Chronological Index:

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 1902: Civil war

The government of Boisrond-Canal and General Nord Alexis fought Anténor Firmin’s rebel troops (Nord Alexis eventually prevailed and governed until 1908).

1902 (August 8): In Petit-Goâve, 450 civilians died in a fire which destroyed the town; it had allegedly been lit by the government forces of General Carrié to force out the pro-Firmin forces. Carrié later refuted the allegation.
* (Gaillard, 1993: 70-73)

1902 (September 17): 10 “disarmed peasants” from the government forces were killed on orders of the pro-Firmin general Laborde Corvoisier after a battle in Limbé (in the North of the country). The first six were adolescents. They were killed in an infirmary where they were being treated for wounds received during the battle. The other four were killed by a firing squad “as an example,” following an order from Laborde Corvoisier. The approximate number of civilians and unarmed combatants killed during the civil war remains unknown but, according to historian Roger Gaillard, the peasants paid “a heavy price.”
* (Gaillard, 1993: 180-181)

 1902-1908: The dictatorial regime of Nord Alexis

1908 (March 14): At least 27 political opponents or alleged opponents, most of them from the intellectual and social elites, were arrested and executed in the evening of March 14; some were also mutilated. Massillon Coicou, one of the most prominent Haitian poets of the early 20th century, was the first victim of the killings (his death inspired Le Poète assassiné by the French poet Apollinaire.) Coicou’s body was decapitated, then thrown into a mass grave.
During the entire duration of the dictatorship of Nord Alexis, opponents were subjected to summary executions, usually upon direct orders from Alexis himself. However, women and children were systematically excluded from repression (even the families of the leaders of the various rebellions against Alexis’s regime). After the fall and exile of Nord Alexis, the various political and military leaders responsible for the March 14 killing were tried and pardoned.
*** (Jolibois, 1988: 46-48 and 213-54; Gaillard, 1995: 267-272 ; Gaillard, 1998: 86).

 1915 (March 27): Guillaume Vilbrun Sam came to power after an insurrection and was elected President of Haiti

1915 (July 27): Armed supporters of President Vilbrun Sam and General Oscar Etienne’s troops slaughtered 167 political prisoners who had been jailed in the National Penitentiary (in Port-au-Prince) during the previous few days. They were killed in their cells by firing squads. The vast majority of the victims belonged to the social and intellectual elites of the capital. The following day, Vilbrun Sam and Etienne were dragged respectively from the consulates of France and of the Dominican Republic, where they had sought refuge, and were lynched by a mob. Several of the persons responsible for the killing (prison guards and soldiers) were tried and acquitted in July 1917. The lynching of Vilbrun Sam provided the pretext for the United States to intervene and occupy Haiti until 1934.
*** (Michel, 1998: 36-42; Gaillard, 1973: 87-99)

 1915-1934: The United States Army occupied the country

1915-1920: Several thousand civilians were killed by the US occupying forces, along with the Haitian gendarmerie commanded by US officers, who were fighting an insurrection of armed peasants, the Cacos, mainly in the rural areas of the center and Northeast of the country. The Caco rebellion constituted the main armed challenge to the US occupation and had been organized and led by Charlemagne Péralte, who was killed on October 31, 1919 and later became a heroic national figure. The total number of victims remains unknown. Executions, most of which probably occurred during periods of open resistance to occupation, from July to November 1915 and again in 1919, seem very much alive in Haitian collective memory. In 1918 and 1919, many Caco prisoners were systematically executed once they had been disarmed, following explicit, written orders (in Gaillard, 1981: 32-39, 49, 214, 307). Torture of Cacos or alleged Cacos by the Marines was also common practice; this included the hanging of individuals by their genitals, forced absorption of liquids, and the use of ceps, simultaneous pressure by two guns on both side of the tibia bone.
In addition to executions and violence against unarmed combatants, the US Army and its Haitian auxiliaries (the gendarmerie) allegedly committed massive killings and acts of violence against the civilian population. According to oral testimony gathered by historian Roger Gaillard (1981b, 1983), these included summary executions, rapes, setting houses on fire after gathering their inhabitants inside them, lynchings, and torching civilians alive; one local public figure was buried alive. The names, in Créole, of the US officers who committed acts of violence against civilians, are still present in collective memory in the affected areas: Ouiliyanm (Lieutenant Lee Williams), Linx (Commandant Freeman Lang) and Captain Lavoie (Gaillard, 1981: 27-71). H.J. Seligman (in Gaillard, 1983), a US journalist who investigated the occupation, asserted that US soldiers practiced “bumping off Gooks,” (shooting civilians) as if it were a sport or a shooting exercise. A 1922 internal US army report recognized and justified the execution of women and children, presenting them as “auxiliaries” of the Cacos (in Gaillard, 1983: 259). A confidential memorandum of the Secretary of the Navy (in Gaillard, 1981: 238-241) criticized these “indiscriminate killings against natives during several weeks.” In July 1920, H.J. Seligman estimated the number of innocent victims (men, women and children) at 3,000. Gaillard (1983: 261), adding innocent victims and Cacos killed in combat throughout the occupation, reached the number of 15,000.
In addition to the repression of the rebellion, between hundreds and thousands of civilians died or were killed during forced labor operations called corvée, mainly the construction of roads throughout the country. According to Trouillot (1990: 106), 5,500 people died in forced labor camps. Some civilians who had attempted to flee were killed. Others, who slowed down their pace of work, were killed with machetes (Gaillard, 1982).
The racism of the US Marines, most of whom were from the South of the United States (particularly Louisiana and Alabama), has been presented as a factor in the indiscriminate killings of “niggers who pretend to speak French” (in the words of a US general).
** (Gaillard, 1983: 186-190, 237-241, 259-262; Trouillot, 1990: 102-107; Manigat, 2003: 71-74)

1916 (June 4): Caco General Mizrael Codio and 10 of his men were executed after they were captured at Fonds-Verrettes (Northeast of Port-au-Prince, by the border with the Dominican Republic) by US Marines.
** (Gaillard, 1981: 82-88)

1919 (January): 19 Caco prisoners were executed in Hinche on US Captain Lavoie’s orders. In 1920, during hearings held by the US Navy, Lavoie was accused of this by other US officers. However, since no material evidence had been brought to the commission, no charges were brought against Lavoie.
* (Gaillard, 1981: 33)

1919 (November): At least two US planes bombed and shot at the civilian population of two villages of Thomazeau, in the southeastern region of the central plateau, and allegedly killed half of their inhabitants. The “bombs” may have been handmade or grenades thrown from the planes. Men, women, children and elderly people were killed. The survivors, hiding in the woods and terrified, wrote to a French priest residing nearby to ask for his protection. This letter constitutes the sole written testimony of the acts committed against them. Geographic (and cultural) isolation of the rural population in the center of the country impeded the flow of information and testimony on acts of violence committed in these areas. In rural areas, these attacks against civilian populations, starting in 1919, are still present in collective memory. According to US journalist Harry Frank (in Gaillard, 1981: 208), US pilots did not verify what “type of gathering” (a Caco camp, an open farmers’ market, or peasants on their way to church) they were attacking. Furthermore, on December 5, US air forces bombed the port of the city of Les Cayes, in the South of the country, one day before the December 6 killing, in order to intimidate the population. These attacks may have been the first ever carried out by air on civilian populations. From 1919 on, the US airforce in Haiti was composed of at least three planes and used five airports (that it built) throughout the country. In 1920, the US Navy investigation commission interrogated occupying officers regarding allegations of acts of violence committed by the air force, but the commission did not deliver any condemnations, or even make any formal accusations.
* (Gaillard, 1983: 40-42, 152 and 282; Gaillard, 1981: 205-213)

1929 (December 6): In Marchaterre, in the vicinity of Les Cayes (in the South of the country), the US Marines opened fire on a peaceful demonstration of peasants, killing between 12 and 22 of them.
*** (Castor, 1988: 173-175; Gaillard, 1983: 282; Renda, 2001: 34)

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