Sudre Dartiguenave, the occupation’s first president, dies at Anse-a-Veau

Philippe Sudre Dartiguenave died on 8 July 1926 at Anse-a-Veau, the town where he was born. The Americans put him in the national palace on 12 August 1915, two weeks after the marines landed, because he seemed willing to sign whatever they wanted. He signed the 1915 convention that handed over the customs houses. He presided over the 1918 plebiscite for a constitution that let foreigners own Haitian land for the first time since 1804, and he governed under martial law, a press law, and the marines’ war against the cacos. He was pushed aside in 1922 for Louis Borno and died four years later.