HIST 442: Readings in Twentieth Century American History
September 19, 2019
In Taking Haiti: Military Occupation & the Culture of U.S. Imperialism 1915 – 1940, Mary Renda opens her prologue with a quote from United States Marine Faustin Wirkus, where he expresses the wonderment and confusion he experienced as a young man who was promised travel and adventure through military enlistment in the early Twentieth Century. Wirkus would be transported from his hometown in northeastern Pennsylvania to another world where he would be expected to make life and death decisions on behalf of his country. [1] Renda relies heavily on the memoirs and papers of Faustin Wirkus and other Marines like him to argue that the United States’ military occupation of Haiti was a crucial step in imperialist growth. Relying on paternalist discourse, the U.S. government and Marine Corps. training programs provided individual Marines on the ground in Haiti not only the skills, but the cultural framework and ideology needed to oversee a population that was to be treated as “wards” of the United States. Renda quotes Wirkus directly to support her claim, stating that he experienced, “being father and big brother…to our Haitian friends.” [2] Throughout the text, Mary Renda returns to the writings of Faustin Wirkus to validate her claims of paternalist imperialism and provide greater detail about the lived experience of the U.S. occupation of Haiti.
The White King of La Gonave, published in 1931, is Faustin Wirkus’ personal account of his experience as a U.S. Marine stationed in Haiti where, in a bizarre turn of events, he would be crowned king of the small Haitian island La Gonave. The White King is also an engaging example of exotic travel writing popular in the early Twentieth Century. Wirkus’ memoir, although likely to be embellished at times, challenges modern readers to join his journey of self-discovery that explores race, gender, and Western power in ways he likely never intended to. He questions his own preconceived notations and Marine Corps. indoctrination, while ingratiating himself into a culture and community unlike any he had ever been part of before. As a primary source, Renda utilizes The White King as a glimpse into the beliefs, interpretations, and values of a Marine on the ground in Haiti carrying out the role of Imperialist on behalf of the United States. Throughout Taking Haiti’s preface and first four chapters, Renda references The White King of La Gonave thirty-two times. [3] Much of her reliance on Wirkus’ writing helps explain the camaraderie between enlisted men, how one crafts a personal identity as a U.S. Marine, legends and lore told to soldiers about the Haitian people, the ways paternalistic discourse was internalized and interpreted within their own experiences related to fatherhood, race, and gender, and how they ultimately chose to accept or reject the rhetoric they had been told about the people they were both in charge of and interacting with every day.
The 1915 United States intervention in Haiti is considered an occupation, not a war, but still required lethal action to be taken against thousands of Haitians, many part of the very population that Marines like Wirkus were charged to protect. Renda explores the difficulty Marines on the ground had in distinguishing between Cacos, Caco supporters, and the “good Haitians” under their care. She uses Wirkus’ account of receiving orders that, “any Negro or any dark person out of doors after nine o’clock, whose behavior makes him seem like a sympathizer with Caco rebels, is to be shot on sight by the patrol, if he does not surrender.” [4] These subjective decisions were often colored by a Marine’s paternalist, white, male American lens, through which he viewed the peasants themselves and his own role in providing oversight. Upon further analysis, he does indeed seem to be expressing inner conflict with what he was being ordered to do. In The White King, however, Wirkus continues by sharing that these patrols were not a “pleasant job,” and, “as a Marine, it was a job I never relished and from which I always hoped to be separated.” [5] Renda implies that some Marines, like Wirkus, were able to understand the complex challenges peasants faced. She quotes him as stating, “a lot of killing was necessary before one could start reasoning with the peasant whose hunger and general poverty had made him join the Cacos,” that “the more I have learned about the Cacos, the less I have found that they deserved to be called bandits or habitual criminals,” and that they are, “men who would rather steal than starve, but rather work honestly for wages than steal.” [6] It is important to note that Renda seems to assert that Wirkus is referring to all rebels and revolutionaries in Haiti known as Cacos. Renda uses Wirkus’ statement as a direct contradiction of another Marine who described Cacos as, “bandits organized under petty chiefs, for the sole purpose of stirring up strife.” [7] When analyzing this quote in The White King, it is discovered that Wirkus is actually speaking about a specific group of Cacos, referred to as Codio’s army of followers.[8] In Renda’s entire discourse on page 144, she implies that these descriptions are of all Cacos, and is misleading when using Wirkus’ statement about one group in particular.
In Chapter 4, Mary Renda argues that Wirkus reflects on the humanity of Haitians when he is unable to pull the trigger against a Caco leader leaving his camp. [9] He describes the way he interpreted this man’s manner and sense of self as, “something in this man’s coolness in facing fire. [10] Renda implies this is an example of a Marine contemplating the issue of murder versus justified killing. Although the story in The White King of Gonave is as described by Renda, Wirkus seems to be reflecting more on his own inability to shoot, as he was never before faced with killing a man, than contemplating the humanity of one individual Caco. [11] This could also be an embellishment for Wirkus’ book, making him appear as though he holds higher morals than the average soldier. Renda is not incorrect in utilizing this as a source for her argument, but its plausibility is circumspect and her contextualization seems incomplete.
Renda frequently discusses the concern Marines had over “going native,” or falling into the ways and culture of the Haitians, whom they lived alongside of and were charged to protect. Much of the legend and lore found in Marine’s storytelling to each other often featured violent and sadistic acts done to, or in front of, white men who got too close to the Haitians. Renda discusses the difficulties that Marines faced in losing their own identities and forgetting “who they are” while in Haiti. In describing a rural encampment he arrived at, Wirkus encounters a Marine named Williston who disturbingly tracked his kills by placing the deceased Cacos’ hats on a pole, along with several other men who had been living there. Wirkus went on to describe the men as: “unlike any Marines, officers or men, I had ever seen. Their eyes were sunken in their heads. They had bedraggled, untrimmed whiskers; their uniforms hung about the, slack and creaseless.” [12] Renda uses examples such as this to argue that Marines blamed Haitian culture and other Marines who lost themselves by “going native,” for experiencing mental breakdown leading to indiscriminate acts of violence. In the Marines’ minds, acts of violence must be a direct result of Haitian influence itself. However, in The White King Wirkus seems to provide more than one explanation for the shocking physical condition of several soldiers, and the murderous actions of another. Wirkus wonders how long it will be before he takes on the same physical characteristics as the others as he knows that the quartermaster has quite a lot of trouble obtaining and transporting supplies to those stationed this far out. [13] This seems to be his explanation for the poor condition he witnessed in many soldiers, not that these men had been left to exist deep inside of Haitian culture or exposed to Voodoo for too long. It is also possible that at the time of Wirkus’ writings he and the general public would have blamed the Haitian culture for the indiscriminate killings by Williston. This is not stated explicitly by Wirkus however, and today reads much more like a description of the psychological trauma inflicted on these men who had witnessed and carried out ugly acts of war.
Mary Renda’s use of Marine memoirs gives her book a unique perspective of imperialism and the United States occupation of Haiti. The experience of individuals on the ground is placed within a broader context, providing a more complete narrative than has been previously constructed. Personal memoirs in the story of the United States occupation of Haiti break down the military and government rhetoric and paternalistic discourse that was utilized to build support with the American people and motivate U.S. Marines on the ground. However, memoirs written for publication are always susceptible to being skewed by the author’s desire to place him or herself in the best possible light. It is also critically important to place an individual’s memories within their proper context. Renda’s use of Faustin Wirkus’ quotes and stories, while not entirely inaccurate, are at times incomplete. Without being placed in their full and proper context it is easy to find supporting sources that seemingly strengthen one’s claims. Analyzing supporting statements in their original context, as these examples have demonstrated, is the only way to fully assess the strength and validity of any author’s argument.
Bibliography
Renda, Mary A. Taking Haiti: Military Occupation & the Culture of U.S. Imperialism 1915 – 1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. Print.
Wirkus, Faustin. The White King of La Gonave. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1931. Print.
[1] Mary A Renda, Taking Haiti: Military Occupation & the Culture of U.S. Imperialism 1915 – 1940, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 3
[2] Renda, Taking Haiti, 13
[3] Renda, Taking Haiti, 309 – 363
[4] Renda, Taking Haiti, 141
[5] Faustin Wirkus, The White King of La Gonave, (Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1931), 28
[6] Renda, Taking Haiti, 144
[7] Renda, Taking Haiti, 144
[8] Wirkus, The White King, 20 – 22
[9] Renda, Taking Haiti, 155 – 157
[10] Renda, Taking Haiti, 155
[11] Wirkus, The White King, 63 – 64
[12] Renda, Taking Haiti, 167
[13] Wirkus, The White King, 52
Kelly Murmello 