Georges Sylvain dies, the poet who fought the American occupation

Georges Sylvain died in Port-au-Prince on 2 August 1925. He was born in Puerto Plata, took a law degree in Paris, came home and founded a law school. In 1901 he published Cric-Crac, La Fontaine’s fables retold in Kreyol by a Haitian mountain man, which put the people’s language into literature. In 1922 he founded with friends the paper l’Union Patriotique and served as its delegate administrator, spending his own fortune on the fight against the American occupation. His daughters carried it on: Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain the linguist, Yvonne Sylvain the first Haitian woman physician, Madeleine Sylvain-Bouchereau the sociologist and feminist. He was buried with a large funeral, still an enemy of the occupier.