1915, September 2–16: (Martial Law, Press Censorship, and the Treaty Signed Under Duress): It was the sudden gust of hostility — directed not only at the Ame…

1915, September 2–16: (Martial Law, Press Censorship, and the Treaty Signed Under Duress): It was the sudden gust of hostility — directed not only at the Americans but also at Dartiguenave, who himself had been present that day in 1914 when the Senate nearly lynched Joseph Justin for suggesting a maître étranger — that dictated Caperton’s next move. On September 2, Dartiguenave secretly asked the U.S. authorities to establish martial law as soon as possible, and next day that is what Admiral Caperton did. Martial law was the term used, but the reality amounted to a circumscribed form of military government patterned on the Veracruz model — under its authority, provost courts were set up for trial of political offenders and for anyone committing an offense against the occupation, while a contingent decree directed at the press declared that freedom of the press would not be interfered with but license would not be tolerated, and that the publishing of false or incendiary propaganda against the government of the United States or the government of Haiti would be dealt with by the military courts. Such rules were of course not unfamiliar to any Haitian politician or journalist — this was the way of things under any Haitian government that expected to survive — but there was this difference: those who were making and enforcing the rules, and would do so for a long time to come, were étrangers and blan. Whether he liked it or not, President Dartiguenave now knew the treaty must be signed — Caperton was only a step or two from outright military government. On September 16, 1915, Louis Borno, who had replaced Sannon, duly signed. Next morning, with Haitian colors at the foremast, U.S.S. Washington fired a twenty-one-gun national salute and Port-au-Prince learned that the new government had won American recognition.