- In 1919 the US Marines assassinated Pèralte,
nailed his body to a door and put him on public display. Then US
President Wilson's Marines called him a bandit just as the Bush
Administration's UN proxies are calling the Drèd Wilmes in
Haiti today fighting this new recolonization. Below, Pèralte
speaks, in his own words. These are not the words of an ignorant
man, but of one of Haiti's most revered and celebrated heros. Today,
others humbly follow his footsteps, and Drèd Wilme led them,
until he was shot by UN troops on July 6, 2005 during a massive
UN/US military operation into Site Soley. The struggle to FreeHaiti
Patriots?: Documents from Charlemagne Peralte
(For the French original, go to:
See also below: “Inquiry
into Occupation and Administration of Haiti," The
U.S. Senate Investigates the Haitian Occupation
interview Haitians about marine conduct in the guerrilla war against
In 1910, an international consortium of banks refinanced Haiti’s
international debt and took control of the country’s treasury.
In 1914, the bank refused to issue gold payments to the Haitian government
and asked the U.S. military to protect the gold reserves. On December
17, 1914, U.S. marines landed in Haiti and moved the gold to the bank’s
New York vaults. Eight months later, the marines again landed in Port
au Prince, Haiti’s capital, this time claiming the need to protect
foreign lives and property. They placed Port au Prince under martial
law, ruthlessly subdued armed resistance in rural areas, and began training
a new Haitian militia. Charlemagne
Péralte led a resistance movement. In this “call
to arms” and letter to the French minister, Péralte attacked
President Wilson as a hypocrite for claiming to respect the sovereignty
of small nations of Europe while occupying Haiti and urged Haitians
to resist the Americans. (French
People of Haiti!
Soon a day like the 1st of January 1804 will rise. For four years the
[American] Occupation has been insulting us constantly. Each morning
it brings us a new offense. The people are poor and the Occupation still
oppresses us with taxes. It spreads fires and forbids us to rebuild
wooden houses under the pretext of keeping the city beautiful.
Haitians, let’s stay firm. Let’s follow the Belgian example.
If they burn our cities, it doesn’t matter! As the inscription
on the tomb of the great Dessalines states: “At the first canon
shot, giving the alarm, cities disappear and the nation stands up.”
The holy battle in the North is led by brave citizens. The South is
only waiting for the right man to follow its wonderful example. Don’t
worry, we have the arms. Let’s get rid of those savage people,
whose beastly character is evident in the person of their President
Wilson—traitor, bandit, trouble maker, and thief.
Die for your country.
Long live Independence!
Long live the Union!
Long live the just war!
Down with the Americans!
From Charlemagne the Great Massena Pèralte High Commander of
the Revolution in Haiti to The French Minister in Haiti
Despite the principles,
of international law usually adopted by civilized nations, and coming
out of Great War in Europe, the American Government got involved in
the internal affairs of the small republic of Haiti and imposed a rule
whose approval by the Haitian Parliament was guaranteed enforced by
We were ready to accept this rule and follow its obligations, despite
the threat to our autonomy and the dignity of our free and independent
people. But the false promises, given by the Yankees, when they invaded
our land, brought in almost four years of continuous insults, incredible
crimes, killings, theft and barbarian acts, the secrets of which are
known only to Americans.
Today we lost patience and we reclaim our rights, rights, ignored by
the unscrupulous Americans, who by destroying our institutions deprive
the people of Haiti of all its resources and devour our name and our
blood. For four years, cruel and unjust Yankees brought ruin and hopelessness
to our territory. Now, during the peace conference and before the whole
world, the civilized nations took an oath to respect the rights and
sovereignty of small nations. We demand the liberation of our territory
and all the advantages given to free and independent states by international
law. Therefore, please take into consideration that ten months of fighting
has been in pursuit of this aim and that our victories give us the right
to ask for your recognition.
We are prepared to sacrifice everything to liberate Haiti, and establish
here the principles affirmed by President Wilson himself: the rights
and sovereignty of small nations. Please note, honored Consul, that
American troops, following their own laws, don’t have any right
to fight against us.
Dear Sirs (sic), please, accept our distinguished salutations.
Signed by the High Commander of the Revolution
followed by 100 other signatures
Copyright Source: Bandits or Patriots?: Documents of Charlemagne Pèralte,
National Archives. (Translation by Elena and Krill Razlogova.)
Dessalines Is Rising!!
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and Recommendations by the Committee of Six Disinterested Americans"
"The People Were Very Peaceable": The U.S. Senate Investigates
the Haitian Occupation
"The Truth about Haiti: An NAACP Investigation"
People Were Very Peaceable”:
The U.S. Senate Investigates the Haitian Occupation
Largely at the behest of American bankers, U.S. marines occupied Haiti
from 1915 to 1934. By 1919, Haitian Charlemagne Péralte had organized
more than a thousand cacos, or armed guerrillas, to militarily oppose
the marine occupation. The marines responded to the resistance with
a counterinsurgency campaign that razed villages, killed thousands of
Haitians, and destroyed the livelihoods of even more. The military atrocities
and abuse of power during the Caco War of 1919–1920 led to a U.S.
Senate investigation into the occupation. In these excerpts from the
“Inquiry into Occupation and Administration of Haiti,”
the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Haiti and Santo Domingo interviewed
Haitians about marine conduct in the guerrilla war against the cacos.
Mr. [Ernest] Angell: Your name is Dilon Victor?
Mr. Victor: Yes.
Angell: Do you live in Miragoane?
Angell: You have lived there for a long time?
Victor: Thirty-seven years.
Angell: Were you arrested and confined in the prison
Angell: Was this in 1917?
Victor: The 3d of November, 1917.
Angell: And how long were you confined in the prison?
Victor: Twenty-seven days.
Angell: Do you know for what reason you were confined?
Victor: I am an inhabitant—a planter. I have two pieces of property,
one piece of property in the first rural section of the Commune of Miragoane
and the other in the fourth section in the plain of Fond des Negres.
Each year I spent six months on one property and six months on the other.
Chairman [Senator Medill McCormick]: Now, what is all this about? What
is the pertinency of this?
Angell: I asked why he was arrested and put in prison.
Chairman: Yes; but I don’t see the connection of this.
Angell: It has something to do with a horse, Senator.
Chairman: Go directly to the question as to what the
Victor: I was arrested by Lieut. Jackson. He wished
to borrow my horse. I told him no before lending him my horse I wished
it to have time to rest, for it had gone 9 leagues distance. I told
him this in a polite manner. He invited me to come to the village for
a question which would interest me. When I came to the provotal office
he told me that I had been making bad reports about him. He caused me
to go to the justice court—to the office of the justice of the
peace. When we got to the justice court the juge du paix could not find
any reason for trying me. Lieut. Jackson, therefore, took it upon himself
to send me to prison.
Angell: What treatment did you receive in prison?
Victor: I was put in handcuffs.
Angell: Well, proceed as to any other manner in which you were treated
Victor: He handcuffed me and hanged me up.
Angell: How were you hung up and where?
Victor: To an iron bar.
Chairman: Who hanged you up?
Victor: The lieutenant himself.
Angell: To what were you hung up?
Victor: He hanged me up to an iron bar.
Angell: By a rope or by a chain?
Victor: By a chain.
Angell: And where was the chain attached to your body?
Victor: On my wrists.
Angell: Have you still the marks of them on your wrists?
Victor: Yes. [Exhibiting his wrists to the committee.]
Angell: When you came out of prison, did you see a doctor in Miragoane?
Angell: What was his name?
Victor: Dr. Dejean, who gave me a certificate.
Angell: Did Dr. Dejean give you medical treatment?
Victor: No. When I came out of prison he gave me a certificate. He did
not want to receive me.
Angell: The certificate I should like to offer in evidence is apparently
signed by Dr. Dejean, to which this witness has just referred, and is
dated December 2, 1917, and recites in French—I am giving the
substance of it very briefly—that he has just examined Dilon Victor,
this witness, and he has found contusions and scars and marks upon his
body, including specific marks upon his wrists. I would like to offer
in evidence the statement of the doctor, and also the document of the
juge du paix, dated December 10, 1917.
Chairman: Did you fix the date, or does the affidavit fix the date when
he was confined there?
Angell: He stated that he was confined—he gave the date November,
1917, for 27 days.
Chairman: Ask him this question, as to what was the reason for hanging
him up by the hands in the way he has described.
Victor: For my horse.
Chairman: What does he mean by that? That is not very definite.
Victor: For my horse, which I refused to lend him.
Chairman: That is, to Lieut. Jackson?
Chairman: What was Lieut. Jackson’s first name?
Victor: I can not tell you.
Chairman: Where were his headquarters?
Victor: At Miragoane.
Chairman: How often had you seen him before this time?
Victor: That was the first time I had ever seen him.
Chairman: Was he an American?
Chairman: Was he a white man?
Victor: Yes, a white American.
Chairman: I think that is all.
Senator [Andrieus Aristieus] Jones: What did he want with the horse?
Victor: I don’t know; but he took my horse for the service of
Jones: What had your hanging up to do with the horse?
Victor: After I got out of prison. Dr. Dejean gave me a certificate.
Jones: Make him understand. I want to have him explain what connection
there was between his being hung up and that horse.
Interpreter: He says, "Evidently he wanted to finish with me in
order to take my horse.
Jones: Could not he have taken the horse without hanging you up?
Victor: That was his will.
Jones: Did he take the horse?
Jones: How long did he keep you hung up?
Victor: About 24 days.
Jones: Did you get the horse back?
Jones: Who brought it back?
Victor: He told me to come and get the horse, and it was I who came
and got it.
Jones: Where did you get it?
Victor: At Port Mallet.
Jones: Was it claimed that you had stolen the horse?
Victor: No; never.
Jones: You mean to say that he wanted to borrow the horse, and because
you said the horse was tired he hung you up and kept you in jail for
27 days? Is that right?
Jones: How long did he keep you hung up?
Victor: Twenty-four days.
Jones: Twenty-four days?
Victor: Yes; and gave me a bath every day.
Jones: Did he give you anything to eat?
Victor: He gave me a piece of bread every 24 hours.
Jones: That was all he gave you, was it?
Jones: Did anybody else see you hanging there for 24 days?
Victor: Yes; there was Corpl. Cambrompe.
Jones: Who else saw you hanging there?
Victor: No one else.
Jones: Was Corpl. Cambrompe a Haitian or an American?
Victor: A Haitian. . . .|
Chairman: What is your name?
Madame Onexile: Madame Exile Onexile.
Chairman: Where do you live?|
Onexile: Section La Guajon.
Chairman: Will you explain to the witness that she is to tell only what
she herself has seen or heard? Let her begin to tell them.
Onexile: The first atrocity was a mule that I had tied up in my garden.
I went to take this mule. I did not find him. When I did not find him
I came in and made a report to the magistrat communal that I did not
find the mule in the yard.
Chairman: Then, what happened?
Onexile: I took the stamp of this mule from the magistrat and went to
Tamoceque or anywhere that I could find him. I found the mules in the
hands of Capt. Kelly, who was then at Cercle La Source. When I presented
my certificate for the mule the mule was not there, he had sent it to
Carquiat to carry food, for the gendarmes. When the mule returned Captain
refused to turn the mule over to me and demanded 130 gourds for it.
I came back to Hinche to get the 130 gourds. Capt. Kelly then locked
me up in the prison of Cercle La Source and two days later Capt. Kelly
went out to replace—
Chairman: How long did you stay in prison?
Onexile: I entered the prison Saturday and they turned me loose Sunday
at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and then he did whatever he wished
with the mule.
Angell: When did all this take place?
Onexile: Three years and five months ago.
Chairman: After putting you in prison did he keep the mule?
Onexile: I came back here on a Wednesday.
Angell: Came back here to Hinche?
Onexile: Yes; to Hinche. Then, when I went away I stayed at home with
my infant and I took sick and could not come back here.
Chairman: Wait a minute. You had come back here?
Onexile: I had come back and returned.
Chairman: You had come back here to stay with the children?
Onexile: And went back with my children.
Chairman: Where were your children?
Onexile: At my habitation. When I came back to my habitation, Capt.
Kelly came out in charge of a patrol. He took my husband and hung him
to the rafters. He took our little bag of money and set fire to the
house. Hung him to the rafters, and then set fire to the house. A little
brother of mine was there at the time, and they brought the little boy,
my brother, to the prison and made him work.
Angell: When was it? How long ago that your husband was hung in this
Onexile: It will be two years and ten months on the 6th of January.
Chairman: Do I understand that he kept him hanging when the house was
burning? Was he in the house when it burned down?
Onexile: Yes; he was hanging in the house.
Jones: Was he burned?
Onexile: Yes. I saw that.
Interpreter: A minute ago she said she thanked the good Lord that she
was not there or he would have done that to her.
Angell: Where were you when you saw your husband hung up before the
house was burned?
Onexile: I was in Rampique, when this was done. It was my little brother
who saw it. I went to see my mother who was sick.
Senator [Atlee] Pomerene: So you did not see it yourself?
Onexile: It was not I who saw it. It was my brother.
Chairman: Where is your brother?
Onexile: He is in Rampique, about two hours ride.
Pomerene: Do I understand that the husband was burned to death?
Onexile: Yes; my husband.
Chairman: What is the name of this little brother in Rampique?
Onexile: Dumas Jean.
Angell: How old is he?
Onexile: Perhaps, at the most 28.
Angell: Did you see the house after it was burned?
Onexile: Certainly, I saw the ashes.
Angell: Have you ever seen your husband since then?
Onexile: How was I going to see him?
Angell: Did you ever make a complaint about this?
Angell: To whom?
Onexile: To. Lieut. Wood.
Onexile: On November of last year.
Chairman: For the record, the Chair notes that the burning took place
in March, 1919, and the complaint to Lieut. Wood at Bajon, in November,
Angell: Did you make any complaint to the Haitian authorities before
you complained to Lieut. Wood?
Onexile: There were no Haitian authorities at that time.
Senator Pomerene: Did you complain to any officers here in this camp
at Hinche at that time, or at any time since?
Onexile: No sir; I did not.
Chairman: Have you got anything more to say on that or any other subject.
Onexile: I have finished.
Chairman: Are you living near where the habitation was burned?
Onexile: No, sir.
Chairman: Who lives near there now?
Onexile: Nobody. There is nobody in my habitation now.
Pomerene: What did Capt. Kelly put you in jail for?
Onexile: For a mule. On account of a mule.
Pomerene: What did you do or say to Capt. Kelly?
Onexile: I said nothing.
Pomerene: Do you know who took the mule?
Onexile: I do not know.
Pomerene: At that time were there Cacos here in Hinche?
Onexile: There were no Cacos at the time.
Pomerene: Did your husband belong to the Cacos?
Angell: How long after your husband was hung and the house was burned
did your brother tell you of having seen this.
Onexile: Two months later.
Chairman: Any more questions you want to ask, Mr. Angell?
Jones: Where was your husband when the mule was stolen?
Onexile: At his house.
Jones: At his house?
Jones: Did he have a house different from yours?
Onexile: No, sir.
Jones: Why didn’t he go after the mule?
Onexile: He was suffering with rheumatism.
Jones: What was it that caused you to think that you would find the
mule with Capt. Kelly?
Onexile: I complained, of course, a great deal when the mule was lost,
and some one told me he had seen the mule at Cercle La Source.
Jones: And Capt. Kelly wanted you to pay 135 gourds for the mule?
Jones: And you came back home to get the money, did you?
Onexile: I returned to get the money and returned with 135 gourds.
Jones: Why were you willing to pay 135 gourds for a mule which belonged
Onexile: I knew the mule was mine. Capt. Kelly asked
me for the money. I claimed the mule, and when I claimed the mule, Capt.
Delly said I must pay 135 gourds for it. I wanted the mule real bad
and I went to get the 135 gourds and he refused to give it to me.
Jones: Was it a native mule?
Onexile: Yes, sir.
Chairman: One more question and I am through. Did you
see the mule in the possession of Capt. Kelly or any of the gendarmes?
Onexile: I saw the mule in Capt. Kelly’s possession.
Pomerene: Did Capt. Kelly talk French or Creole?
Source: Inquiry into Occupation and Administration
of Haiti and Santo Domingo by the United States Senate Select Committee
on Haiti and Santo Domingo (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
Col. Dave Lapan faces off with the Network
Solidarity Day Pictures & Articles
May 18, 2005
and Articles Witness Project
Wilme, A Hero for the 21st Century
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Wilme - on "Wanted poster" of suspects wanted by the
"Dread" Wilme speaks:
Radio Lakou New York, April 4, 2005 interview with Emmanuel "Dread"
Alert- Demand a Stop to Killings
in Cite Soleil:
Sample letters and Contact information provided, April 21, 2005
Crucifiction of Emmanuel
Urge the Caribbean Community to stand firm in not recognizing
the illegal Latortue regime:
Show at the
July 27, 2004 Haiti Forum Press Conference during the DNC
in Boston honoring those who stand firm for Haiti and democracy;
those who tell the truth about Haiti; Presenting the Haiti
Resolution, and; remembering Haiti's revolutionary legacy
in 2004 and all those who have lost life or liberty fighting
against the Feb. 29, 2004 Coup d'etat and its consequences