1915-07-28: (Vilbrun Guillaume Sam Torn Apart by a Crowd After Ordering the Execution of 167 Political Prisoners, the Spectacle Providing the United States t…

1915-07-28: (Vilbrun Guillaume Sam Torn Apart by a Crowd After Ordering the Execution of 167 Political Prisoners, the Spectacle Providing the United States the Pretext for a Military Occupation That Would Last Nineteen Years): On July 28, 1915, an angry crowd invaded the French embassy in Port-au-Prince, captured President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam from the bathroom where he was hiding, dragged him into the street, and publicly dismembered him. The day before, Sam had ordered the execution of 167 political prisoners from families of the oligarchy, including former president Oreste Zamor. The executions triggered the uprising that killed him. News of the gruesome events reached President Woodrow Wilson, who feared that the pro-German revolutionary Rosalvo Bobo might seize power. On July 29, Wilson ordered U.S. Marines to militarily occupy Haiti. The occupation, which would last nineteen years, was justified publicly as a humanitarian intervention to restore order in a failed state. Its actual purposes were strategic: to prevent German influence in the Caribbean during World War I, to secure the Windward Passage near the Panama Canal, and to protect American investments. Haiti’s century of self-governance was over. The United States would now run the country.