The Truth about the Conquest of Haiti was written from the perspective of a black American, James Wheldon Johnson, having lived through the United States’ suppression of Latin people. He served as a consul in Nicaragua and Venezuela, aiding the United States’ interests. In 1919, he took a trip to Haiti to investigate conditions there after a four-year Marine occupation had led to civil unrest. The following year, he became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) executive secretary. That same year, he addressed the actions of the U.S. military in Haiti he observed, as well as his thoughts on them. There is a clear sense of disgust towards the United States throughout the piece.
According to Johnson, it is the United States’ carelessness and stupidity that occupation of Haiti continues to remain “necessary”. He has no faith in neither the United States’ leadership back home, nor residing on Haitian land. Haitians are looked down upon and treated cruelly by Americans; the latter only seek to improve upon their wealth while they live abroad. Their attitudes are of a racist nature, summed up by a quote from an American officer: “The trouble with this whole business is that some of these people with a little money and education think they are as good as we are” (Hoganson, 127). Even the United States’ “improvements”, in Johnson’s eyes, such as a highway and medical regulations, are not improvements at all, instead only beneficial to themselves. The treatment of Haiti Johnson describes here confirms that it is a pattern: the colonialist policies the United States carried out were similar to their behavior in other Latin American countries over the years, and they did not intend to stop.
“The fact is that for nearly a year before forcible intervention on the part of the United States this government was seeking to compel Haiti to submit to “peaceable” intervention. Toward the close of 1914 the United States notified the government of Haiti that it was disposed to recognize the newly-elected president, Theodore Davilmar, as soon as a Haitian commission would sign at Washington “satisfactory protocols” relative to a convention with the United States on the model of the Dominican-American Convention. On December 15, 1914, the Haitian government, through its Secretary of Foreign Affairs, replied: “The Government of the Republic of Haiti would consider itself lax in its duty to the United States and to itself if it allowed the least doubt to exist of its irrevocable intention not to accept any control of the administration of Haitian affairs by a foreign Power.” On December 19, the United States, through its legation at Port-au-Prince, replied, that in expressing its willingness to do in Haiti what had been done in Santo Domingo it “was actuated entirely by a disinterested desire to give assistance.””
Johnson, James Weldon. “The Truth about the Conquest of Haiti.” The Nation no. 111, August 28, 1920.