Schmidt, Hans. The U.S. Occupation of Haiti: 1915-1934. New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 1995.
Hans Schmidt's The U.S. Occupation of Haiti was originally published in 1971, after the folly of American intervention in Vietnam had become all too stark and clearly apparent to the U.S. public. Schmidt wrote his book to tell a sordid tale of another, earlier example of a misguided U.S. intervention in a foreign land. After the people of Haiti had rioted in protest of the actions of their current leader, America entered the independent nation and occupied it, resulting in the death of almost two thousand Haitians in five short years (102). The calculated, self-serving invasion was not undertaken because of humanitarian reasons, for the Haitian politician unrest was solely internal -- there had been seven presidents in rapid succession, and President Guillaume Sam had executed 167 political prisoners, to the anger of many Haitians (167). But the American invasion was motivated by America's determination to protect its interests in the Caribbean, especially after its construction of the Panama Canal, along with its fears of the growing French and German presence in the region.
Schmidt's book was also written shortly after the victories of the recent American Civil Rights movement. He noted that Americans, rather than liberating the Haitians, instituted Jim Crow racial segregation in the African nation, supposedly because of linguistic and social differences, but really because of fears of Haitians 'mixing' with American white women (137). The racial hostility was especially notable on the part of the U.S. military, which was mostly made up of Southerners. Haitians were barred from the American social clubs, and Americans took the best houses, much to the outrage of Haiti's former upper class. Even American withdrawal was a protracted affair, despite many promises to the contrary, given the U.S.'s difficulty in financially extricating itself from the messy state of Haiti's financial affairs, of which the U.S. had assumed control after the invasion. Today, this book's portrait of an American invasion in a land it does not understand, and America's involvement in a politically divided nation with a foreign culture is just as timely, if not more timely, than when this book was first written.
