1958-00-00: (Duvalier Creates the Tonton Macoutes, a Paramilitary Force Named After a Haitian Bogeyman, Recruited From the Poorest Black Families, and Grante…

1958-00-00: (Duvalier Creates the Tonton Macoutes, a Paramilitary Force Named After a Haitian Bogeyman, Recruited From the Poorest Black Families, and Granted Immunity to Terrorize the Population Into Submission): In 1958, after surviving a military coup attempt, François Duvalier created the Milice de Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale, known universally as the Tonton Macoutes. The name came from Haitian folklore: Tonton Macoute, Uncle Knapsack, was the bogeyman who kidnapped disobedient children and carried them away in a burlap sack. Recruited from the poorest, most uneducated rural Black families, the Tonton Macoutes eventually numbered over twenty-five thousand. They dressed in paramilitary garb and wore dark sunglasses, even at night. They carried pistols but preferred machetes, a choice of weapon that deliberately recalled the Dominican Vespers. Any act they committed in service of Duvalier was granted immediate amnesty. Victims were displayed publicly as warnings. The Tonton Macoutes cultivated an image of being Vodou demons, collapsing the boundary between political terror and spiritual dread. Their power eventually rivaled that of the Haitian army and served as a countervailing force that protected the Duvalier family from military coups for three decades. Duvalier had learned from Soulouque’s Zinglins and perfected the model.