Haiti: Its dawn of progress after years in a night of revolution — John Shaqi
Haiti: Its dawn of progress after years in a night of revolutionKuser, John Dryden
History
Haiti: Its dawn of progress after years in a night of revolution
Kuser, John Dryden
Haiti -- Description and travel
The second army is the occupation force of American marines
stationed in Haiti since the intervention of 1915 to preserve order
and protect the nationals and property of Americans and other
foreigners in the country. For those marines who are in search of
real adventure and fighting, even those who were in the world war
might well look with envy upon the men who are doing patrol duty
among the Haitian hills. Alone or in company with the gendarmes,
they have had encounters so filled with adventure that I will tell
of one which occurred shortly before our arrival.
Charlemagne Massena Peralte, a man who came from the Hinche
district, and of natural ability as a leader, was of anti-white
sympathies and early after the American occupation associated
himself with a family named Zamor in the northeast country around
Hinche. One of the Zamor brothers, Oreste Zamor, was formerly a
president of the republic and another was the great leader of the
north and is now in the Port-au-Prince prison as a conspirator.
Charlemagne rose in the caco ranks to the position of chief and
was so successful in his first encounters and attempts as to
make the name of Charlemagne known everywhere as the supreme
caco. Charlemagne was the clever and guiding hand of all the
revolutionary attacks which occurred about this time, so it became
of the greatest importance to capture him. Many attempts to do this
were made by the marines and the gendarmes, but on each occasion his
preparation for scouts and ways of escape made it possible for him
to evade them.
In October, the location of Charlemagne having been reported,
two marines, officers in the gendarmerie, volunteered to capture
Charlemagne. They made very careful preparations to set out
with twenty gendares and disguised themselves by blackened skin
and native clothes. Both of the officers spoke Creole well, but
naturally with some foreign accent and so it was necessary for
them to speak as little as was possible. When near the place where
Charlemagne was reported to be spending the day, they met the first
caco outposts who stopped and questioned them. Claiming they had
an important message to deliver to Charlemagne, giving the password
and claiming such extreme fatigue for the two officers that these
officers could barely answer the questions put to them, the party
succeeded in being passed.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE "CLOSED" MARKET]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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