In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson ordered the United States military to occupy Haiti under the pretext of restoring order after the assassination of Haiti’s president. In truth, it was a brutal 19-year occupation driven by U.S. banking interests, racism, and a desire to control Caribbean trade routes. It resulted in thousands of Haitian deaths, the dismantling of Haitian sovereignty, and a constitutional rewrite—dictated at gunpoint—to allow foreigners to own Haitian land.

The occupation began with violence. U.S. Marines imposed martial law, censored the press, and forced labor through a corvée system, compelling Haitians into road-building projects under brutal conditions. Resistance, including from Haitian nationalist leader Charlemagne Péralte, was met with military suppression. Péralte was assassinated and his body publicly displayed by Marines as a warning.

Wilson, a champion of self-determination in Europe, had no such vision for Haiti. His administration justified the occupation with language soaked in paternalism and white supremacy. The Haitian people were described as incapable of governing themselves. U.S. officials installed puppet governments, controlled the economy, and funneled Haitian tax revenue into U.S.-held banks.

The occupation officially ended in 1934 under FDR, but the consequences linger to this day: political instability, economic hardship, and deeply rooted distrust of U.S. intentions. For all his talk of democracy, Wilson’s actions in Haiti were those of an empire, not a republic.

Editorial Notes:

There are entries in this series that are difficult to write, and then there are those that are gut-wrenching. The U.S. occupation of Haiti is one of them. The historical cruelty, the racism, and the arrogance of power—none of it is easy to revisit. It’s hard not to become emotional while documenting it.

This is a pattern. It’s not just Clinton, Biden, Bush, or Trump. It’s not just Nixon, LBJ, or Wilson. It is the legacy of American leadership that has, time and again, sacrificed human dignity for profit, security theater, or geopolitical advantage. The callousness runs deep—so deep it becomes normalized.

What can be done? Only this: vigilance and adherence to law. That means holding leaders accountable, refusing to let history be rewritten to comfort the guilty, and demanding truth even when it’s ugly. Sadly, we are failing on all fronts.