John Houston Craige

John Houston Craige was a journalist, he was also a United States Marine. He served in Haiti during the American occupation thereof from 1915 to 1934. This book was written about that time. I don't think he was there the whole time. He was particularly fascinated with the political history of Haiti after the Revolution to become independent of France.

Along with the many descriptions of the various Revolutions Haiti has had, there are interesting insights into the people, customs and religions, including Voodoo. Craige spent some years getting to know people from every level of society, trying to understand how they think and act, and how their race affected that. He claims to be unbiased in race, and I think for his time he was so. Reading his language today though, shows some of the subtle, or not so subtle, biases people have. It is more authentic for that. Sometimes I wonder if all of our "Politically Correct" speech habits only cover up our hearts instead of changing them.

He interviews the "mulatto" elites, as well as the "very black" Haitians and finds that they hate each other, as well as the whites. Craige searched through the few histories he could find which were written by Haitians, and explains where these hatreds came from. He also makes a very good case for not trying to force Democracy on a country which perhaps feels no need of it. His conclusion is that though the American occupation raised the standard of living in Haiti at the time, it did very little good (if not harm) to their social/political structure; and the way Hoover manipulated the end of our occupation did much harm to America's reputation as well as to Haiti.

In addition to being an interesting historical read, Craige has the subtle and wry humor of Mark Twain and so is fun to read. Would that all histories could be written looking at the funny side of dark matters.… (mehr)