Combat· Banana Wars
Haiti Intervention 1915
The beginning of the long American occupation of Haiti.
On 27 July 1915 a mob in Port-au-Prince dragged the Haitian president from the French legation where he had taken refuge and tore him to pieces in the street, the climax of a long spiral of coups and assassinations. The next day Marines from the USS Washington landed at Port-au-Prince to protect American and foreign lives amid the chaos, and over the following weeks more came ashore, at Cap-Haïtien in mid-August and elsewhere, as the landing grew into a full military occupation. The initial landings were protective and met little organized resistance. But what began as an emergency intervention to restore order became the longest American occupation of the Banana Wars, lasting nineteen years until 1934. The 1915 landing was its starting point, the moment a momentary crisis turned into a generation-long American presence in Haiti.
Podcast episodes on Banana Wars
Record no. 508