![]() ![]() Anyway, he was put in."īut there was a problem: Much of the country was still under the control of the Cacos, led by an army officer turned guerrilla leader named Charlemayne Peralte. ![]() "I won't say we put him in," Butler wrote later. "When the National Assembly met, the Marines stood in the aisles with their bayonets until the man selected by the American Minister was made President," recalled Smedley Butler, the Marine hero who led the decisive military campaign and administered Haiti's local police force during the following two years. A snap-election was staged less than two weeks later. choice, Senator Philippe Sudre Dartiguenave, was installed as head of state. Their initial objective was to make certain that the U.S. Thus, on July 29, 1915, after several weeks of observation from cruisers anchored offshore, two regiments of Marines landed. The National City Bank controlled the country's National Bank and railroad system, and sugar barons viewed the country's rich plantations as promising takeover targets. Although widely portrayed as a group of murderous bandits, the Cacos were essentially nationalists, and were attempting to resist the control of France, the U.S, and the small minority of mulattos who dominated the economy.Ĭlearly, a Haiti run by rebels and peasants was not acceptable to the U.S, which considered the nation an endangered investment property. The rural north was under the control of the Cacos, a rebel movement that adopted its name from the cry of a native bird. The island nation, once known as the "pearl of the antilles," had been through seven presidents in four years, most of them killed or removed prematurely. When a mob finally found him cowering in an attic, they hacked their president to pieces. This was no shock, since Sam was known as a rampaging, vindictive thug who had seized the government by force and murdered hundreds of his political enemies before running for cover. The insurgents had widespread popular support. In July 1915, Haiti's head of state, Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, was cornered in the French embassy by rebel forces.
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