United States Occupation of Haiti - Transition To Fully Haitian Government

Transition To Fully Haitian Government

In 1930, Sténio Vincent, a long-time critic of the occupation, was elected President.

By 1930, President Hoover had become concerned about the effects of the occupation, particularly after the December 1929 incident in Les Cayes. Hoover appointed two commissions to study the situation, with William Cameron Forbes heading the more prominent of the two.

The Forbes Commission praised the material improvements that the U.S. administration had wrought, but it criticized the exclusion of Haitians from positions of real authority in the government and the constabulary, which had come to be known as the Garde d'Haïti. In more general terms, the commission further asserted that "the social forces that created still remain — poverty, ignorance, and the lack of a tradition or desire for orderly free government."

The Hoover administration did not fully implement the recommendations of the Forbes Commission; but United States withdrawal was under way by 1932, when Hoover lost the presidency to Franklin Roosevelt, the presumed author of the most recent Haitian constitution and the proponent of the "Good Neighbor policy". On a visit to Cap-Haïtien in July 1934, Roosevelt reaffirmed an August 1933 disengagement agreement. The last contingent of U.S. Marines departed on August 15, 1934 after a formal transfer of authority to the Garde. The U.S. retained influence on Haiti's external finances until 1947.