The mistreatment of Haitian migrants at the Del Rio border underscores the intersecting crises affecting Haitians, and “bad luck” has nothing to do with it, says historian Marlene L. Daut, Ph.D.

PHOTO BY JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES

BY MARLENE L. DAUT, PH.D · UPDATED SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

Haiti has suffered one blow after another this year. Before a 7.2 magnitude earthquake devastated the country’s southern peninsula in August—and a tropical storm caused severe flooding days later— media outlets reported on the July assassination of the nation’s president, Jovenel Moïse. Appeals for the United States to send aid to Haiti abounded. Such calls for assistance are not new—and do not reflect any particular interest in “helping” Haitians.

In 1915, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s administration used the death of a different Haitian president, Guillaume Vilbrun Sam, as a pretext to invade. But the U.S. had already seen assassinations of three of its own presidents: Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. The real reason for the occupation was economic. Fearing that upheaval in the Haitian government might cause them to default on U.S.–backed loans, the U.S. ordered marines to seize $500,000 worth of gold reserves. The U.S. stayed in Haiti for 19 long years, the second-longest military occupation in U.S. history after Afghanistan. More than 15,000 Haitians lost their lives fighting against the United States’ seizure of Haitian sovereignty. The memory of this occupation—and those in 1994 and 2004— has cast a shadow over Haiti’s glorious past as the first nation to permanently abolish slavery.