President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, U.S. Marines landed in Haiti on 28 July 1915. The occupation brought U.S. control over Haitian finances and later created the Gendarmerie. U.S.-directed forced labor, racial segregation, and censorship fueled peasant resistance, including the Caco rebellion of 1919–20. This was not a return to chattel slavery, but it was a colonial form of coercive labor and foreign rule.
Promulgated on 30 December 1843, the constitution followed a revolution against Jean-Pierre Boyer and attempted to reorganize republican government. It belongs to a period of repeated constitutional...
On 27 February 1844, Dominican independence was proclaimed, ending the 1822 political union with Haiti. The break followed years of political and social conflict, including disputes over...
The Constitution dated 14 November 1846 stated in Article 8 that slavery was forever abolished and in Article 9 that any debt contracted to acquire people was extinguished forever. These provisions...
A Haitian law dated 27 August 1860 established an immigration program for people of African or Indigenous descent, including Black people in the United States facing slavery and racial violence. The...
On 18 March 1861, Dominican president Pedro Santana proclaimed annexation to Spain. The return to colonial rule raised fears among abolitionists in the Atlantic world because Spain still maintained...
👉 U.S. Marines invade Haiti and begin a nineteen-year occupation
Current
28 July 1915
Following the assassination of President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, U.S. Marines landed in Haiti on 28 July 1915. The occupation brought U.S. control over Haitian finances and later created the...
Charlemagne Péralte, a Haitian nationalist leader of the Caco resistance to U.S. occupation, was killed by U.S. Marines overnight on 31 October–1 November 1919. Sources differ in whether they date his...
At Marchaterre near Les Cayes, U.S. Marines opened fire on a peaceful peasant demonstration on 6 December 1929, killing between 12 and 22 people according to the Sciences Po Mass Violence and...
The U.S. President’s Commission for the Study and Review of Conditions in Haiti, chaired by William Cameron Forbes, submitted its report on 26 March 1930. The report emerged after mass opposition...
The final contingent of U.S. Marines withdrew from Haiti on 15 August 1934, ending the nineteen-year military occupation. The transfer followed prolonged Haitian opposition, including rural...
On 7 April 2003, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide publicly demanded that France return the money Haiti had been compelled to pay after independence. The demand placed the 1825 indemnity and its...
