African-American Internationalism and the U.S. Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934

Introduction:

Citing political instability, the economic and political influence of Germany, and threats to American property, the United States sent the Marine Corps to occupy Haiti and reform its political institutions in the summer of 1915. Under a controversial treaty with the Haitian state, the occupation would go on for the next 19 years, bringing bloody conflict and neo-colonial domination to the Western Hemisphere’s second-oldest (and only ‘black’) republic. As a highly controversial political issue with special significant to African Americans, it contributed to the development of pan-Africanist and anti-imperialist thought in black American politics (Plummer 1984, 1-2). In particular, the transition of W.E.B. Du Bois from accomadationist reformer to pan-African Marxist was partly inspired by the convergence of racism, capitalism, and empire which he saw in Haiti (Byrd 2020, 9-10).

Timeline:

Works Cited

Byrd, Brandon R. 2020. The Black Republic: African Americans and the Fate of Haiti. University of Pennsylvania Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv16t6g1r.

Dalleo, Raphael. 2016. American Imperialism’s Undead: The Occupation of Haiti and the Rise of Caribbean Anticolonialism. New World Studies. University of Virginia Press.

McPherson, Alan L. 2014. The Invaded: How Latin Americans and Their Allies Fought and Ended U.S. Occupations. Oxford University Press.

Plummer, Brenda Gayle. 1982. “The Afro – American Response to the Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934.” Phylon (1960-) 43 (2): 125–43. https://doi.org/10.2307/274462.

Renda, Mary A. 2001. Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940. University of North Carolina Press.