Combat· Banana Wars
Second Caco War 1918-1920
The renewed Haitian rising, broken by one of the boldest exploits in Marine history.
Resentment of forced labor and the occupation touched off a fresh Caco rebellion in 1918 under Charlemagne Péralte, and the Marines and their Haitian gendarmerie fought some two hundred engagements across the next two years to suppress it. The decisive stroke came on the night of 31 October 1919, when Sergeant Herman Hanneken and Corporal William Button, with a party of gendarmes, blackened their faces, put on Caco dress, and bluffed their way through the rebel outposts into Péralte's own camp at Grande Rivière du Nord, where Hanneken shot the rebel leader dead. Péralte's body was photographed and the picture circulated to prove his death and break the will of his followers. Button received the Medal of Honor. The rebellion collapsed in mid-1920 with the death of Péralte's successor, ending organized Caco resistance for good.
Podcast episodes on Banana Wars
Record no. 510