In December 1914, the USS Machias dropped anchor in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Eight US marines disembarked, sauntered to the Banque National de la République d’Haïti (BNRH), removed $500,000 worth of gold belonging to the Haitian government – $15m in today’s money – packed it in wooden crates to carry back to the ship and thence to New York, where it was deposited in the vaults of the investment bank, Hallgarten & Co.
The BNRH was Haiti’s central bank. It was also a foreign private corporation. Originally set up in 1880 through a concession granted to a French bank, pressure from America brought in US investors. By 1920, the BNRH was wholly owned by the American National City Bank. Haiti’s central bank it may have been but the Haitian government was charged for every transaction and the eye-popping profits spirited off to Paris or New York.
Political turmoil in Haiti in the 1910s led to Wall Street demanding action to protect its investments. Washington obliged, sending in the marines. A year later, the marines returned in force, remaining there for the next 19 years, in an often brutal occupation. “I helped make Haiti… a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues,” Maj Gen Smedley Butler, a leader of the American forces in Haiti, wrote in 1935.
The almost forgotten story of the bank robbery organised by the US state department is a small but illuminating moment in Haiti’s history. The forced resignation last week of prime minister Ariel Henry, the collapse of civil life and gang warfare on the streets have returned Haiti to international headlines. To make sense of the latest events, we need to understand not just........