United States Occupation
Until 1915, Haiti followed an isolationist policy. However, in 1915 the United States invaded Haiti and kept occupation until 1934. During this time, interest in Haitian nationality broadened to embrace the rural majority's "black" culture. A Haitian historical society was founded in 1924, with a focus on their history through the "Black Slave Rebellion" narrative of the Haitian Revolution. Louverture and Dessalines became "great slave revolutionaries", showing the world the power of colonized peoples.
"By the 1970s…had begun to think of their homeland in terms that transcended mere nostalgic attachment to a particular outpost of empire. The new… nationalism precipitates strong tensions between conservative and radical elements within local intelligentsias. Here too, the Haitian experience of the early 1900s, with its armed conflict…Finally, the accelerated urbanization and migration experienced in Haiti, which resulted from the centralizing tendencies of the state, import-dependency, and the extreme exploitation of labor, …trends in the global economy created the impetus for a massive population exodus after World War II."
Since the US occupation, Haiti has been unable to establish an independent civilian police force as an entity separate from the army. Every attempt to do so has resulted in a military overthrow of the presidency.
Haitian Civil-Military Relations:
- Military control for the protection of the state against foreign invaders
- Military control for the management of a crisis
- Civilian control through the demilitarization of the nation
- Civilian control through the professionalization of the army
- Civilian control through the co-optation of the arm
- Civilian control through the democratization of the army
Read more about this topic: History Of Haitian Nationality And Citizenship
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“The city of Washington is in some respects self-contained, and it is easy there to forget what the rest of the United States is thinking about. I count it a fortunate circumstance that almost all the windows of the White House and its offices open upon unoccupied spaces that stretch to the banks of the Potomac ... and that as I sit there I can constantly forget Washington and remember the United States.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“When some one remarked that, with the addition of a chaplain, it would have been a perfect Cromwellian troop, he observed that he would have been glad to add a chaplain to the list, if he could have found one who could fill that office worthily. It is easy enough to find one for the United States Army. I believe that he had prayers in his camp morning and evening, nevertheless.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Wars will remain while human nature remains. I believe in my soul in cooperation, in arbitration; but the soldier’s occupation we cannot say is gone until human nature is gone.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)